Developer: Spiral Bound Interactive
Publisher: Spiral Bound Interactive
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
You Will Die Here Tonight – Review
Spiral Bound Interactive is a new indie studio on the horror scene that seems to have ambitious goals. Their first game is an obvious homage to the original Resident Evil and it combines survival horror with arcade shooting and a roguelike form of progression. While that’s a lot to cram into one title, You Will Die Here Tonight is only a short experience clocking in at about three to four hours. But this brutal adventure is worth your time.
Story
You Will Die Here Tonight opens with a lengthy tutorial sequence where we play as a special agent at the Aries Division going through the base. As you meet the other characters, basic mechanics such as your inventory, shooting, and puzzle solving are explained. Finally, you encounter the leader and he tells you the agents have been called on a mission to Breckenridge Hall. Your reason for coming to this mansion in the middle of nowhere is left vague, as this mystery will be the main plot to delve into later. As soon as your team of six enters the home, a supernatural shock wave knocks you all out. You get to pick which of the characters you play as after that, exploring the mansion while separated from the others.
As the title of the game will have you suspect, there is a twist. Should your character die, then the game won’t force you to go back to your last save file. Instead, you get to pick one of the other characters to continue playing. Decisions made by a character will carry over and you can even find their corpses for some extra drama. It makes for a unique play-through as your deaths shape part of the story; even if the outcome remains the same.
Graphics
Seeing this game will remind the audience of the good times when the PlayStation 2 was all the rave. Retro graphics have been pretty popular lately, especially for indie devs. You Will Die Here Tonight takes it to a whole new level though, with an incredible attention to detail. Not just the general graphics and the scenery, but the menus and inventory all perfectly mimic the style of the original Resident Evil game with some additions. The segments in first-person seem lifted straight from an arcade machine too. The isometric viewpoint doesn’t shift around too much and the camera angles do not get annoying like in some games.
Sound
The retro vibe continues in the soundtrack, with a lot of music that might ring nostalgic to long-time gamers. We got a good combination of tense tracks that fit the atmosphere of the game, accompanied by great sound effects. You’ll run into a lot of nasty creatures in Breckenridge Hall and the guttural noises they make can haunt your nightmares with ease. Without voice acting, you can expect to do a lot of reading in this game.
Gameplay
You Will Die Here Tonight is a survival horror game that uses character death to create roguelike elements. The main bulk of the gameplay revolves around you running through the mansion and solving puzzles. These puzzles can range from extremely simple to rather convoluted, with some requiring a trial-and-error approach. Inspecting everything is the way to go, so you’ll be able to pick up all the items and won’t need to do needless backtracking. You never know when that random pin you found will suddenly come in handy. Your map will help you along the way and a handy list of objectives can guide you if you’re at a loss for what to do. Other things stored in your inventory aside from story items include health kits and ammo. These are in limited supply and don’t endlessly respawn through the levels, so planning is key. If you run out of ammo, you have a knife to fall back on but this is a very bad weapon that’s hard to aim. Different types of guns can be unlocked as you play.
All that gear is going to come in handy since the mansion is filled to the brim with enemies. From the expected undead to giant spiders and even several boss battles, you won’t get out of Breckenridge Hall unscathed. For combat, the game shifts into a first-person perspective with arcade mechanics. Your character stands still and you can spin in a 360-degree angle to see the enemies around you and shoot them. You have a shield to block attacks and should you get grabbed, mashing a button can save you at the cost of some health. It’s an interesting shift in gameplay that does keep things fresh, though it’s a steep learning curve. Some parts later in the game do feel almost grindy in how many enemies there are, but since the game is overall rather short we can forgive this.
If you do die to either the enemies or a trap lurking in the dark – which you inevitably will – don’t despair. As mentioned before, you can keep playing with one of the other Aries Division members. You don’t even lose key story items! None of them have unique abilities and aside from their dialogue or thoughts when interacting with stuff, they play identically. Even so, it does offer an interesting sort of respawn system, especially as your dead team members might not stay as dead as you’d like them to. There’s nothing like having to kill your former protagonist because they’re a zombie now. Overall, the execution of the game is unique enough to outweigh the few bad things such as not being able to change the controls or how tedious the combat can get during the second half.
Conclusion
You Will Die Here Tonight is a nice homage to the retro titles it draws inspiration from, while also adding some unique elements of its own. Though it’s not perfect by any means, it doesn’t outstay its welcome and offers great gameplay for people willing to put up with the cliché story. So if you want something mindless but fun, this title could be right up your alley.
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