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SCP 087 (PC) Game Review

 

(warning: this review will contain some minor spoilers for the game experience)

SCP 087 is a small free horror game  where you simply walk down a long stairwell to see what will happen. It looks quite nice and the sound design is great, but what’s best of all is that the game is randomized, meaning different things are said to happen each time you play. On my play-though I encountered a few very interesting sounds as wind and breathing.  I also occasionally saw a few strange shadows pass over me. Eventually, I saw what looked like  long fingers come down in front of me from out of the darkness and the game ended, so I’m assuming this was one of the game’s possible death scenarios.

If you’re looking for action, it’s probably not the game for you. Walking down an endless flight of stairs doesn’t make for interesting *game-play* per se, but if you’re like me and love interactive software that is build on suspense, atmosphere and exploration, you’ll probably really enjoy watching and listening for any strange anomalies as you traverse these creepy old stairs.

I have very little criticism for this software except that it’s a little buggy and I had one small criticism about its design. When I played, I couldn’t get my mouse pointer off the screen even after fiddling with the settings. I was worried this would hurt my immersion, but thankfully the game’s atmosphere is rich enough that I eventually barely noticed.  Also, I’m unsure if this was a bug or something intentional, but occasionally when i would get past a flight of stairs the camera would suddenly jerk from where I was looking to a different position, which was kinda jarring. Lastly, my one criticisms of the design is that if you hit the Escape key to pause like you would with most games, it simply closes the game out. I can see the appeal for this in a horror game because a pause menu could be seen as an interruption the atmosphere - but I also feel that when this is in a game, it should come with a sort of warning. Considering that the staircase you must traverse is described as being endless, it would suck to try to pause the game because you had to pee or someone wanted to talk to you only to end up resetting the game and having to start over all the way from the top.

My few criticisms aside, this a great little horror adventure that you can download for free in the attached youtube link! If you like a good spooky-time, give it a try!

https://youtu.be/uiHQN1q8ln4

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