Like survival horror games? Like indie games? Can’t afford to drop $20 on Amnesia: The Dark Descent?
If you answered yes to any of those questions, you’re in the right place. A young artist named Lasse Nielsen has created and released Candles, a game that’s even indie-er, even cheaper, and…well, about the same amount of survival horror goodness as Amnesia was
Candles is completely free and was released last week. It’s still in the early stages, which means there may be lingering bugs, but Nielsen has already released the first patch to fix a few of the more obnoxious ones. In Candles, the player travels through a dark house, lighting candles along the way to kill lurking imps.
Sound simple? Sure, if you’re playing the game in a well-lit room with the sound turned down. But if you do it the right way – headphones at adequate volume, no lights on, preferably late at night – you’ll be sure to wet your pants like I did. To be fair, it was just water that I spilled as a result of knocking over the glass on my desk – but it’s still a testament to the game’s creep factor that it got me to jump that much.
Candles is very impressive for several reasons. It’s free, it was developed over the course of only ten weeks, and it has a perfectly fitting soundtrack and beautiful graphics. You can download the game (did I mention it’s free?) at Nielsen’s blog, http://blog.lasse-westmark.dk.
The game is still in development, and includes a build for both Windows and Macs.