Simply keeping on top of the steady release of “AAA” game is challenging enough these days, with a larger market than ever before, and a massive number of devs and publishers trying to sate that demand. Unfortunately, that often means far too many good indie titles fly under the radar without the recognition they deserve. This weekly post aims to highlight some of those games we’ve got around to playing but never got around to reviewing.

The Long Reach

If there’s one video game genre that’s been revived and subsequently saturated by indie games, it’s point-and-click puzzlers. That said, I’ve become a huge fan of shorter, narrative-heavy, pixel-art puzzlers that push the plot to the front and do away with the more obscure puzzles of yore. The Long Reach is one such game that tells a sci-fi/horror story from the perspective of three characters, over the course of several days. The gameplay is simple and intuitive: you walk left or right on a 2D plane; explore the environment for puzzle components or interactable objects, (conveniently highlighted as you get close); solve (mostly) logical puzzles; engage in branching dialogue; and escape several deadly pursuers.

Events kick off with a tense and shocking opening sequence, before flashing-back several days and placing you in the shoes of the character you’ll play as for most of the game. A seemingly simple test of your piano-playing skills goes awry, and you soon find yourself in a laboratory full of staff that have gone varying degrees of crazy. Some are acting like animals, some are trapped in their own nightmares, one is trying to establish a cult, and others are murdering their colleagues. Despite the limitations of the pixel art style, developers Painted Black Games do a great job of creating some terrifying and unsettling scenes, using the addition of music and ambient noise to keep you on your toes.

At this point, the game eases you into the puzzling and dialogue mechanics, before introducing you to a crazed staff member that you need to lure away from key areas, hide from, and eventually pacify. After that gentle opening, things just get worse. The game uses both directional audio and a simple visual cue for footsteps, ensuring you’re rarely caught of guard (so long as you're paying attention). Thankfully, these brief encounters are limited to certain areas and were never tough enough to break the pacing. The Long Reach has a linear and thrilling story to tell - with a binary decision right at the end - that’s over in 2-3 hours, meaning there’s not a great deal of replayability, outside of a few scenario-specific achievements. However, it’s available at a low price and comes recommended if you’re after a short but terrifying horror experience, with some light puzzling elements.

You can pick up The Long Reach on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Switch.

Uncanny Valley

Sticking to the theme of pixel-art, point-and-click adventures, Uncanny Valley is another sci-fi/horror tale. However, this is a game you can complete in less than an hour but will want to replay a dozen times over to experience all the story permutations. The gameplay mechanics are once again simple: stroll around 2D environments; hunt for collectibles and objects to interact with (again, conveniently highlighted); tackle numerous puzzles; engage in dialogue (sometimes with severe consequences); and run like hell from several dangerous creatures.

Uncanny Valley puts you in control of a single protagonist, Tom, down on his luck, running from his past, and having just decided a security job at an old research facility, in the middle of nowhere, was a good idea. It doesn’t help that Tom is already having horrible flashbacks to start with. Arriving at the facility, and briefly introduced to another guard who is your only companion, you’re given free rein to explore several locations over five game-days, follow orders or ignore them, talk to another local (who only you seem to encounter), and collect a myriad of interesting items that may or may not be of use later.

What makes Uncanny Valley so much fun is how you can remain completely passive as events spiral out of hand. Alternatively, you can start digging around the laboratory and kick things of yourself or can even get the hell out of dodge before the end of the day if you play your cards right. One way or another, events conclude after five days, and Tom’s survival is dependent on your choices. There are multiple ways to interact with (and perish) in certain scenes, based on the order you’ve explored locations, and the items you’ve collected. It’s great fun to sink an afternoon or two into unlocking the seven endings (each with an achievement attached), though my biggest gripe is how you must replay the 5-minute introduction every time.

You can pick up Uncanny Valley on PC, PlayStation4/Vita, Xbox One, and Switch.



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