CAUTION: SPOILERS BELOW
Summary:
The player must escape the constantly hunting killer snail, navigating their way through several connected rooms of a house. There are keys scattered around, which the player must collect to open the door - which is also left for the player to find, and several are tucked into awkward alcoves.
My Experience:
It's a funny idea, and I'm a particular sucker for key hunting in bondage games, so I was excited to try. At first, I didn't actually realise that I only had to find the right key, so instead simply retrieved every single key and then went to the door - which is at least one way of solving it! Additionally, the heartbeat indicating how close the snail was is a fun indicator, and a good way to add tension to otherwise unobtrusive, necessary information. Sadly, the fidelity of the player sprite, combined with the monotone graphics made it hard to make out what the player sprite was supposed to be, but otherwise I think the gameplay probably reflected the author's design. My major frustration was that bumping into a wall completely freezes you for a few seconds and some spaces are simply too awkward to navigate without bumping into them; I can see the idea behind this (falling over bound as you flee from the snail) but in practice the danger level feels quite low - particularly as the snail slows down as it gets closer - and it ends up being more annoying than threatening, especially when it's so easy to do. This also applies to floor hazards, where one muffles the sound of the heartbeat, but due to the relatively low challenge, serve to make the player feel randomly slower more than in danger. Overall, I had a fun time with it, with the major complaints being around polish!
Theme Fit:
The player sprite is bound, and the opening/ending graphics both show off a bound protagonist. Gameplaywise, you have to fiddle with the controls a bit to pick things up - which actually works surprisingly well to add that air of restriction to the game - and fall over if you stub your toe. Otherwise, there's no contrast between more or less bound states, and it largely serves as mechanical justification.
What Could Be Improved:
- Challenge: The game's difficulty is quite low, giving both multiple hits of health and having AI leniency where it slows down as it approaches. This is more of a polish thing which is always tricky to get correct, but pressure is very necessary in a game where the player is being hunted.
- In-game graphics: It's understandable on such a short time limit that assets had to be made quickly, but the player sprite is really quite hard to discern - which is a shame when it's one of the major parts of the theming.
- Theming: It feels like between playing with the player's lack of vision and having to "squirm" to pick up keys, there was maybe some low hanging fruit, such as making the vision restriction a blindfold that can reappear, or only being able to carry a limited amount of keys at once so the player is forced to hunt back and forth. It's not bad at all, but it could have a little more to it.