Still Wakes the Deep on Steam
store.steampowered.com
1975. Disaster strikes the Beira D oil rig off the coast of Scotland. Navigate the collapsing rig to save your crew from an otherworldly horror on the edge of all logic and reality in this 3x BAFTA Games Award-winning narrative horror experience.

It’s pretty short at around 4-5 hours. I found the gameplay was excellent. I found difficulty was just right. It never got too frustrating, but I always felt challenged. It never got boring, and it was really fun to see how the environment kept changing as the game progressed. It also does a really good job of doing story telling through gameplay. I find a lot of games tend to have a game portion and a story portion. Here, they managed to blend both story telling and the game completely seamlessly. Highly recommend if you enjoy this genre of a game.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
      2·
      16 hours ago

      I find it’s such a great example of how less is more. I started playing Alan Wake 2 before it, and ended up giving up because I found the game was just tedious. There was just too much stuff going on like the memory palace, and environments where you just had to amble around without a clear purpose. I feel like there was a good core game idea that they just ended up adding to much stuff on top of. With Still Wakes the Deep you just have a really lean game that stays focused on its core concept. And I think it’s a good example how a smaller studio ends up making a much better game because it has limited resources.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
      6·
      15 hours ago

      I find short is actually a feature. There are very few games that can really justify the hours you need to beat them. Things just tend to get repetitive and the game turns into a chore. Keeping the game short means it doesn’t outstay its welcome.