For a solo developer (working against the inevitable time, resourcing, and technical constraints that come with that territory), Daniel Ferrer has set himself quite the challenge with his latest project.
On the surface, Among Ashes may not look like much, boasting — as it does — lo-fi visuals and rudimentary mechanics. But should you afford it more than a passing glance, hidden depths upon hidden depths will gradually reveal themselves. Considering how much is going on under the hood here, and the fact that just one man is responsible for it all, it’s a very ambitious undertaking that deserves to be commended.
What’s so remarkable is that the self-reliant Ferrer (aka Rat Cliff Games) has effectively produced three experiences for the price of one. There’s the main game itself, the game within that game that your housebound avatar is playing at the start, and then yet another game that they later switch to after getting bored. There are definitely varying degrees of quality to them, and you can tell which of the trio received the most TLC from its creator, but the important thing is that it all feels like part of a cohesive whole.
Indeed, rather than haphazardly lumping together a few disconnected ideas, we’re convinced that everything Among Ashes throws at you has a real purpose and we’re dying to find out how those disparate jigsaw pieces all come together in the finished product. Although we’ve only had a brief appetizer so far — courtesy of a 30-minute demo — we’re willing to go out on a limb here and say that this is one title (or more accurately three) that’s worth keeping an eye on.
I Want To Play A Game
For simplicity’s sake, whenever we refer to Among Ashes from here on out it will be because we’re talking about the framing device in which the other two metagames (Demon Blood and Night Call) are situated. If we don’t nip that in the bud right away then there’s a danger this preview will start to feel like an inscrutable legal document. One littered with off-putting footnotes, confusing sentence qualifiers, and explanatory clauses that are guaranteed to make your head explode ala Scanners.
With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s get into it. Among Ashes opens on an eerily familiar scene, as our protagonist lazes at a desk in his crappy one-bedroom apartment, bathed in the fluorescent glow of a computer monitor and surrounded by tacky Christmas ornaments. From this sad tableau, we can immediately deduce that he’s spending the yuletide all by his lonesome, and that his solution for staving off the holiday blues is to violently kill things in a brand new “Quake knockoff” that he’s just downloaded to his PC.
In case this sets off alarm bells, you needn’t worry. You’re not trapped in the (B.O. fragranced) shoes of some horrible incel here. On the contrary, a quick snoop through his messaging history provides assurance that: A) he does in fact have friends; and B) his current isolation is largely down to poor scheduling. You see, he’s recently moved out of his parents’ house but everyone else in his rolodex is busy, including his roommate and/or romantic partner — the latter of whom we learn is out of town visiting family.
Of course, as any gamer with irksome social obligations will attest, this turn of events can be a blessing in disguise sometimes; freeing you up for the kind of all-nighter sessions that you rarely get to indulge as an adult. And so our avatar takes this opportunity to embark on a holly jolly murder spree; blasting away at satanic hordes in the aforementioned Quake wannabee: Demon Blood. Although truth be told, the title actually bears a much stronger resemblance to a certain other ID Software classic (with enemy sprites that are just barely distinct from cacodemons and imps).
Anyway, it’s at this point that the reins are handed over to us and we get to play a slice of Demon Blood. Or, more accurately, we get to play as somebody else who is, in turn, playing Demon Blood. Keeping up so far?
The title itself is a fairly meat & potatoes boomer shooter. As per genre tradition, we’ve got to navigate traps, weave between incoming projectiles, scour the environment for hidden secrets, and reduce monsters to gooey giblets with our trusty shotgun. It’s nothing special, but it sufficiently engages our lizard brain.
There’s only one problem. The introductory boss is a real fucking asshole: unphased by buckshot and obliterating our health bar with honing attacks that seem to be incapable of missing. It might only be the first level, but our character doesn’t have the patience for this Dark Souls shit and gives up after only a couple of tries. Which is a pretty relatable response honestly.
To be fair, it doesn’t help that our buddy Mark keeps pestering us in the chat window, trying to persuade us to abandon Demon Blood altogether and download this other game that’s currently garnering some notoriety online. All too easily distracted, we end up following a suspicious URL forwarded to us by Mark that leads us down a very peculiar rabbit hole. We guess that asshole boss is just gonna have to wait for now.
“Contains Scenes of Explicit Violence and Gore”
Scanning the (in-universe) landing page that we’ve been directed to, we can’t find much information on Night Call. All we can glean is that it’s a tribute to the vintage survival horrors of yesteryear — in the vein of old school Resident Evil — and that its creator has vehemently denounced it after realizing it was giving off spooky vibes. However, they still left the executable file up for anybody to access, so they’re obviously not too worried about its potential status as a death curse!
You see, rumor has it that Night Call is an especially nasty piece of malware, functioning as a kind of digital equivalent to the Ringu tape. According to this urban legend, there’s something wicked and malevolent etched into the game’s very code. Something that’s beyond the control of even its guilt-wracked author. So, naturally, dickheads like our pal Mark have started daring each other to download it; in spite of mounting evidence that this is a bad idea.
Alas, our curiosity gets the better of us, as it has done for many others in the past, and we end up caving to Mark’s peer pressure. The illicit thrill of tasting forbidden fruit is just too damn enticing and before you know it we’re installing “Imsorry.exe”. Which we’re sure you’ll agree is an encouraging omen.
Having said that, the first impression Night Call makes ain’t too shabby. As far as cursed media goes, it’s actually kinda cool. Usually, this sort of thing is intended to be nothing more than a delivery mechanism for evil, as opposed to content that is meant to be enjoyed in its own right. As such, the quality of the experience often ranks secondary to its ability to inflict and spread the most possible harm.
