By Philip Orona
The Survival Horror genre is a crowded field with heavyweight champs like Resident Evil, Dead Space, Silent Hill and many others with the aforementioned being the standard bearers. The same genre is also filled with a ton of copy cats and also-rans who seek to capture a piece of that bloody delicious horror jumpscare game space. The nostalgic minds at Spiral Bound Interactive have sought to throw their hat into the ring with a deceptively simple premise of starting with a well worn template in order to deceive the general public into thinking this a generic clone of Resident evil. Spoiler alert, it works.
At first glance the similarities between ‘You will die here tonight’ (known here forth as YWDHT) and Resident Evil are striking, almost lawsuit inducing. However once you really start playing the game, you will see the massive divergence. You begin as a new member of the ARIES squad (Aries while the god of war is also a group of S.T.A.R.S *wink*) who is meeting her team for the first time and was recruited as a “Bio-Hazard” (*wink* *wink*) specialist for a very specific mission, to bring in a rogue scientist. Once the six members are assembled, you break into the front door of an old mansion with a grand staircase in the foyer (*wi– aw forget it, i’ll be blinking the whole review if I keep doing this). As expected, insanity happens and your team is separated. The mission now is to find your teammates, find the scientist and get out. This all sounds very familiar indeed. After lots of story and exposition you end up communicating with one of the team members and you must find your way into the basement.
Once you make your way to the basement lab, the situation goes sideways. Afterwards, Hijinks and groundhog day ensues with the rogue like elements taking hold. Your playable members eventually wake up in the basement lab with a killer headache, a basic gun and a mission to escape someone’s twisted game of human mouse trap. If your character dies, you end up back at a character\team member select screen and basically pick up where the last person left off, with all found items and weapons being available to you. After a death, you move from team member to team member until you run out of team. When the last person expires, a countdown begins from 10 and the game allows you to “Insert a coin” to continue. If you do, you start again with all 6 team members and all of the previous items, weapons and clues in hand to continue the quest to unravel the mystery of the mansion. If you don’t, you start back from mission HQ with only some progress from the previous mission being carried over.
Each member of the team has a specific skill. For example, the gungho action bro is a weapons junky who can upgrade weapons with the right items, the medic scientist can whip up first-aid packs (if you have found the right plants) and the IT hacker incel can work with any electronics you may find in the house. Even in death, your teammates can still act as a team despite not being able to work together directly, especially since anything done by a previous character before their death carries over to the next player’s run, even damage to boss monsters.
Unlike other “residents” in the Survivor Horror genre, this game is portrayed from a top down isometric view. When you do encounter a zombie creature, you aim and hit the attack button and combat begins in an almost RPG like fashion but it becomes a first person mode shooter until the creature (or creatures) is\are downed. During combat the creature’s attempt to get close enough to swipe or bite. Other creatures have weapons that can be thrown at you like scythes or hand axes. If you run out of ammo for an equipped weapon, you can either spend a few seconds to reload, switch to another weapon with bullets if you have one or it’s down to your trusty knife. It is possible to be surrounded by monster creatures and you will have to circle around to keep them off of you until they start to drop.
Oh, let’s not forget the traps! If something you do releases a notable mechanical sound, Admiral Ackbar would like to have a word with you. The mechanical means of death are quick, cruel and sometimes unavoidable. There are some situations that almost guarantee a player’s death and occasionally in an almost hilarious fashion depending on which team mate it is (which also means specific dialogue for each). There are puzzles and clues abound to which solving them unlocks new items, story tidbits and sections of the mansion. Some puzzles combine with traps. Get the puzzle wrong and it’s saw time!
While the graphics are nothing groundbreaking, it’s the atmosphere that really sells the anxiety inducing feeling of dread around every corner. As you walk the corridors, you can hear haggard breathing, low growls of unseen undead and sometimes, eerie music coming from some room in the house. The skipping phonograph at one point in the game is used to amazing effect. The sound design of the game really went above and beyond here. The controls work as expected, thank the divine above that the player is not saddled with tank controls. Traditional movement is a godsend, and a run button helps you try to escape a potential battle with deadly enemies if you are out of ammo. It is a good thing that ammo is much more plentiful in this mansion than its residentially evil forebears.
YWDHT is an unexpected delight of survivor horror that one could dismiss as an isometric overhead copycat. What starts as an overly nostalgic “me too” quickly becomes its own with its mesh of trap usage, story heavy dialogue and rogue-like game play. YWDHT is well worth its weight in gold, especially if you have a steam deck (It runs great on the deck) and some head phones for that intimately close encounter with the 4th kind, just make sure to play with the lights off for the ultimate effect.
Things I liked:
- Sound Design
- Combat
- The games subversive nature
Things I would improve:
- Stop throwing that almost unkillable randomly appearing maid zombie at me!
Similar alternatives:
- Silent Hill series
- Resident Evil Series
- Almost anything with Zombies really.
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