Skyhill: Black Mist. Horror Ruyer in the spirit of Resident Evil and The Evil Within

The other day we managed to play the alpha version of the Survival-Horror Skyhill: Black Mist From the domestic studio Mandragora. The game was inspired by such projects as The Evil Within And Resident Evil, and creates a tense atmosphere no worse than prototypes. But let's go about everything in order.

Mandragora and her games

Black Mist – not the first work of Mandragora. Before that, she had already come out of the cooperative Rogue-Lite Freaky Awesome and survival with rogue-lite elements Skyhill. They did not grab stars from the sky: assessments from users and from critics received average projects. However, this did not prevent them from flying to Switch, PS4, PC, Xbox and mobile platforms. For a small studio, this is definitely a success, and Mandragora is already working on a new game.

Skyhill: Black Mist is not a direct continuation of Skyhill, but a game in the same universe. Unless the horror-component with mutated people unites them. If anyone missed, Skyhill 2015 told the story of a businessman stuck on the hundredths of the hotel. Somewhere nearby, a chemical rocket exploded, people began to turn into mutants. But not our hero. He was pretty much hungry, he got out of his number and began to clean the floors from nonhumans, along the way craft of useful objects and sealing locations in search of something edible. The hero’s shelter could be pumped, and for the vanquished in step -by -step battles of monsters they gave lutus and experience.

Games Mandragora

In the new game, the tie plus minus is the same. The main character, Harry Thompson, was stuck in a large residential complex, which surrounded the mysterious black fog, turning people into monsters. Harry did not affect the transformation, and he would have sat in his apartment, but the trouble-a daughter was lost somewhere in this complex on a party. She calls all in tears and drops the phone. It is not possible to contact her again, and we go in search.

The complex is built on the principle of metroid: we can immediately search some locations, we will get some access later. The ax, for example, will cut its way through wooden blockages, and a set of tools will open access to ventilation mines. But there will simply not be to get to these items. Bloodthirsty mutants are waiting for locations, clashes with which are extremely unpleasant. You can fight with them: for this we will find weapons and cartridges on locations. Here are just no benefits from the murder – unlike Skyhill, loot does not fall from the enemies, it is not necessary to clean up the locations, the experience for murder does not drip. Therefore, it is much more advisable to save ammunition for situations when you are pressed into the corner. In other cases, where it is more practical to shed quietly past the next mutant.

• 10 of the most anticipated strategies of 2020

• Review of Doom Eternal. New King of the Jokes

Assassin regime

Stone hide and seek

The stealth mechanic is implemented simple: when you go into a secretive movement mode, the enemies of the views are highlighted. If you get into it, they notice you. Opponents also respond to sounds, so it is always useful to have a couple of bottles in the inventory. Throw one such away from you, it breaks, the monster heads down the false trail. If you were still seen, it’s still not necessary to fight – you can try to run away, hide under the table or climb into the closet.

The shelter system is especially useful when you are faced with the police. These guys are probably the most. When they are approaching, disturbing music is growing, and it does not bode well. The cops here are not good -natured guys who will help to get a cat from a tree, let them try to convince us of the opposite. It is almost impossible to survive a collision with them: they shoot to defeat. Therefore, as soon as you hear notes of characteristic music, you begin to look for a shelter.

Under the table, maybe not so convenient, but safe

But each found bottle is also not an option – the inventory is not rubber. Some items can be used here and now, some will be useful later, when we find a recipe for craft. In an hour in the game, I learned to create first -aid kits and sharpening. The second, by the way, at the initial stage is more useful than any other subject. With their help, you can open the locks, wans from the backs of weak monsters and fight off if you are seized. In the latter case, you need to have time to squeeze the correct button in Quick Time Event format, and this is very similar to the use of daggers in the remake of the first Resident Evil. In Black Mist, they also disappear after use. Developers promise that there will be many objects for craft. At the later stages of the game, for example, we can create stretch marks. It is great to lure opponents on them if you can’t do without a brawl.

But not all monsters are enough with one blow by sharpening or stretching explosion. I met 3 types of opponents: weak, "fatter" and one unrealistically strong. If the first and second ones somehow yet managed to break up, there was no particular desire to even contact the latter. The head of the studio, warningly said: "Stay away from this, you will flood his hell". He looked dumb, the mountains of dissected corpses lay around, and I decided not to risk it once again: they dumped deaths. Not all, but a significant part, so it is unpleasant to die.

However, death has another side: you can try to replay a specific segment, distributing resources more successfully. For example, do not spend sharpening on a monster, but open it for her door. In addition, according to developers, death is part of the narrative. In the location where we get after the next failure, a character will wait for us. They hardly told us about him, but they made it clear that conversations with him would help to better understand the plot, and this always makes death a little sweeter.

Deadly danger

The main thing in Skyhill: Black Mist is a concentration and attention. I can’t say that the game is terrible, the word "straining" is better here. In safety, you feel only in special locations covered with a certain black substance: there are no enemies, you can’t run and use weapons. What kind of places are it, it’s not clear, but it’s great that they are-some kind of break. For the first time you rummage all other rooms and corridors with cautiously and plan a retreat path in advance. For the second and third time you become bolder: monsters are always in the same places. In addition to cops, these can jump out when and from where it is, which is quite unpleasant. But objects in the boxes are always different.

I was dying mainly from my curvature: at those moments when I was still forced to fight, I did not distribute endurance incorrectly and could not escape, then I did not have time to find a first -aid kit in the inventory. But this, it seems to me, is a matter of habit – closer to the end of the session, when I got used to management, the pace of the game and timings, deaths became much less. But there was no other important gameplay element in the alpha – the indicator of infection. Black fog is slowly ruining Harry, and this will have to somehow cope. If the level of infection is not reduced in time, the main character will die. This pushes you to research, because there will be special items on the locations, with which the infection can be a little slow down. There will still be some skills that help to cope with this, but they were not shown in alpha either.

Good luck, Harry!

Despite the fact that Skyhill: Black Mist does not offer the player something fundamentally new, I spent the hour after the demo with pleasure. The mechanics of successful Survival Horror, proven years have been working. They say correctly, the classic does not get old. I would like to be more afraid – this is the only thing that was not enough. Black Mist will go out on a PC and all consoles, but the developers from Mandragora did not mention about mobile phones. Although the interface is perfect: screw the stick to the left corner, add the inventory icons, and it will be good. Given that the 2015 Skyhill was on smartphones, I won’t be surprised if the guys and the new game are ported there.

The project has not yet acquired the exact date of the release https://freshbet-gb-casino.co.uk/, but Mandragora promises to release it this year. We will follow!

• Everything is new in Persona 5 Royal. Preliminary review

• "Road to PlayStation 5": The main thing with a 52-minute presentation