Nightmare of Decay

 

Nightmare of Decay at first glance looked to be heavily inspired by Classic Resident evil. Takes place in a Mansion full of zombies, with limited resources, and in the trailer it even has a copy of that iconic Resident Evil 1 slowly head turning zombie cutscene. That's all I needed to see for me to be interested in getting the game.

There is only two difficulties, Normal and Hard. Well I usually don't play games on the hardest difficulty on the first play through, so of course I went with Normal. The game then starts with a short cutscene of a TV news station broadcast about a missing girl. The voice "acting" or lack thereof is immediately striking. It's just random short noises, almost like Animal Crossing or Banjo Kazooie, leans more into the silly or goofy vibe than scary or horror which kinda threw me off for a second there.


Then the game starts off with you playing inside your apartment, with I guess a basic short tutorial showing you how to pickup objects, such as a piece of pizza, how to open the inventory, and how to microwave it.

But before long you go to sleep in your bed and start having a nightmare and now the game really begins.
You're breaking out of a coffin, then standing outside a mansion.

There's a talking cat, also....

Then you're encountering the first zombie, with the iconic ripoff of the RE1 Zombie cutscene where you get your gun and knife.
From here the game is familliar to fans of classic RE where you just go around this mansion, finding keys, unlocking new areas and making your way through it and the mystery surrounding it.

The graphics have this heavy bitcrush effect over them, like there are interesting classical paintings all over the mansion, which are always fun to stop and look at, many famous creepy pieces - but the stylized graphics make everything look kind of low bit depth, like 256 bits or something. Not in a bad way really, its a cool style. There is also a chunky pixelated vibe over everything also, like a PS1 game. The aesthetic works well to give you that vibe of oldschool horror games, but the game is obviously a low budget indie game, especially the general geometry and archetecture of the levels and mansion. Like everything is just a boxy corridor or a square room, theres no elaborate geometry or anything, its obviously just a guy piecing together basic shapes in the Unity editor kind of thing. But thats not nessesarily bad, it actually works quite well and it is charming how hes managed to put together a convincing enough mansion from just these basic shapes and graphics. Rooms for example arent literally connected, every door you enter causes this brief dark screen where it basically teleports the player to a new level, of course this is what classic RE games did, its not really a problem, but it leans more into that minimalistic sort of low fidelity game design, its not like the mansion is truly connected, its more like an illusion.

Of course the biggest distinction of this game and the games its taking inspiration from is the gameplay perspective. Classic survival horror like Resident evil or even Silent hill have third person tank controls and fixed camera angles. The lack of totally fluid and smooth control kind of adds to the urgency and dread of the whole experience, however here in Nightmare of Decay it is a first person shooter, with smooth modern controls and sensibilites. So my main concern is that the gameplay in this style would be too easy, without the fixed camera angles not knowing whats around the corner and with the high mobility It's quite easy to move your way around and avoid the zombies. Although the game does have a stamina system, you can sprint freely when there are no enemies around, but it seems like when you are within a certain radius to enemies it limits your sprint and only lets you sprint shortly before you get exhausted. This works well and helps the balance. Even moving backwards is considerably slower than moving forwards, which further helps the balance against the zombies. Because most of the time you are stepping back away from zombies, but moving backwards is very slow, so it forces you to move forwards towards the zombie or diagnally, this helps heighten the tension at least.

The gun combat also has a bit of depth to it - you can't just shoot freely as much as you want and expect to be accurate. The crosshair is large until you stay still for awhile, then it becomes small and you are then accurate. So if you just shoot without waiting your bullets wont go where you want. This is a nice touch, and adds further tension and deliberation in zombie encounters. There are even these Pullet gun shooting ranges you come across (One in the beginning of the game, one towards the end), where you shoot targets to practice your aim, and it rewards you with prizes depending on how good you do. (Just ammo and health) , a fun little addition.

But really my suspicions were mostly confirmed, the game is really easy. While its true I did play on difficulty 1 of 2, Normal instead of Hard, it would have been nice if the default difficulty had a bit more challenge to it. Most of the game you are going around this admittedly not very large mansion, theres only really a dozen or so rooms with a few key items you need, first its a couple coins to unlock a new path, some keys, a kings Crown, a few vials of chemicals to make acid - its mostly standard stuff going room to room, clearing out the zombies and picking up the key items to unlock new areas of the mansion. But the actual combat encounters are pretty stress free and easy, the zombies are very slow shamblers in true oldschool fashion, but they just dont pose much of a threat. Especially since ammo is quite plentiful. I almost always had dozens of pistol bullets, a dozen health items, and later on with the shotgun, dozens of shotgun shells. Also, unlike classic Resident Evil, the game does not have limited saves. There are save points all over the place, and you can save infinitely. Even on the Hard mode there are no limited saves, I think it would of been a nice stressful addition to the game to have limited saves, similar to Ink Ribbons. It really enhances the tension and dread.

