It was a somewhat hungover me that staggered out of bed this morning. After a botched attempt at making a cup of tea I decided that I should go easy on myself with something a bit simpler than the top-down tactical battles of the last two days. Still, I’m not sure Penumbra: Overture was the best place to go in my fragile state.

What is it?

Penumbra: Overture is the first part of a trilogy of first-person horror games with adventure game style leanings to them. physics theory are the name of the game when it comes to puzzles and combat as there are no guns available to your lead character.

Why’d you buy it?

I honestly have no idea. All three games were available as a package sale on Steam. I may have been drunk.

The Playtest:

1:30 – Ah, the familiar gamma correction check. Change the settings until the picture in the box is barely visible. How else would we know that it’s a horror game? Unfortunately none of these changes seem to be possible through the software and I’m sure as hell not playing about with my monitor’s settings. This could be a little bright but perhaps that’s no bad thing.

4:30 – Introduction. Why is it that the type of person that sends a letter to you after they die is also always the type of person that will have set up a safety deposit box within a bank that was taken out in your name?

5:00 – From the sounds of the main character’s narration he is going to die. This takes the pressure off a bit. If the aim of the game is to get the main character killed then I’m your man.

5:30 – And into the main game proper. I’m on a ship. “Finally, we’re almost docked, I’d better stow my gear. I may be far from home, but chances are I can still pick things up using ‘Left-Mouse.’” Good to know that use of the left mouse button isn’t tied to your proximity from home. I’ve never understood why developers include tutorials within a character’s speech or writing. Do they think it’s immersive to have an in-game character tell you what you should press to perform an action? It isn’t. In fact it reminds me that I’m sat in front of a keyboard being talked to by a game character. That’s the opposite of immersion.

9:00 – Ooh! If you want to open a draw or a chest you have to click the mouse to grab the handle and drag it open. Okay so it’s a blatant gimmick but it’s really tactile and satisfying when coupled with what seems to be a fairly robust physics theory engine. I’m impressed.

11:30 – “So cold… don’t know where I am… need shelter soon. I’ve jotted down a note just in case.” In case of what? In case you forget that you’re freezing to death and need shelter? Is that really likely?

15:00 – So far the combat is a little like using the Gravity Gun in Half-Life 2. Except instead of the Gravity Gun you use you hands. Also, instead of enemies I’ve only defeated some ice so far.

20:00 – I’m currently wandering through a series of caves with rooms built into them. I’m using a hammer I picked up to smash open crates in case there are goodies within. This game is turning into Oblivion with hammers.

Well obviously I'll be wanting to go to the explosives room.

21:30 – Going around in circles. Absolutely no idea what I’m meant to be doing or where I’m meant to be going. This is an adventure game after all.

25:00 – Nuts. Looks like our hero is a bit emo. “Our entire society is a network of safety nets: emergency services at the end of a phoneline, health and safety in the workplace, friends, family, lovers. All there if something goes wrong, part of a carefully designed structure to prevent all but the most mundane of emotions.” I might have found it easier to sympathise with his half-baked sociological guff if it wasn’t so obvious that he’d never walked home from Manchester at 3 in the morning.

32:00 – Looks like the gameplay is going to be heavily stealth based. No guns means that throwing barrels is the name of the game. Not that I’ve found any enemies yet, but I can at least throw the barrels into other barrels.

35:00 – Mind altering chemicals and high suicide rates… The plot thickens. I do have a question about the plot actually: What the fuck is up with the plot? So Philip K. Grumpypants gets a letter from his dead father telling him to go to a safety deposit box and destroy the contents. Inside is a book that proves to be untranslatable and a map pointing to an area of Greenland. For absolutely no good reason our boy travels to Greenland on his own to look for God only knows what. I hope the rest of this game brought some Polyfilla along, because we’ve got some serious plot holes to be sorted out.

40:00 – The key to the chest was in the same room as the chest? Guys, that’s not how an adventure game works!

45:00 – The first enemy has appeared. It seems to be a dog. A little disappointing perhaps, but I think I’ll keep out of his way all the same.

50:00 – Well I’ve picked up a Zippo so this trip may have been worthwhile after all. Also I’m not sure if that breathing sound is my character or something else.

I've always followed the school of algebra that asserts Zippo + Fuel = Dead Spider + Happy Face.

53:00 – As far as I can see the only purpose of the artifacts I keep finding is to give me trippy little sepia flashes. This probably means they’re important… Also annoying.

54:00 – Despite the character’s continuing assertion that these barrels could contain anything, so far every single one of them, without exception, has contained precisely nothing.

1:00:00 – I’ve entered the spider tunnels. Some research notes lying on the floor tell me that the spiders in this cave are delicious. That sounds like a claim worth investigating, but I’m out of time.

Conclusion:

Strangely this game reminded me a lot of the Half-Life 2 mod Dear Esther: atmospheric, sinister and also quite slow. Of course Penumbra actually has some gameplay to it as well and that’s where the whole experience could fall down. So far the exploration seems intriguing enough and, although the puzzles are a little easy, at least the mechanic of having to move the objects using some approximation of that motion is tactile and surprisingly enjoyable. I have a feeling the combat is going to be bobbins but I also don’t see this as being a particularly long game (it was originally meant to be episodic) so I’ll probably stick it out. The biggest flaw seem to be the main character, who is just unlikable and whiny, but it looks like he’ll be dead by the conclusion of this story so that’s something to look forward to.