Is Simon There?

[h2]Is Simon There? A lackluster TurnVex experience[/h2] I've come to know TurnVex as someone who churns out games that are always in the range of good to great, thus it saddens me to say that Is Simon There? disappoints me majorly. The concept is alright and a staple of TurnVex's P.T. esque gameplay loop of going back and forth in a small, enclosed house like space and triggering different events one after another. Where the game falls completely flat, in my opinion, is the horror. There is basically none, and the moment it tries, it just tries too hard and ends up feeling goofy. A clear example is the design philosophy behind the monster. Monsters in horror usually work in one of two ways, when not both. You either make a monster as scary and grotesque as possible, or make it symbolic of something. TurnVex tries the second one here, with a monster symbolic of guilt. From there, a developer has to decide whether to use the monster as a show, don't tell device or the other way around. Especially for a symbolic monster, the preferred approach would be the first, and that is what TurnVex does. Sadly, that's also where the flaw lies. The character of the scared man is in no way cr…

I usually eat these kind of games up - a walking sim psychological horror game? Sign me up. Except this game didn't really jive with me. The first half of the game was alright, decent scares throughout. But navigating through the house is so tedious that it became a chore. Just walking around until you run into a trigger for something to happen. And then the story itself. [spoiler] I get our player character obviously has PTSD from their son getting eaten by wolves (which the photo of their child was taken "seconds before" being eaten by wolves... alright), but why are all the people asking for Simon adults? Wouldn't children be asking for Simon as opposed to adults who sound like they're trying to confirm a doctor's appoitnment? [/spoiler] And the assets used... [spoiler] why is there a big, red, shirtless dude covered in satanic scratches/cuts/scars haunting us? It doesn't make much sense from a narrative standpoint, what relevance does it have to Simon's death and that he was eaten by wolves?? Not to mention the big, grey, sharp toothed monster at the end of the game. [/spoiler] I thought I would have loved this, but clearly not, which is kind of disappointing.

F1shst1cks56 approves of this game

3.2 At it's core I find this gameplay quite weak, just a bunch of occasional jumpscares that didn't really 'hook' me. Outside of those it was just wandering around trying to find what the trigger was, generally leading to just walk back and forth from one end to the other each time. Narratively I found a part of it quite interesting but I don't feel that it properly went in on the topic as much as it could especially when instead it felt like instead the choice was to use almost unrelated asset pack monsters. Especially one near the end it felt completely out of place, especially considering the core story which could have instead lead or had other kinds of trauma, that I just don't feel were represented or if so was done in a different avenue that I felt missed a bit of the mark.

wow oh my god.. people want kill me jumpscare haha

My Score: 5/5 Excellent suspense and pacing. I enjoyed every moment of it!