Even the map is super powerful, in other survival horror games sure there would be a map, but it wouldn't be the most useful thing ever or be super detailed, you'd still have to memorize the enviornment. But the map here in Nightmare of Dread is very useful and convienent - almost too much, you can hover over each part of the game and it will show icons of each door and each puzzle area, it will show you if theres anything left in the room (okay , RE does this too), its just very easy to constantly stare at this map instead of having to learn the enviornment. Honestly, Hard Mode should delete the map feature, and incorporate Limited Saves, as well as disable Sprint entirely, and of course have an achivement for beating it - that would be an interesting addition and would probably make me replay.

The game of course has an inventory system, which is quite well done. You just press tab to open a list of things youve obtained, with their own icons and 3D display and a description, you can use your health items here instantly, and it even pauses the game when you open your inventory. Its fun to just go around collecting items and having a big list of things to sift through.

Still, the game is very entertaining and engaging the whole way. Its very , very short. I beat it in under 2 hours, actually 1 hour 40 minutes accoording to the ending screen. First you go through the mansion, you encounter all sorts of bizarre things; theres a boss fight which is this big meat puppet guy in a kitchen meat room, you also encounter this weird gaping hole on the wall with a monster you can talk to which asks you to bring him three female heads, bizarre but interesting, you go around the mansion more collecting items eventually getting the Kings crown, to unlock a boss fight with some Knights and an archer, then you start going into the basement and eventually down into some big secret dungeon which was pretty cool. There is a decent variety of enemies, but they don't get used too often, I'd say 75% of the enemies are the standard slow zombies, but sometimes you come across Dogs (theres maybe like, 4 in the whole game), and also at one point you come across a Drunk guy in a cabin whom you can talk to, and the goofy "voice acting" comes back again, honestly its kind of weird the game has so much humor and silliness to it, it kinda breaks the horror atmosphere a bit. I don't hate it and I don't love it, its kinda just out of place. But it does crack a smile. But anyway, this drunk guy is sitting there at the table, and you collect an item in the next room, and then all of a sudden the door bursts down and its the freaking Cultists from the game Blood. No really, its unmistakable. They look the same, they mumble the same cryptic occult language. So to my surprise you actually have a few gun battles against other humans, which was fun and a nice change of pace although its a bit few and far between, only happens like twice in the whole game. Maybe 6 cultists total.

The game really wears its influences on its sleeves; the game Blood, obviously Resident Evil, and even at one point you come across freaking James Sunderland from Silent Hill 2. No really, its obviously him. Theres a cutscene where he gets killed. It's like constant fan-service , I mean I enjoy it, but it also adds to the games silliness. It's not a super gritty, serious, scary game, it often breaks the fourth wall and tries to be funny, which I guess in one sense is kinda disappointing if you want a brutal horror game, but in another sense it is nonstop entertaining so I can't complain. At one point in the dungeon area, you even come across a dying guy who's like "In the next room is a very dangerous enemy...do not even try to fight it, it is way too strong" ... so you go through this room, you come across some random medevial skeleton enemies which kinda felt out of place but fine whatever, then you come across a boss fight of this super scary dangerous enemy - guess what it is? A damn bunny rabbit. No really, thats all it is. A regular bunny rabbit with red eyes. And it's a boss fight. More silly, goofy stuff. further showing you that this isn't a cold and tense horror game, but is full of fourth wall goofy jokes. Now the first time I fought this boss I headed the guys words and just ran away, but It spawned skeletons and all sorts of enemies aggro'd at me and I just died over and over (my first death the whole game).

So the next time I just fought the bunny head on, shotgun blasts to the face, healed myself when I took damage, killed the bunny got an achievement and a key. The key unlocked some nearby chest with a Holy Water in it , which is basically just a powerful grenade that I only had one use of.

