ESCAPE SITE 13

Amazing adventure game set in a fictional universe of strange anomalies and creatures that evolves into a much deeper story. You play agent Liu, who is sent to the Mausoleum, a mysterious structure discovered within a rock somewhere in China. It appears to have been "transported" there from another location on Earth because the surrounding nature does not fit the China wilderness. After losing communication with the original team sent inside to investigate, you and your two squad members must now locate possible survivors and uncover the mystery of this location. The game is set in the fictional SCP universe and references to case SCP-1730. There is a lot of material available online, so you can read it before playing the game to gain some context. However, this is unnecessary because the game and your primary tool, the tablet, will provide you with plenty of information. The tablet has all you need to know. It is packed with backstory and will reveal new entries as you progress through the game. The amount of text is really incredible, and involves experiments, entities, religion, and gods. Entries are organized into folders such as notes, anomalies, posters, and so on. Each ne…

The lore and writing/translation is interesting and solid. The art is quirky but suitably gloomy. Unfortunately on Steam Deck, there's a spot where you right a large robot, where the game slowed, dropping frames, which was fine, but then I got frozen in place, even though animation of the robot continues. When the game slows like that, it also becomes impossible to ascend stairs, as the animation just shutters from left to right. So I missed one optional area. No big deal for me there, but possibly a problem for achievements. Mysteriously on the fourth try against the robot it didn't glitch there. So I progressed through some interesting stuff (avoiding spoilers too much) , and I defeated a large monster, and was supposed to choose from spooky words. The words are sometimes next to each other so closely that it glitches and doesn't show them, vibrating the cursor. In one case I was already selecting one for several moments when a second appeared next to it causing me to select the new one. One instance had both sayings overlapping the same place, preventing me from reading either or choosing the bottom one. After 6 full retries, I gave up. Another Let's Play shows this problem…

It is a good game overall. The Chinese voice acting is strong and does an excellent job of setting the tone (English subtitles available). However, the game would benefit from trimming excess content and adopting a tighter pacing. The full experience takes roughly eight hours to complete. (I played it for half then then I watched a video about it. It has really too many uneventful sections for my taste.) It opens with a long walking-simulator section focused on exploring environments and collecting documents to read. Then this is followed by a maze-like segment that again revolves primarily around navigation and document discovery. Only after roughly the first hour does the game transition into its more eventful and engaging sequences.

I found this to be an interestin' take on the SCP formula. It's a side scroller with horror elements. It has voice actin' but not in English. That is a bummer but it is subtitled. I like the graphic style as well. The colors pop. Not usually thing in the horror sphere. I didnt get too far but am still intrigued. The price tag may be a bit much to some, however. I'll give it a thumb up for the intrigue. Gameplay Impressions: https://youtu.be/nnyFUyNGB7U