The Hell Hives

I hate to do this... I really REALLY like to champion indie games and tell people what they can like about them before they spend their money... but... I just can't do that this time. I'll talk about the best points first. The graphics are in some ways moody and atmospheric but the enemies are motionless sprites that just drift toward you. The music is good and compliments the dark mood. The head bob as you move is motion-sickness inducing... and I don't get motion sickness. Read on... I found a bug first time through that made me fall right through a solid bridge for no apparent reason... not a good start. Ammo is scarce and the first level has a bug swarm that annihilates you mercilessly without giving you much recourse against it. Even if you are supposed to avoid it, the door at the other end of the level has a code and I have no clue how to even ACCESS the keypad because there is no menu option to find all the controls. By trial and error I figured out that the shotgun is 3 and the assault rifle is 4... flashlight is F... standard fare. But not having a simple tutorial or at least a list of controls is unforgivable. when you go in and out of the menu you have to clic…

Within the first 5 minutes a multitude of things happened: - The game was ear-piercing with no options whatsoever - I walked on a road and instantly clipped through the earth and fell - Bombs went off and almost blew out my speakers - I got a new gun and pressed almost every key on my keyboard yet it didn't switch weapons - Three enemies with cheap models approached me and vibrated my speakers - A truck rolled against a roadside rail and instantly disappeared I managed to beat level 1 and went to level 2. A dog creature attacked me and the moment I "killed" it, it flopped over dead and then instantly cut to an attack animation hurting me no matter how far I ran. I then turned it off and here we are. My friends have made games on GameMaker Pro from scratch within 2 days that were much more enjoyable than this. The game creator has the audacity to ask for 3 bucks for this model asset Papier-mâché slop though thankfully I got it on a sale for $0.38 with some TF2 items sold for it. If you're reading this because you're looking for a hidden indie gem from a Steam Badge coupon, this ain't even close to it. I'd give constructive criticism but someone already did that and got insulted …

Oh man... this is bad, like REALLY bad. But despite of that I will give some positives, mainly in terms of the atmosphere and the sounds. It also does actually seem to have putted some effort into the story. So the game got me curious a little bit. But thats about it. Interresting setting. TERRIBLE GAMEPLAY. First of all, there is no option to save. I might have been able to torture myself through this game if such option existed, but it simply does not. And in extension of the above mentioned point: You start of level 1 and have to almost from the start look for some 4 digit key. With no way to save this is insanely frustrating, because you cant save at the door after you killed the enemies/found the few hidden areas along with a grenade launcher in the water and stuff like that. So if you look for the 4 digit code and dont find it/figure it out, your effort is just wasted. Secondly since you cant save, if you clip through the whole map like multiple times and haft to blow yourself up, you haft to redo the whole thing again, all just to look for some stupid 4 digit code that you spent your time looking for while glitching down through the ground. This is TERRIBLE. I could not …

Great game - a lot of game - well worth £3.99! Developer seems pretty proactive re. bugs/fixes and listening to feedback.