Ever since the creation of the Horror genre, creators of all media have been exploring the darkness of their minds to come up with new and inventive ways to spook the living hell out of anyone without being too cheesy or predictable. One of the latest games to try and do so is Re;Turn – One Way Trip.
Jump scares were a popular theme back in the day, but they now feel too cheap to implement well. Games have pretty much the same problem now, in that jump scares will turn off a lot of gamers. This is where the rise in importance of soundtrack and ambience happened, and thank goodness it did as it prompted the best horror games of recent times.
Don’t get me wrong – I am not saying that all jump scares are bad. Some are worked so well that they do not feel cheap but almost feel necessary; you predict one will come but you do not know when. That would already mean you are under the spell of the game, a result of good game design. One such game which is promising to have such excellent design is Re;Turn – One Way Trip. The game, which is a 2D platformer with beautiful pixel-art, is being developed by Red Ego Games, and is published by Green Man Gaming. The story revolves around a group of 5 friends who go camping together; two couples and another friend.
It is here that things in Re;Turn – One Way Trip begin to spiral downwards. Come night time, a small fight ensues between the group and one of them leaves. The gang tries to get some sleep but Saki, one of the members of the group and the playable character in this game, wakes up to find everyone else is gone. She presumes they have gone to look out for the other friend, and so she goes in search as well. This leads her to find a train hidden in the middle of this forest. Saki immediately notices that something is off with a huge train lost in the nothingness but she makes herself courage and goes inside.
Inside this train, which looks to have been out of use for a long time, she has to look for anything that might help her track down her friends. The carriages give out an incredibly eerie atmosphere, and you are left to navigate using only the light from your torch. The story takes an interesting turn when a small earthquake happens and Saki is transported to a time when the train actually worked. This timeline looks to be in the middle of a war, back in a time where the train showcased all of its riches and beauty.
Re;Turn – One Way Trip does not overwhelm the players in terms of controls as you only have two key functions – move and interact. You have an inventory where Saki will place the items you find and it is up to you to figure out the pieces of the puzzle and what item goes where. The game itself makes you feel a sense of dread which will make you consider your next step twice if not thrice; it has that creepy feeling where you know the environment is working against you but you cannot figure out how. Red Ego has really put work into this, and you can only appreciate this .. while shaking from the terror that is.
Although I loved so much about Re;Turn – One Way Trip, there is one small feature which nagged me some. At a certain point, you will find a lock and you have to break the combination, but there are no actual hints on how to solve it. I had to search for other walkthroughs in order to come up with the solution to this, which not only feels cheap but takes you out of the atmosphere of the game. This was the only instance where I found the game to be average, as the other parts of the game, as echoed throughout the preview, are very well made.
Re;Turn – One Way Trip overall thoughts…so far
In this preview, we went through a total of 5 chapters of Re;Turn – One Way Trip in around an hour, where you try to uncover the mystery of this train and what actually happened to your other friends. The story looks to be thought out brilliantly and ending so abruptly in the middle of the game made me so curious as to how the story will end come release. Re;Turn – One-way Trip will be releasing on Steam sometime in October, but there is a demo available for everyone to download HERE.
I was really surprised by how good the preview of Re;Turn – One Way Trip was, and I am very much looking forward to the full release, so if you were intrigued by this preview, just go and download the demo and check Re;Turn – One Way Trip out for yourself. I guarantee you will not regret it one bit.
For similar previews or full game reviews, click HERE.