Credit to the dark forces in this instance then, for making a game that is pretty fun. Compared to the Sadako tape, it’s at least coherent, nicely put together, and worth recommending to a friend (even if that endorsement means dooming them to a terrible fate).
We suspect the reason it’s turned out so well is that its real-life developer, in Ferrer, has a genuine affection for the games he’s paying homage to. A familiar tale of first-responders answering a distress call at a remote mansion plagued by monsters: there’s no prizes for guessing where it’s taken its main inspiration from.
Indeed, even before the zombies turn up, you can feel the palpable RE influence in everything from the heart rate monitor that tracks your wellbeing to the way that key items are highlighted green in text descriptions, the limited amount of saves you are permitted, and the assorted bleeps & bloops that sound off when you’re parsing the interface screens. Hell, the cutscenes lift entire shots directly from Shinji Mikami’s 1996 masterpiece, although the fixed camera angles have sadly been traded for a less authentic first-person POV when it comes to the gameplay.
Meanwhile, from Silent Hill Ferrer borrows the general layout of the inventory menu, as well as the compulsion to namedrop famous horror authors at every juncture (the cast of characters here include an Amy Lovecraft, alongside a housekeeper called Jack King and a Dr. Francis Stoker). Not to mention, the recovery item of choice here is a little bottle of pills that we’re sure James Sunderland would be eager to start popping.
Beyond those superficial elements, however, you can tell that Ferrer just fundamentally gets this subgenre. The atmosphere is spot on and there’s a welcome emphasis on exploration and riddle-solving over combat. We’re not ashamed to say that at one point we even got a little bit stuck, albeit that was mainly because the default brightness setting is absurdly dim; causing us to miss crucial details in the environment.
And while combat may not be the primary focus here, it doesn’t let the side down either. We only dealt with a couple of enemies in our preview, but the melee was satisfyingly weighty and, though nowhere near as cathartic as Demon Blood’s, the gunplay side of things got the job done.
It didn’t hurt that the grisly creatures we faced were themselves quite unsettling to behold (in spite of, or maybe because of, their blocky, polygonal appearance). If you imagine the titular OAP from those Granny games crossed with a maniacal deadite then you’re in the right ballpark. Suffice it to say, we’re looking forward to spending more time with this gruesome lot, as they managed to get under our skin with just a few fleeting encounters.
A Video Game That Truly Is Bad For You
We became so immersed in the nostalgic charms of Night Call after a while that we almost forgot we weren’t really playing it. Instead, we were controlling some shmuck sat at his computer desk, whiling away the hours on a cold December evening.
Occasional 4th wall breaks would help reinforce that notion, whether they came in the form of self-aware commentary from Mark in the chat, or a clever moment in which we had to bypass a “glitched” puzzle by enlisting the aid of the PC gamer community. Hopefully Among Ashes has more of these meta interactions up its sleeve when it launches later this year, as they certainly piqued our interest. Already you can tell that there’s potential for this to go to some very exciting places if Ferrer commits to the bit, particularly when it comes to the horror.
Speaking of which, the most notable example we have of Night Call bleeding over into Among Ashes proper is its obligatory creepy ghost girl. Again recalling Sadako from The Ring, this diminutive phantom stalks us throughout the metagame, even though her presence is never remarked upon by any of the characters. She’s evidently not part of the original Night Call story, her various appearances are abrupt & jarring, and her visual aesthetic isn’t inkeeping with the rest of the assets.
In short, you get the distinct impression that she doesn’t quite belong. Perhaps she’s a leftover from a previous build, or maybe this inexplicable bug is more paranormal in nature. Getting a little wigged out either way, it’s at this point that our avatar finally rises from his office chair and decides to stretch his legs.
We’re then able to dip our toes into the third and final part of the Among Ashes package, but this section lasts roughly two minutes before the demo comes to a chilling end. Transitioning from the retro delights of Night Call to a more contemporary type of horror, the “real world” stuff here evokes the likes of P.T., MADiSON, or Visage. You know, the kind of thing where you traipse around a mundane, domestic environment experiencing increasingly unsettling phenomena, until a terrifying ghoul jumps out of nowhere to send you into cardiac arrest.
The spectral troublemaker in this instance being, you guessed it, that young pipsqueak who somehow infiltrated the code of Night Call. Only now she’s set up shop in our dingey apartment building where she proceeds to: indulge in all manner of poltergeist activity, taunt us from behind peepholes, and materialize out of thin air to give us a good jolt. The latter moment serving as a tantalizing cliffhanger for our demo.
Suffice it to say, it’s an intriguing set-up, even if creepy ghost girls are a little played out by now. We’re definitely curious to see where things go from here, and are also eager to find out how this adolescent apparition ties into the cryptic lore of Night Call. Oh, and while we’re at it, we wouldn’t mind having a rematch with that boss from Demon Blood if it’s still on the cards.
In other words, we’re excited to return to each of the individual games that make up Among Ashes; which is a pretty great result for something that’s the work of one man. Let’s hope Ferrer manages to stick (all three) landings when the finished product hits Steam later this year.
Developed and self-published by Rat Cliff Games, Among Ashes is set for release in Q4 of 2024. The demo we played is available as part of the Steam Next Fest (October 14 – October 21).
The post ‘Among Ashes’ Offers Three Horror Experiences for the Price of One; Let’s Dive into the Demo appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.