About This Game AboutClandestinity of Elsie is a Survival/Psychological-Horror game based in the post-WW2 New York State cities of Albany and Troy.StoryYou play as Hayden Warrick, a mentally damaged alcoholic and war veteran. Haunted by his past, he must unravel the mystery of his wife Elsie's sudden disappearance. You must scavenge, kill, and survive long enough to find her. Mostly taking place in vast darkness, you must continue your objective of finding Hayden's wife Elsie while ensuring his own all-important survival. Features Intense combat against otherworldy monstersUncomfortable atmosphere to keep players on their toesPsychological storyline with mind-bending qualitiesVarious enemies representing Hayden's insecurities and fearsMysterious characters with unknown intentionsCan play in 1920x1080 resolutionFull gamepad controls including vibrationIncludes Achievements, Trading Cards and Steam Cloud 7aa9394dea Title: Clandestinity of ElsieGenre: Action, IndieDeveloper:Cole Neumann, Albin BernhardssonPublisher:Cole NeumannRelease Date: 8 Jul, 2015 Clandestinity Of Elsie Download Apunkagames Wowsers did I hate that ending. Such a shame, because Clandestinity of Elsie is otherwise a fantastic survival horror game, with genuine scares in the darkness mechanic and what was an engaging story until roughly the last three minutes or so. The "foreshadowing" throughout the game ends up amounting to nothing as the game grinds to a halt with a finale that comes out of nowhere for the sake of shock value, then just...ends. For a game so heavily oriented towards storytelling, the extremely abrupt and deliberately alienating ending just felt like a giant middle finger.. A good short game with an eh finish.. There is clearly a lot of thought going into "Clandestinity of Elsie". The maps are beautiful and the story seems very engaging if not a little clich\u00e9d (this is a personal thought but the angsty white protagonist with alcohol problems is getting a little dulled down). Still this game sure had a team working on it that had a lot of great ideas and over all this should set up for a good experience. I'm saddened to say though that there are a lot of things weighing this game down. For a first, I know that everyone loves the : "Awesome light" script. I use it myself. But a rule of thumb is to not use this script with enormous maps. This has caused me to have massive lagging whenever I play the game, the only time it runs smooth is in the save room. I will point out my compute can play Skyrim on nice graphical settings without lagging so it is sort of an issue when a little RPG maker game is almost unplayable. There is also too little damn healing items. I've explored almost everything, since this game takes heavy inspiration from old school horror games where exploration is key. But it has more often than not caused me to get ambushed by enemies and end up with me having to waste whatever health item I find.Picking up on that last note: the enemies comes out of \u2665\u2665\u2665\u2665ing nowhere at the speed of the road runner and with the mapping it is too damn easy for them to corner you and land at least one hit before your slow gun manages to do any damage at all. This has lead me into a situation where I'm now all out of health items and the enemies gang up on me without me standing a chance to defend myself. Over all there is a lot of good thoughts going into this game but it is weighted down by the too dark environment and the lagging along with the enemies that come at you at 180 km\/h. I would say that this game is worth a play but I can't say that my playing of it was the least bit pleasurable.. Frustrating combat which brings the story down. Can't recommend because of the gameplay.. Things got off to a bit of a bad start with this game, thanks to it taking me ages to work out that SPACE was the way to choose a menu option, rather than - I dunno - left click or Enter, like most NORMAL games? Guess I don't play games of this nature (read: old-school, "retro" RPG) too often. I'm going to put it down to that, though many of the other (unremappable?) keyboard buttons seemed like odd choices also: A to equip gun, S to shoot, D to reload? I also had difficulty trying to work out where DOORS and trivial things like that were, but after not TOO long I got the hang of things enough to concentrate on the GAME, per se (hint: always be on the look-out for doormats and red arrows)! I've also experienced some crashing issues, but it's early days yet for the game's release (so they'll hopefully be fixed), and the save system is fortunately generous enough to render this not TOO huge an issue (once you hit the first save point, you can pretty much save at any time). Anyway, enough about minor technical issues...with no further ado, let's get on with the review... A few years back, some guy named Jasper Byrne had the perversity to try and emulate the "feel" of a Silent Hill game with a heavily-pixelated, 2D, side-scrolling point-of-view. He was surprisingly successful with this, and despite it not being an instant "classic" or anything, Lone Survivor was certainly a game well worth experiencing for those of us with an interest in seeing the horror gaming genre pushed to its debatable "limits". A couple of years later we got something called Motte Island, which while not as successful, was intriguing in its attempt to use a heavily-pixelated, top-down perspective in a "survival horror" setting. Now someone has thought to make an old-school survival horror game with RPG Maker software, and the results are...well, perhaps not much better than those of (the definitely dumber, but decidedly spookier) Motte Island, but full points for trying one way or another. There's no denying there's some great IDEAS here, and in my opinion, that's where Clandestinity of Elsie's greatest strengths lie: Ideas and storytelling. And there's obviously nothing "wrong" with that! First of all, there's a very interesting twist on the Silent Hill notion of alternating lighter\/darker dimensions, seemingly triggered