Before They Catch Us
ANTertainment · 2025 · Visual Novel, Interactive Fiction, Choices Matter, Story Rich, RPG
PC
Mostly Positive77% · 13
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About Before They Catch Us
About the gameBefore They Catch Us is a narrative-driven text adventure set in an original fantastical world. It draws inspiration from humanity’s fear of the unknown, the traditions of nomadic cultures, and echoes of spiritual belief. As you journey through the pages, you will discover a strange and shifting land, encounter striking characters, decide how your paths intertwine, step into uncanny visions, and perhaps even alter the fate of the entire world.WorldOnce ordinary, the land has now been overtaken by vast fungal forests. These dark woods never rest, they creep forward relentlessly, swallowing meadows and leaving only barren steppes behind. The few who survive must live as wanderers, forever fleeing the encroaching forest that hungers for their lives.PlotYou take the role of a young prophet, suddenly burdened with visions that invade not only your dreams, but your waking hours as well.Perform rituals, resist spore infection, face the cruelty of both the forest’s creatures and rival clans — all in pursuit of a single purpose. Walk your Path, remain worthy in the eyes of your ancestors, and above all, survive.GameplayThe game unfolds across three Chapters, each capturing a defining episode in the prophet’s story. As you read, you will get to shape the narrative by making difficult choices. Many decisions will lie ahead, but only a few can truly shift the course of history and lead you to one of four possible endings. You will also have to interpret the symbols you see in your visions, matching them with possible meanings in a mini-game. Only by discerning their true significance will you uncover what the Ancestors are truly trying to tell you.
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What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
Despite being a-yet-another visual novel on Steam, Before They Catch Us offers interesting interactivity that goes beyond simple dialogue choices. We play as a prophet who must interpret dreams and visions! After reading a dream, we sort its essential components into several categories. Success or failure in doing so affects the progression and ending. Thankfully, a brief summary of the consequences is presented at the end. Properly interpreting a dream requires understanding the game's writer and being able to "translate" literary images in a way that aligns with the author's intent. This makes it quite impossible to get it all right on your first try, and you will fail all your visions because you are new to this type of reading material, characters, and world (even if you try to take notes). However, after getting your first ending and acquiring the necessary knowledge about the in-game future, you can turn the tables and get some of the visions right! I assume this is how the play loop was intended from the beginning. The downside is that some visions, especially those with many components, are hard to interpret because it's not always clear what the writer wants to express. H…10 found this helpful
Fun and enjoyable game though I was very shocked when it ended as I felt like the game was just really starting. Overall a good beginning hopefully more will come. Worth the price and nice to support games like this3 found this helpful
Highly enjoyable, well written novel with beautiful visuals. It throws you right into the story, which takes some time getting into, but once it has you, you need to know how it continues. Has high replayability due to the many choices you make throughout the game that completely change the story that unfolds before you. The visions you get are rather complicated, especially on your first run through the story. Don't know if they are intended to only get deciphered on your 2nd or later playthrough or not. They could, maybe even should, be made clearer. In any case, I recommend this game!2 found this helpful
One of the first visual novels I ever played. It hooked me with its unique art style and an atmosphere of utter doom. No matter how hard I tried, the mysteries of the ancestors remained unsolved for me. I hope another player will prove to be a more inquisitive prophet.1 found this helpful
Compelling. Moody. Doesn't overstay its welcome. Satisfying little meal of a game.1 found this helpful
A narrative about the danger of taking shrooms in a cult. The game is more a story, hints why it's labeled visual novel, where you make some decisions and play some mini gamesque object/moral sorting puzzles. I recommend this game if you like a story shrouded in mystery and shrooms.
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