Разработчик: Samantha Arehart
Описание
This is a story about a religious family living in the western United States, and the strange events that caused their lives to change forever.
Featuring almost 5000 words of story, hand drawn graphics, an original soundtrack, and a free art book, this project was brought to you be the wonderful people on Kickstarter!
--This game contains heavy religious themes and violence against children. Please be aware before purchasing!--
Поддерживаемые языки: english
Системные требования
Windows
- OS *: Windows 7 or later
- Processor: One that exists
- Memory: 2 MB RAM
- Graphics: Ones that work
- Storage: 124 MB available space
- Sound Card: A working one
- Additional Notes: It's not that big of a game, so any "well operating" Windows computer should work.
Отзывы пользователей
They should have prayed harder!
A short atmospheric visual novel with great music and artworks.
A short but atmospheric VN that has beautiful writing and interesting art direction for the dark religious theme. This review is mostly based on how I rate it against other short indie VNs I've played before (especially free VNs on Itch for jams).
pros:
+ The writing style has a lyrical quality to it with descriptions that are fitting to Biblical allusions. I find this one of the strongest aspects in this VN, that the story is very enjoyable and pleasant to read.
+ Unique human character design which is Sam Arehart's trademark and always gives the work a one-of-a-kind feeling. In this game the humans resemble ancient alien angel depictions with the many eyes.
+ The story highlight for me is when the second child is born and threw me a bit off what will happen next when I expected the first child to be the one considered 'unnatural' .
cons:
- The story misses a memorable climax, where the intro and middle parts are very strong and seem to be building up towards something more. I don't necessarily think that the ending is truly cut short because it actually has most movements and CGs placed in that frame. It's hard to put in words what exactly feels missing when not all stories need a plot twist, however when it's already telegraphed that the father will kill the son, I was expecting more stuff to happen after that act had been committed. Maybe some kind of conclusion to tie up the tragedy and let you reflect about the tale?
+/- Sprites are static. One could say that it has an unsettling statuesque characteristic where humans feel even more like a statue than the marble angel, but when characters do not have facial expressions unlike many VNs, the sprites could have had body pose changes to reflect the situation and to make it look more dynamic. Such as the father holding a shotgun .
+/- The photographs for the backgrounds serve their purpose well, so they don't bother me at all, but I wonder if photobashing would have removed the complaints about sprite and bg art style clashing which is mentioned in the other reviews.
Great character designs, and a gripping story. Some nice music, too. It is fairly short, but that's okay. Lots of neat eyes.
Short, surreal gothic horror. The facelessness totally works for the atmosphere, making the innermost feelings of the characters unreachable.
Very well written story that keeps you hooked until its short ending. The art, the pictures and the music really bring it alive.
Summary
Nicely written story, but to me it feels like the ending is cut off. Without me trying to give away spoilers, I think the ending has a lot more potential.
Pros/Cons
+ Well written
+ Nice sound
+/- ‘Okay’ visuals (suitable to ambiance), and I did like the animated design of the personas a lot (including the ‘eyes’ and ‘sun/light’ signs – I think I fully understand their meaning), and the mansion. However I did not like the images of the church and road, that look too much like regular photos made black-white, and also didn’t really blend in with the story.
+/- Short, but I knew that before I got the game. The length of this visual novel is fair to its price.
- Story is cut of at the end
very well done. absolutely stunning artwork. couple of typos, but nothing too distracting.
I really liked the story. It was short, dark and straight to the point. My only question is what was it about exactly? I understood that it was about a religion or cult, but apart from that I was lost.
Short moody kinetic novel, I enjoyed my time with it, especially for the price. Cool art, atmosphere, and writing.
A kinetic visual novel, curiously referred to by its developer as a "game". As a strong and frequent advocate of walking simulators and such, even I'd opine that a product in which you click through a linear story and never once make anything resembling a choice is not really a "game".
