A spooky struggle for survival...
STUCK in the middle of some spooky woods, the dark pressing down on you like a malignant, tangible force, you’d want your friends with you for support – right? It’s become one of the great traditions of horror, the group of friends lost in the wood who accidentally release a demon/serial killer that leaves them fighting for their lives.
Daemonical sits in that popular vein, five players on a remote island who, thanks to a satanic ritual, are about to face a struggle for survival.
Taking cues from the popularity of 4v1 games like Dead by Daylight and Friday the 13th, Daemonical needs a team of five players brave enough to see if they can make it through the night.
Like all 4v1 games, four of the players will be human, while the fifth, is the supernatural demon intent on slaughtering you all.
And if you can’t decide who you want to play, then let the game do that for you – with a randomiser button on the load screen, so even you don’t know if you’re the demon until the action begins.
Load times are a little slow at the moment, but then it’s still a Steam Early Access release, and tweaks are being made all the time.
Those hoping for any kind of plotline will be disappointed – you’re literally thrown into the action. I first spawned on a barren hillside with nothing but a creepy building to explore, and a slash on my hand that glowed when I neared a ‘hot spot’.
The aim of the game is to recover skeleton parts and return them to an altar before the timer runs out.
If you’re still alive when the clock strikes zero, you win – but believe me it’s not that simple.
If it’s chills you’re after, there are more than a few here.
Each map is procedurally generated, so landscapes are always different, houses are never in the same place twice and body parts are scattered to the four winds.
The game cycles through day and night, with realistic weather patterns – and rolls of thunder that genuinely make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
And the night cycles are dark! Even the tiny flashlight you have does little to dispel the blackness – it’s incredibly eerie, especially when you stumble over a ‘mannequin’, the haunting figure of a player that’s already been dispatched.
To add to the discombobulated feeling you get while hunting the bones, as you near them there’s a gentle humming noise, and your vision blurs. It’s subtle, but really ramps up the discomfort.
Scattered throughout the area are weapons to arm yourself with, and you never know when they’ll come in handy.
The demon can see each of the four humans from afar, but when it nears you it has to hunt manually.
This means there’s a chance you’ll see it, before it sees you – although in my experience a demon encounter never ends tremendously well.
On the flip side, the thrill of the hunt is exhilarating – it’s an odd feeling playing the only thing in the forest that everyone is scared of.
At this stage Daemonical is a little rough around the edges. As it states on the load screen there are demon skills and new weapons to be added, and you still can’t earn XP from competing in matches.
But that doesn’t detract from the fact this will eventually be a solid little game – and perfect for playing late at night, with the lights out.
■ Get it: £10.99 from store. steampowered.com
BOURNE TO RUN
IT WAS an exceptional book trilogy (I refuse to acknowledge the Eric
Van Lustbader additions) that sparked the Jason
Bourne movies. It seems those movies have sparked a new show – which has been given a straight-to-series by USA Network.
Treadstone, named after the fictional Operation Treadstone which created Bourne and other ‘super soldiers’, will explore the mythology surrounding the CIA black ops program.
It’s far, far too early to tell whether the Bourne character will appear in the series, which features Heroes creator Tim Kring as showrunner.
Production is set to begin next year, so it could be the following autumn before Treadstone airs.
Four of the players will be human, while the fifth is the supernatural demon (pictured left) intent on slaughtering you all