sguy157

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

The Painscreek Killings has been one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences that I've had in a long time! If you like exploration and solving mysteries on your own, then this is the game for you. One thing that this game absolutely nails is the atmosphere. I've seen some people complain about the lack NPCs in the game. However, the game's atmosphere heavily depends on a feeling of isolation, so having NPCs would actually be detrimental to this feeling (and the town is supposed to be abandoned, after all). In addition, exploring the town alone really adds to the immersion of the game. Together, the locations, visuals, story, and music successfully evoke atmospheres that are eerie, sad, disturbing, tense, and more. At times, you are expected to pay close attention to detail, which is something that I look for in a detective game. As such, you shouldn't try to rush through things - doing so will almost certainly cause you to miss things, and then you'll get stuck and have to backtrack. I don't see this as a flaw with the game, you are just expected to play patiently and observantly. It's best to read each document in detail and comb each area carefully. Playing through the game in this way took me about 10 hours. Even still, I only got a 90% completion rate, so there is definitely no shortage of clues to look for. Luckily, after the end you are able to go back to your last save to find more clues/evidence without the need to start all over. The most common complaints I encounter are about the gameplay. For the most part, this game plays like a walking simulator. So at the end of the day, gameplay shouldn't even be the main focus. That being said, if you are someone who absolutely hate walking sims, you might not like this game. If you love walking sims, you'll have no problem with this game. If you're anywhere in between, there is still so many more other things that this game has to offer: exploring an abandoned town, solving a mystery, figuring out puzzles, following a story that unravels the deeper you dig, and so on. It plays like a walking sim, but it's a mystery/detective/exploration game at its core. I played with a group of friends, but it would be just as fun to play solo (this would only add to the feeling of isolation and immersion). To be fair, I don't think that it's a perfect game. Some of the controls could have been better, and I might have liked it if certain parts of the game were a little different (although I definitely didn't hate these parts - I even liked some of the riskier decisions they made). But these flaws only make up a small portion of the game and they were more than easy to look past, even more so when considering that this is an indie game. Moreover, I thoroughly enjoyed every other aspect of this game. So having a few rough patches certainly doesn't ruin the entire experience, especially when these moments don't take away from the overall story or previous memorable moments of the game. Overall, I really loved this game (which is why I wrote so much, sorry). At the end of the day, I think it is very impressive that this is the very first game EQ Studios has ever put out. You don't always get this level of polish in indie games, especially when it is a studio's first release. I've been wanting to play a game like this for the longest time, but other games that I have tried have never really hit the mark quite like this one. So, thank you for creating this game - I finally found something that is exactly what I have been looking for! Now, I will eagerly await the studio's next release!