Scanner Sombre

This game was great and very unique. Kept me hooked and intrigued for the entirety of the play through.

Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers. TLDR The game is good and you should play it

Very atmospheric. The sound design is great. The concept behind the game makes the gameplay super unique, and makes it so certain details get revealed in ways other narrative games don't. The pacing is great, with upgrades being given at just the right times so the main mechanic never becomes tedious.

The only non-positive (not even that negative really) things I'd have to say are that I didn't personally find the story super engaging until around the end, and the lack of vr settings. Totally understand reducing motion sickness as much as possible by default, and when there are no settings, this is certainly the better way to go, but I'd much prefer being able to walk and jump around than only be able to do short teleports.

And to finish off the good-""bad""-good sandwich, I really like how the vr version gives you more control over the map and allows you to shoot the lidar around corners. I also appreciate that there aren't any active monsters, with the only real threat being in the lake area. I don't think I would have liked it as much if I were being chased, but the idea that something *might* be there was enough to keep the tension going.

This is a game that is a true example of how a game can also be art. The visuals are beautiful and the mechanics behind it are immensely satisfying. The story that unfolds is good, but I won't speak more on it because spoilers. My only gripe with it is that on one or two occasions the movement felt a little clunky but besides that I have no complaints.

Also, this game is more or less a one and done deal. It's bite sized, very cheap, with eerie elements and an amazing soundtrack. I highly recommend you go into this game with as little prior knowledge as possible. Thank you Introversion Software for creating such a unique and enjoyable experience.

Great game. Severe goosebumps and creeps at a few points, but one area in particular. Makes you think, and appreciate what you have. Afterwards I called my family just because I could, and thoroughly enjoyed just standing on my balcony looking at the scenery.

Short Lidar horror game. Struggles from not having any hostile enemies, so it's basically just a walking simulator. Also there's a lot of stuff involving a cult that never gets fleshed out. It introduces upgrades frequently enough so that the main gameplay loop doesn't get stale for it's short runtime.

Ever been on a cave tour and wanted to wander off the path and explore the infinite darkness? This game feels like that, except this cave is pretty linear and easy to navigate. Which is fortunate, because at first I was worried it would be a very realistic lost-in-a-cave simulation. It turns out to be a pleasant walking simulator with striking scenes and spooky moments. There's not much of a story; it's more about the atmosphere.

Most likely the best walking sim I ever played, and one of the most captivating, dreadful gaming experiences ever.

This game's atmosphere is phenomenal and terrifying. I am reminded of many different world's when I started to get into the game just a bit but none of them feel like they inspired it in any way, it is something so unique in of itself probably in it's utter simplicity. What a hidden gem of a game that is beautiful and eerie.

I have not played in depth because I got too scared to continue and need to have some other folks around to watch to understand how scary this game is. I swear, I will continue to play because I want to see how this ends.

A Short but great. A great concept for a game that was executed wonderfully.

very good game, an amazing atmosphere and great sound design. The scares work really well and are not overdone. I would give it a 9/10
It can be very loud but the loudness of the music adds to the experience except at times where it would be so loud it sounded muddy, which worked a little bit, but felt a little off.

For how minimal the tid bits of story you get are, this game is thoroughly engaging and emotive. There's fear, there's wonder. There's exploration and that feeling of being lost yet determined push forward. I love mechanically how this game works. The way the scanner forces you to interact with the environment all the way to how it handles you losing progress is so fluid and just, curious. I love it.

I genuinely have zero complaints other than it could have been longer. Yet even as I type that, it's more that I wish I could play it through again for the first time. Genuinely awesome work, I can not recommend it enough.

The game was an interesting concept. Unfortunately there was far too little game play and finished it in under 2 hours. I was hoping there would be more scary instances but most of it was just making sure you scan before a jump puzzle .

Very trippy and neat game. Also kind of disturbing. Would walk through this again someday.

