Enjoying Heartworm’s demo as a part of October’s Steam Subsequent Fest was a headache-inducing time, admittedly, but it surely made me really feel that slightest bit nearer to the protagonist, Sam. Virtually instantly within the demo, we get a way that Sam is in misery, mourning her family members and searching for a remedy for her grieving within the depths of web boards.
With nothing handy however a digicam, a lighter, and a few cigarettes, it’s all on you — as Sam — to navigate this haunting place and see whether or not or not the rumors are true. Rumors of a particular place the place folks will be reunited with their long-lost family members, discovered within the deepest recesses of the web. Rumors that those that go to this particular place by no means come again. That doesn’t cease Sam, although.
The whirring static of deserted televisions and misplaced souls accompanies you as quickly as you move by way of the brink and into this unusual, otherworldly place amongst the mountains, and also you instantly really feel as if one thing is watching you. It’s this sense that jogs my memory of latest indie survival-horror, Hollowbody, which equally had some positive particulars that had you questioning your sanity.
Heartworm additionally doesn’t clarify what it’s or what you’re doing and why. Other than the primary few tutorials, and the chance to decide on whether or not you need fashionable or tank controls, the sport leaves you to your personal units, and also you’re in for fairly the journey if this 20-30 minute demo is a pattern of what gamers ought to count on. As you discover the streets and the empty houses alongside them, you’ll come throughout puzzles and normal oddities, from a pile of static-blaring televisions in the midst of the road, to a porch plagued by videotapes, to the unusual static creatures you’ll find yourself combating.
To overcome these, you are taking images, and the shutter of your digicam does the injury. It’s all very Deadly Body, and even jogs my memory of the Darkish and Deep demo I performed throughout June’s Steam Subsequent Fest, through which gamers have to make use of picture frames to work together with the atmosphere and expel threats.
You’ll discover homes that lead you into fully new areas, hallways adorned with a questionable quantity of masks, and a normal sense that one thing isn’t fairly proper on this world that Sam has discovered herself exploring within the hope she may simply get some solutions.
My time with the demo concluded with a timeskip to a boss combat with, sadly, a gargantuan spider able to lifting buses with ease. Not solely that, however the creature might spawn smaller, exploding spiders that actually tripped Sam up throughout my first try on the combat. This massively felt like a change of tempo from the haunting streets that Heartworm had me exploring prior, but it surely definitely confirmed me that Heartworm’s boss fights are not any joke. Although, as soon as once more I’m questioning as to how and why Sam ended up right here, and why she hasn’t but turned again and gone residence.
Impressed by the likes of Resident Evil, Dino Disaster, and Silent Hill, Heartworm definitely feels very Silent Hill in that it’s laborious to discern what’s actual and what isn’t, and the truth that Sam doesn’t appear to care concerning the threats that loom; all she cares about is being reunited with them, as soon as extra. Who they’re, I don’t know, however I’m eager to seek out out as soon as Heartworm lastly releases.
Heartworm is obtainable to wishlist on Steam now.