Four Games in a Week

We were supposed to play the first session of our new campaign today, but unfortunately one of my players fell sick (must be something going around - the rest of us are still feeling the aftershocks from earlier this week).

Since our day was freed, we decided to try playing Routine, a game that was supposed to take 4 hours to beat (it did not).

Routine hooked me right from the beginning when I realised the entire user interface was diegetic. This was obviously a strategic choice, well proven to work in games like Dead Space, which I fondly remember doing a presentation on when I was doing my game design diploma. Forcing the player to interact with and observe the game world does wonders for a horror game, both in terms of raising tension when you have to physically interact with a machine to save your progress that the monster is standing right in front of, or just keeping you immersed without dropping you into a floating window (like in one scene where you follow a blood trail seamlessly into interacting with a terminal). The world feels realistic and inhabited, and you can imagine the characters who came before you doing the exact same things that you (the player, not just the character you inhabit) are doing.

It's insanely atmospheric too - the game delights in making every sound effect, background or foreground, keep you on edge by making doors that sound like the growl of a monster when you open them, or the hum and creak of machinery in the walls that sounds like something is right around the corner.

The story engages in a little too much cosmic horror or the unknown for my liking, but it was perfectly serviceable and told in an extremely engaging way through terminals and audio logs used sparingly in a way that had us guessing and questioning what the solutions to the questions we had were.

How was the horror, though? I can honestly say that this was probably the best horror game I have ever played. The atmosphere was perfect and tension was never maintained for too long, and the scares never felt cheap - I counted only three scripted jumpscares across the game, and every other was a natural consequence of the AI. Frankly, it was a masterpiece.

So, my final rating for Routine: 10/10. I can't name a single area where it could be improved, so I think it deserves a perfect score. I'm glad we got through four games this week, if you count one of my roommates playing through Outer Wilds from start to end as well - seems to bode well for my goal of playing more games this year, since I barely got through any last year. That's all for today - see you tomorrow!