Great environmental storytelling coupled with a cool concept and just the right amount of spook.

this game was very cool although shorter than expected. the story is cool it's pretty straightforward and it makes sense towards the end. somehow towards the end i was lagging, i think this game tries to load every single dot that you scan and it causes a little bit of lag. the concept is neat and the playthrough is very straightforward. you would think in an open world game like this it would be easy to get lost but i managed to not get lost at all. get it on sale if you wanna play it.
THE MUSIC AND AUDIO AND AMBIENCE IN THIS GAME IS REALLY COOL AND ITS PROBABLY THE BEST PART

Cool visuals and setting, intriguing snippets of lore throughout, great music and atmosphere. Very enjoyable and worth the money despite having a rather short play time to complete.

only about 1.5-2 hours in length, but its a beautiful game with a super interesting mechanic. definitely a few scary moments as well. I highly recommend playing this game if you have an hour or 2 to kill, especially for the super cheap price tag. I even did 2 separate playthroughs on yt and had a ton of fun both times

Great short game. While the core mechanic is really cool I felt it was underutalized and never really expanded upon. I think you could do some really cool puzzles with this which the game never really took advantage of (apart from the way it dealt with water. That is kinda the only time I felt the theme it set out with was elaborated upon.) The story also really isn't there. Again, the bones of something cool but it doesn't use its mechanics to further the impact of its story or really do anything with it. It feels like a walking sim with one cool mechanic, which is great, but walking sim relies on its story. Nothing was there textually to hook you and the story you do get is very much told and not shown. I feel as though the gameplay and writing were done entirely seperatly and that the story was an afterthought. A shame, especially given the potential it has as a variation of the walking sim genre.
Worth buying it though!!!!! Excellent way to spend a couple hours and you can really tell it was made with love.
Yay indie games!!

It's okay. I would've preferred more of an expansion on the ghostly apparitions you find in the cave, such as being more hostile or forming barriers around progress checkpoints. Some of the track list feels out of place too. I do really like the original concept of piecing your surroundings together; navigating steep cliff drops and tight crawlspaces with a scanner to provide clairvoyance. I'm just coming away from this wanting way more is all.

I never thought i would enjoy a "walking simulator" as much as I enjoyed Scanner Sombre. Breathtaking yet simple graphic concept yet I couldn't stop myself from just staring at the environment in shock/amazement . For such a simple game I was completely thrown by the twist. I would highly recommend everyone try this game. Well worth the money!

Oh boy I remember playing this at EGX Rezzed in London a few years back. Back then I thought that this was a cool concept game, but that's all it was a game 'concept', an idea, a tech demo.

Now having gotten round to playing it, well that's pretty much the final product, its a tech demo, an idea, a total concept, one that's looking for well, more of a game to go along with it.

Nothing really bad here TBH. Its a short experience, that seems like it will be a horror game and it tries a few scares from time to time. However as that wasn't the focus they’re few and far between. It's just you, a LiDar scanner as your only means of seeing and a cave system to find your way out of. Most deaths will be falling off a cliff, and that will be mostly due to first person platforming being a forever bad concept.

Overall it's an experiment of a game that got a release, and introversion even so still didn't quite know what to do with it.

Thumbs up as its worth checking out for the concept, but don't buy at full price. I'm glad I paid less than a pint for it.

2.5/5

Also note: The game comes with the prototype version of this game and a bomb defusing game that never went to full release.

This game, while short, left quite the impression on me, since the use of Lidar as the main gameplay mechanic is absolutely spectacular. Word of warning, only play this game if you haven't seen any spoilers, as it is a one-time experience. It doesn't outlast its welcome at all, and wraps up all its plot points.

A short but interesting game about exploring a cave with a lidar scanner to "illuminate" your path. Worth the quick play through

cool dot game 👍

A short to medium length atmospheric, exploration, suspense game. Overall enjoyable, although a bit tedious if you are a perfectionist about scanning everything (especially early game). There aren't really branching paths in this game, just the main story path, so if you're hoping for a game that will let you get hopelessly lost, this is not it. I however, appreciated the singular path as even this fictional cave system had it's more confusing moments.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☑ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☑ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☑ Old Fashioned
☐ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☑ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☑ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☑ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☑ Short
☐ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☑ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

Great concept, but poorly designed.