The game has a handful of other intense moments, one of the boss fights is a Chainsaw psycho, which was another death of mine. The first time you encounter him he sprints straight at you and chainsaws you to death in 2 seconds. How is anyone gonna anticipate that? It took me a few deaths of trial and error to get past this guy, basically I just stunlocked him with the Magnum then you have to get behind him and shoot his weakspot. There are also these electric generators around the arena you can shoot to damage him, but you barely get any sprint meter so it felt like a worse option than just stunlocking him. Still a cool boss fight thematically.

Another boss fight is a giant Spider, of course also inspired by RE1. A cool fight where you have to use your knife to get the web off you, but I also just stunlocked this spider with the Magnum. The game is , as I said, pretty easy, and it gives you ample ammo even for the super powerful Magnum. There is another moment where you go into a room and theres a "insane woman" hacking up some corpse, you walk up to her and she attacks you, then you kill her and can chop off her head, which is then an inventory item. This is for the weird gaping hole monster on the wall, a deranged and interesting addition to the game, to go around collecting these heads.

The game does have an interesting variety of locations, actually. You have the mansion with its different hallways, colored rooms, and set pieces, but you also have the Cellar which is flooded with water, where zombies are laying underwater where you can barely see then, jumpscaring you, which was a cool location. There is the outdoors courtyard area, the basement, the Dungeon full of spiders, you have the more medevial Knight places, and more.

There are pretty basic puzzles, no real head scratchers, its just enough to keep you engaged and using your brain. Simple puzzles involving cranks of different shapes to move blocks around in some room, puzzles to put the coins in the right place reading the plauqe description, a puzzle mixing three chemicals together, a simple puzzle involving setting a clock, a puzzle throwing something down a chute to unstick it, etc. I'm glad there is some light puzzle solving, as I said it keeps you using your brain minimally, and they're not too annoying where you'll be stuck for a dozen minutes figuring them out. So well done there.

That's pretty much the game, the dungeon is the last area of the game, you have to just go around and find three golden squares to unlock some bridge, pretty easy to find them all just search each room, you unlock the bridge and come across the final boss which is this like medevial knight wearing a suit of armor shooting magical spells at you and summoning fantasy enemies like Skeletons and goats... which again, was kinda out of place? I mean I know Resident Evil has bizarre creatures too, but its not really fantasy based, its all biological mutations and stuff, this is just weird RPG fantasy stuff, like its fine, but also goes to show how jarring some of the tones are freuqently in this game, to the silly voice acting, the random zaney humor, and now these fantasy elements. It doesnt really come together to make a coherent horror game, but a mishmash of random ideas and atmospheres. In a way it adds to its uniqueness and identity, but if youre looking for a dreadful horror game through and through this isn't really it. The last boss was simple enough, just used the magnum and spammed health kits because I had so many because the game is so giving with its resources. You wake up from your nightmare back in your apartment, go outside in the hallway and theres the talking cat again, (whom sometimes pops up throughout the game, further adding to the almost silly tone of the game) , then the monster appears from the dark hallway and drags you in and then the game ends. It shows your final time, and says some extra features are unlocked.

Sadly I did not find all three of the womans heads for the wall monster, and when I went back to load my save to go find the last one, I accidentally overwrote my save with the ending apartment segment so I can't go back. I was curious and looked up what getting the three heads gets you anyway, turns out it just gets you some holy water which again, is like a one time use grenade, it would kinda only be useful on the final boss anyway, who was already easy so whatever.

That's Nightmare of Decay. Like I said, it really wears its influences on its sleeves, which is fun for fans of the genre. It's cool to see a classic Resident Evil style game set in first person like this, so also for fans of the genre its a nice treat, its a very cheap game, and its also very short so its not like it will take you a long time to get through, its pretty painless and fun to play through in one sitting, so I'd say its a great experience. I just wish it was a bit more challenging on the default difficulty, and maybe was a bit longer, like the mansion segment was more fleshed out because really its not that many rooms in the mansion, if the game was longer the enemy variety and assets could be used more too, like I said you only come across like 6 cultists, theres an exclusive goat enemy that only happens on the boss fight which is kind of a shame theres a whole asset that you only fight for like 10 seconds, you come across spiders but theres only like 4 of them, you come across this Fast running zombie but its only in one room of the whole game, and theres only like 2 of them. See what I mean? Theres all sorts of enemies but you don't encounter them very often which feels a bit of a shame, if the game was longer you could see them more often, I hope there is a sequel but I looked into it and it doesn't look like the dev has any plans for a sequel at this moment which is also sad because the game is pretty cool and I like the foundations thats being set here.

8/10