Daydreams on the Moon

Image by Mike Goad from Pixabay

Finally found some goddamn leeway to finish at least ONE game in my Xbox library! Saw this gameplay snippet from @ozelot47 earlier this year and what really caught my eye with this game was the graphics of its surroundings DESPITE it being marketed under the horror genre???

Well I guess it does some... unnerving elements to it (i.e. murder and something leaning towards the occult), BUT you tend to momentarily forget about those elements as you're further submerged in this game's otherwise rich surroundings filtered with the protective rays of the sun (I mean, nothing's creepy in the daytime right?).

But those human skulls in the game poster says otherwise and despite it being an exaggerated marketing ploy, and nothing is what it seems as we play as the paranormal detective, Paul Prospero, trying to solve this ominous case involving a missing child named Ethan Carter, in what is seemingly a small, serene mining town.

Disclaimer: GIFs/Screenshots were taken for the purpose of appreciating the game developers' amazing talents in giving us these rich and immersive sceneries.

Even though the supposed tutorial at the start of the game provides you with several jumps (no scares), this is more like an open-world setting where you might skip some quests and still be able to progress in the story. Although I really encourage you to get all these quests done (no matter how challenging or repetitive they tend to become), just so you get to grasp Ethan Carter as a character.

I only warn of ONE jumpscare, as you get a glimpse of the mines in the above GIF, you can skip that quest-- like all the others-- but like I said, I do appreciate this meager offer of a challenge plus the eerie atmosphere doesn't even last long as soon as your out of the mines. Looking back, this was a pretty short game that packs quite the punch if you're a misunderstood writer, poignant in its storytelling, I could only watch on as the screen zoomed out and gave us this ironically beautiful scene that didn't quite sit well with this sense of disparity I felt with the game's ending.

P.S. for a game that was developed just last 2014, this was absolutely a stunning game to walk through.