by the main character's ALCOHOLISM! A very inspired, and thematically valid, idea indeed. And events are set in motion by the protagonist's wife leaving him due to said alcoholism, which again is very sound storytelling logic (a lot of you budding game-makers out there - and not to mention quite a few of the so-called "professionals" - should probably start taking notes). Now, there's also a bit of dodgy logic here and there - apparently our hero "never leaves the house" without a GUN, so I don't know what part of America or what-not he's supposed to be living in, but here in Brisbane, Australia I can walk fifteen minutes to my local gym at ten o'clock at night with just an UMBRELLA to make me feel sufficiently safe! But for the most part, certainly as video games go, this one is intelligently conceived and written, and I'll just give the developer the benefit of the doubt that he lives in a more dangerous part of the world than I do, hence the I'm-just-off-to-the-local-shops-better-take-my-gun mentality (and, in all fairness, our character IS a "mentally damaged alcoholic and war veteran", so I guess the dude's gonna be a little on the "paranoid" side). Now, I haven't quite reached the end of the game yet, so the jury's still a bit out as regards just how pure and perfect the story will pan out to be. I believe that I can safely say, however, that this project was something of a labour of love for the developer - that, or he's awfully good at covering up the fact that he's just a cynical hack - and given the (perhaps quite realistic) limitations he has set for his debut Steam product, I'm certainly interested to see what he gets up to next, especially if it's made outside the confines of RPG maker (not really the best medium for making a truly "scary" game, it has to be said). As for the purchase price, it's a tad ambitious all things considered, but I'll happily recommend this, on sale, to anyone interested in what possibilities the future might hold for horror gaming. I'm personally yet to see anything as inspired and successful as the "first-person stealth horror" revolution of recent years kicked off by Frictional Games, but at least folks like Cole Neumann are TRYING...and for this I applaud him. There may be hope for our beloved genre yet. Verdict: 7.5\/10.. This is one of the handful of RPG Maker games I like because it focuses on an compelling genre of psychological horror. Since the game follows a similar path of Silent Hill, I was more interested to give this game a try.There was one major drawback to the game and it involves the combat system. In fairness, the combat system does feel \u201crealistic\u201d in a sense that, it should be harder to see beyond your light until the monsters come close. Also, your gun should take a split second before letting off the next bullet; sadly, realism is thrown out the window due to frustrations of the combat mechanics. Most of the time, it\u2019s difficult to avoid getting hit due to the restrictive movements of the character. The RPG Maker engine only allows you to move up, down, left and right. The character cannot move around freely as in diagonally; although, I have seen other RPG Maker games do that. Running doesn\u2019t help much in the game since the enemies tend to run at you just as fast. In addition, the map layouts are not as open enough to move around with many obstacles in your way, that at times, I find myself bumping into walls or trees. By then, the enemies are already on you. With limited lighting as well, you don\u2019t get many opportunities to take out the enemy at a distance. Again, I think that is how the game is supposed to be. Fortunately, the only remedy in progressing is saving often even if I have to die a lot.On the plus side, I do enjoy the scavenging since surviving isn\u2019t all that easy. I also thought the story was alright. You kind of know where the story may be leading upon progression but it does stick to its dark roots of a psychological horror game.I'm glad the developer(s) added controller support. That is a plus for me.The price tag seems fair. Even though the game is short, it\u2019s not that short like other games that can be completed within the hour and charge for a similar price. On top of that, there is nothing too problematic to dislike about the game other than the challenging combat system. You may like the storyline or feel indifferent about it. This game may not blow people away to a point where I can recommend it but the game is alright and worth a try if you like psychological horror games.. It's not outright terrible, but it's not enjoyable. I've played very little so far, but enough to get really\u2665\u2665\u2665\u2665\u2665\u2665\u2665\u2665off when I get constantly stopped for the sake of the main character saying something expository and or stupid. Almost every thirty seconds I have to stop for a scripted event to walk me somewhere, or a "cutscene" of more expository text. I can't really skip dialog, so it gets annoying fast. Further, the stuff that is being said is painfully obvious, or painfully pointless. Sometimes both. For example, being forced to stop for the character to comment on and on about how a situation is weird. It added nothing and made me think nothing but "he's saying this because the creator is not confident enough that the scene itself felt truly weird." Plus, when I accidentally click on a background object that is unimportant, but have to wait three-five seconds for the character to comment on it being unimportant, again, it gets pretty painful. The game runs well and is competently programmed. Graphics are unremarkable, but by no means bad. I will say the controls could use some work. Overall, I'd give this 2\/5 stars. Dev clearly put effort in, but it is just not an entertaining experience.. Great Job :) This game is fantastic :) a game similar to Resident Evil or Silent Hill . Great job , a game I really like , and look forward to more projects with RPG Maker :)I make myself a big project :)
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