It’s one of those weird skip weeks for the column. This July has actually turned into a big month for indie games, but at time of writing, everything is either under embargo or I haven’t gotten codes yet. As such, I’m diving back into the janky end of the pool with something I found on Steam Early Access.
To use its full title exactly once, DEADCAM | ANALOG * SURVIVAL * HORROR is a new found-footage game from Joure Visser, a solo developer in Singapore. Visser previously published Stardrop and Spookity Hollow, in addition to working on last year’s Don’t Scream.
In-universe, the “DEADCAM Files” were an urban legend for the terminally online, back in the early days of the consumer Internet. Each of the files had no known or traceable origin, showed something uniquely disturbing, and appeared slightly different to every individual viewer. They were written off as a myth, right up until the modern day, when the DEADCAM Files have abruptly resurfaced.
DEADCAM is intended as an anthology series, with each file set in a different place and time. Its first and currently only scenario, “Onryō,” takes place in an abandoned high school in 1990s Japan.
You play from the perspective of Kenji Sagawa, a former instructor at Hoshima Private Girls’ Academy, who returns to the school several years after an unspecified incident that shut it down. As you explore, you’ll gradually learn what happened, why, and how Kenji was involved.
Off the top, DEADCAM’s best asset is that it’s built in Unreal Engine 5. The hallways of the school are close to photorealistic, with unique layers of debris, graffiti, and slow erosion in every room and hallway. It’s an undeniably evocative environment, and Visser has put some real work into it. While the school does have its share of improvised barricades and locked doors, so you’re often funneled into a linear path through the building, it’s a much bigger map than I expected.
It’s also worth noting here that “Onryō” is explicitly a survival horror game, rather than forcing you to outrun or evade enemies like an Outlast or Amnesia. Once you find your first weapon, the school rapidly fills up with hostile undead schoolgirls. At that point, it’s a race to figure out where to go and what to do before you run out of health and ammunition.
The rest of the scenario, unfortunately, is boilerplate. You spend most of “Onryō” hunting for keys with which to find more keys, and much of it’s made harder than it has to be by your character’s refusal to move at a speed above a brisk walk. It’s also fond of abruptly spawning new enemies into your blind spot, which is arguably cheating.
As a whole, “Onryō” is a great map in search of a better game. Its aesthetic is a deliberate flashback to the ‘90s, with grainy shot-on-video filters and a deliberately retro UI, but the overall gameplay is equally simple.
Still, that’s part of the fun of Early Access. “Onryō” could develop into something more worthwhile with some time, a bunch of bug testing, and a few post-release tweaks. For example, it’d play better if there were a fixed number of tougher enemies, rather than a theoretically infinite number of undead students who drop after two or three hits. As it stands now, “Onryō” can feel more like a weird beat-’em-up than survival horror.
As a testbed for future short horror scenarios, there’s some overall promise in DEADCAM. It’s got a flexible core concept, and if “Onryō” demonstrates one thing, it’s Visser’s knack for environmental design. I wouldn’t even call it bad so much as somewhat generic.
If “Onryō” is meant to be reflective of what comes next, however, then DEADCAM is doomed to end up as the video game equivalent of one of those 5-films-for-$5 discs that you used to see in electronics stores. Its next scenarios don’t necessarily have to go bigger than “Onryō,” but they absolutely should go much weirder.
[DEADCAM | ANALOG * SURVIVAL * HORROR, published and developed by Joure Visser, is now available on Steam Early Access for $7.99. This column was written using a Steam code purchased by Hard Drive.]
