Hey folks, I've added Asylum to my curator page If you've not heard of this, it's a first-person point & click adventure from the developer of Scratches that feels like it was plucked right out of the 90s rough edges and all, but plays like nothing else today store.steampowered.com/app/230210/A... - ThreadSky

caseyexplosion.bsky.social • 58 days ago

Hey folks, I've added Asylum to my curator page

If you've not heard of this, it's a first-person point & click adventure from the developer of Scratches that feels like it was plucked right out of the 90s rough edges and all, but plays like nothing else today

https://store.steampowered.com/app/230210/ASYLUM/?curator_clanid=28340174

Comments

mikedrucker.bsky.social•58 days ago

Me checking my bank account as the economy collapses versus me wanting this game a lot now

saintnobody.bsky.social•58 days ago

Would it help if I finally get around to buying your book?

mikedrucker.bsky.social•58 days ago

Couldn’t hurt!

saintnobody.bsky.social•58 days ago

*fine*. I bought it. Why do people I follow on here keep writing books I want to read?

caseyexplosion.bsky.social•58 days ago

It's a very dated game, and I mean that in the most complementary sense possible, because a whole part of Asylum's charm is how close it is to playing something like Myst. The odd somewhat offputting looking CGI character models are just wonderful, it really does not look or feel like a modern game.

caseyexplosion.bsky.social•58 days ago

But what's most captivating about it is the atmosphere, it is positively drenched in gloom thick as treacle, and nothing overtly scary happens for quite some time, not even a jumpscare until way, way later, but it is such an oppressive atmosphere of dread I felt constantly ill at easy throughout.

caseyexplosion.bsky.social•58 days ago

You play as a former patient of the Hanwell institute, who is now revisiting the long abandoned building because you cannot recall your time there and want to recover what memories you can, and find it is reopening so you have only a short opportunity to explore the decaying building before morning.

romabysen.bsky.social•58 days ago

I feel like this is the game equivalent to b-movies (horror in this case) and I am 100% here for it.

caseyexplosion.bsky.social•58 days ago

There's a wonderful mystery to unravel here.

Movement and exploration in Asylum is done with a point & click interface, you click to move forward, closer to an oldschool dungeon crawler interface than what you might expect from modern first person games. It is as I've said, beautifully dated.

caseyexplosion.bsky.social•58 days ago

Now, I have two very large caveats about this game. First, I have unfortunately encountered a gamebreaking bug right at the very end and cannot finish the game. I'm recommending it anyway because I have had such a good time with it up until that point, but I'd be remiss not to mention that.

slowbeef.bsky.social•58 days ago

Is it avoidable in the sense that you’re not guaranteed to run into it?

I had a similar thing with Tormenture (which I quite liked regardless) and had to edit a save file to progress

(And VLR which required me to replay a huge chunk of it but that was save data corruption)

caseyexplosion.bsky.social•58 days ago

Every single step of the way there is a constant unraveling of the core mystery, threads to pull on and disturbing revelations to uncover that all comes at a steady pace, it had been marvelously engrossing. And the fact I couldn't finish it at time of writing ended up just adding to the janky charm.

willgreenwald.bsky.social•58 days ago

I need to ask, because I'm not familiar with Ealing, but Hanwell is just slightly larger than my hometown and it's been the subject of two horror games with mysterious bureaucracies doing horrific science things to people. Is... there a reason?

caseyexplosion.bsky.social•58 days ago

I don't think this is set in Hanwell, it's called Hanwell after the character who established the institute ingame