Sometimes its horror, sometimes its sad, sometimes its beautiful, but it never has any buildup, its just exploring, something happens, exploring. The story also isn't great, it has this cool opening and makes you think that is going to be an interesting horror exploration game where you eventually escape. SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT, THIS IS A WARNING





Ok? You gone? Ok. Basically, in the end you were always dead and it was all just your personal hell. I hate these types of endings, because its the cheapest and most basic twist that had no buildup and came out of nowhere. It had a great atmosphere and story in the first 3/4ths, but the moment it hits that final stretch the entire game and its story turns to shit.

1000/10 GAME I LOVED IT BEST GAME EVER
99999/10 WOULD RECOMMEND

It's an amazing tech demo, but the actual game itself just got increasingly tedious and frustrating to play as it went on without doing enough to hold my attention. Really clever central mechanic though, and it looks great.

Amazing game. Tells a great story and is very immersive, not super horror just spooky atmospheric. one major flaw is the antagonist is a stock model seen T-posing occasionally... please just build your own character for a main feature....
All this game is missing is finishing touches to the VR experience, such as compatibility and locomotion changes.

I don't ever review games, however this game was absolutely amazing in vr. I didn't expect to get THAT into the game. I haven't tried it non vr but I feel it wouldn't be close to the same experience. If you have vr I highly recommend giving this a go.

Great game! My only complaint is that I wish there were another! The scanner aspect is really creative.

I have played through this game once in one sitting taking around 2 hours.

Positives: the atmosphere is thick, I also thought the execution is pretty awesome as well, the concept of using a device to paint your surroundings is unique and I assume would lead to each player revealing parts of the environment in a somewhat unique way (although not always), the environmental storytelling was dense and allows for imagination, I found the more subtle approach to horror compliments the minimal outright storytelling and gives itself more so to the environment to fill in the blanks.

Negatives: Few to speak of, I think the horror aspect could've been played on with more frequency, or perhaps have those freaky sequences drawn out for more effect, also I wish the game was twice or 3 times as long to allow longer more exploration of the method, feel and idea the devs were going for, but that's less of a criticism and likely just me wanting more of this game.

I give it a 3/5.

I only recommend this game if you plan to play it in VR. The scanning and environments are fun to go through in VR but I cannot imagine that it would be very stimulating in desktop mode. This game is *not* a horror game despite what it implies, the scariest part of this game was the OSHA violations. There was like a total of 5 "scary" moments where it shows people and if you touch the water a monster will come get you. I didn't even realize what killed me though the first time I went in the water, if that helps paint the picture of how intimidating it is.
Go into this expecting an environmental game, look at the scanned caves and enjoy the views. Yet again though, it would only really be good in VR.

An absolutely beautiful game that comes with more surprises than you would originally guess. The game was masterfully made, in my opinion, and I would absolutely recommend the game to anyone considering it.

One of the most unique games if ever played highly recommend

This was really fun and my dumbass didn't even notice it was a horror game until later in game

absolutely gorgeous visuals, audio, story, and gameplay. beautiful little game that I recommend everyone plays through at least once.

simple story game with elements of suspense

amazing game with depth (no pun intended) and serious originality. bravo

nice concept and great execution, i haven't been able to play in VR i but would guess it would make this game an even better experience

This game is a bit boring and predictable.

But the "scanning to see" thing is really a nice new game mechanic. Try it on sale or something.

The game is absolutely gorgeous. As other reviews have mentioned, the LiDar gun is like Powerwash Simulator, but better. The assets themselves are just okay, but the lidar rainbow cave system is beautiful. It's absolutely worth $6 despite its length, and is so much more than just a horror game.

A little low-budget on assets, but the soundtrack is great. Very engaging experience

this game is interesting and fun, but it froze my PC when i tried to scan an area, I would recommend it, but not if your PC is bad

a very lovely experience, the atmosphere becomes eerie at just the right times and despite there being almost no dialogue or direction its enthralling to continue to explore

very unique premise and good horror elements- it's short but it will keep you playing until the end

Completed it twice, good game with a premise I haven't seen in any other game.

Nice game for relaxing and spending some hours, almost no action but lots of beatiful and creative scenarios.

Very fun little game with a unique concept. Thoroughly enjoyed, and for the price there's no reason not to pick it up.