Foghorns Drown

Wrapped up Foghorn's Drown & as much as I enjoyed my time with it, the game ultimately ran out of steam & you can feel it strongest in the writing. Foghorn's Drown is a short narrative about a small village who rely on a foghorn ferry system to cross the lake unto the shoreline. You play as the ferryman, your job is to ferry people across the lake & experiencing the strange supernatural events surrounding the village. As the game progresses, you sense the doom vibes of the village as their priest has fallen ill, the townsfolk are uneasy & suspect a terrible plague is upon them. You cannot go wrong with a hook quite like that, it's begging to tell a fresh story & you can tell that the presentation is ironed to a tee setting yourself up to a real thriller of a narrative. However, just like a sparkler in New Years, it fades quick as it hastily fast tracks to the end. I had previously played the demo for this game back in Next Fest & I can truly see the developer working on stronger projects in the future, but the last half of Foghorn's Drown is one I sat down for several days on occasion flipping a coin on whether or not to recommend this game. The demo ended so strongly & leaves en…

Foghorns Drown leaves a lot to be desired. The atmosphere and sound design are excellent. The use of foghorns and the ferry as a gameplay mechanic were done very well, I especially like the way the red lights of the foghorn can be seen through the fog in the distance. This atmosphere, these great ambient sounds, the small isolated cabin you share with a coworker you never see. These all set up the potential for greatness that just... never happens. This game is short, arguably too short for the price but definitely too short for the story they were trying to tell. The entire midsection of this game is dream sequence after dream sequence with both location and time skips. Its way too rushed! I've seen other reviews touch on the "walking simulator" concept but thats not my problem, honestly more walking/exploring/world interactions would have done a world of good for building up to the climax (if there really was one). The most damning criticism I have for this game is the complete lack of any rising tension or coherent engaging plotline. "walking simulator" is not a criticism to me because plenty of games come to mind that are fantastic where it really boils down to walking and som…

In short: I recommend, but YMMV on whether or not you think it's worth the price. Short and sweet psychological horror. It has a great first half (which is what the demo is) and it falls apart in the second half, largely relying on jump cutting between horror sequences and slower sequences in a fairly cumbersome way and it ends up not really nailing the ending. I can see what the team were going for, and the aesthetic choices are good, but it's really missing the payoff. Could have been longer, slower, given us more time with the large cast of characters. Going to be watching what this team do next very keenly as I think they could do really great work next time from everything they learned with this.

I played the demo and it was 20m of the same game that lasted 60m for me. It is a shame, because atmosphere was fantastic, but the game itself overall is rushed and also expensive, for what it is. It starts very well, and then at midpoint just rushes towards the end leaving you disappointed for what it could have been.

I like the mood and artstyle, that's about it. Way too much dialog, developer should just write a book. It becomes nonsensical. Rushed.

it's always bad news when a man like you turns to god