It is, however, a fairly interesting and by-and-largely well-written short story (though the end was a tad abrupt for my liking). So is the unorthodox audio-visual presentation of a visual novel justified? I would say so, yes. It arguably makes for a more immersive experience, though some literary purists would no doubt argue that the text should be doing that job for itself. Each to their own I'd say, and I certainly can't fault someone for trying something new in this artistically-saturated day and age.
This said, the otherwise excellent choice of music does go a little askew in the story's final act. There are also some...odd visual choices which I'll leave you to discover and ponder upon for yourself. They certainly increase the sense of enigma already inherent in the narrative. Whether I would have opted for these choices myself is another matter entirely.
I can certainly recommend this to anyone who enjoys a dark, slightly surrealistic story. Is it worth three dollars? Hmmm...I guess the question is whether or not you're the kind of person who would pay that much money to read a 5000 word short story written by an author you're unfamiliar with. I generally wouldn't, so I'd probably say wait for a sale.
Verdict: 6/10.
(PS If you enjoyed this review, feel free to check out my two Curator pages: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/9284586-ReviewsJustfortheHELLofit/
http://store.steampowered.com/curator/10868048-Truly-Horrible-Horror-Games/?appid=398210
Cheers!)
First of all, this is a kinetic or visual novel, in the length of a short story. Not a game. Which is not to say that it isn’t good, but rather that it doesn't have any interactive elements aside from controlling when to advance to the next written phrase. In fact, when you start from that expectation, BAPTISM is really quite good. Both the story and writing are very well done, and the character design is distinct and striking, capturing the weight of the characters and their situations quite well.
For me, the tone reads much like an Esben and the Witch song - eerie, self-fulfilling, and prophetic in feel. Dark, sad, troubling, yet without feeling despondent - it instead just looms overpresent and discontent like an ancient mysterious god. And this is a tone that I enjoy, hinting towards those of Lovecraft, David Lynch, Portal, BioShock, and more. The writing is evocative, written in a future-perfect tense that captures the prophetic-horror-tragedy mood perfectly, and is full of great asides and phrasings that clue us in to what may come ahead without giving anything away. The music, though sparse outside of the ending, does its job well, expanding the mood created by the images and words to a satisfying end. As well, the serene yet off-putting character designs and beautiful background photographs fill the story with memorable images and imaginings that stick in the mind past completion of the game. A few non-character shots are also drawn by the artist, which capture more of the burbling emotion, darkness, and depth rumbling beneath the surface of this story than any of the photographs do, leaving me wanting more of these throughout.
However, where BAPTISM does suffer, and this is where my only drawbacks lie, is from a clear lack of budget, time, and resources. Where the writing draws you in with good suspense and evocative phrasing that perfects the horrific tone, it is also clear that it would have benefitted from having a professional editor in certain places, or more time to develop the story in deeper detail. This is a tragedy I wanted to spend much more time with and was disappointed I could not. Similarly, while the character art is striking and removed in an elegant and terrible (in the biblical sense) way, the budget or staff to have these animated or increased in number, at least for certain portions, would have improved the product further. And a voice cast or addition of any sound effects outside the music would have added further immersion and truly completed a couple of already great moments. Lastly, the story is only 30-55 minutes, depending on how slowly you read or want to stay with the panels, which leaves me aching for more story to see and read, and may seem too short for most. This clearly also came from time and budget restraints, which is unfortunate, as with more material it could have expanded the story further or offered differentiating narrative decision paths for the reader to choose between, much like other visual novels might.
However, overall, I truly enjoyed this story and was quite pleased with the material I got. It was an interesting, different sort of myth that kept my attention and kept me thinking about it some time past when I finished. I was satisfied with my experience and was left wanting to learn more about this tragedy and this setting. I can’t wait to see more from this creator and spend more time in this terrifying but serene world of horrifying beauty and pulchritudinous terror.
Дополнительная информация
| Разработчик | Samantha Arehart |
| Платформы | Windows |
| Ограничение возраста | Нет |
| Дата релиза | 24.01.2025 |
| Отзывы пользователей | 100% положительных (12) |