The Painscreek Killings – Review

Surely everyone who has ever watched or read detectives would like to get his own business and plunge into the abyss of investigation. Detective games provide this opportunity. I want to tell you more about one of them – The Painscreek Killings From an indie company EQ Studios. Although the game was released in September 2017, it received Russian localization in March 2019.

The Painscreek Killings – a first -person game that is a walking simulator. From the very beginning you are informed that the game seeks to a certain extent to imitate real investigations of murder cases, recommend that you keep your own notes and warn of possible bugs in the game and a universal way to get rid of them.

The main menu of the game

Plot and features

You are a young journalist named Jannet, who was sent by the editor-in-chief for investigating the murder of the ex-mayor-Vivian Roberts. Throughout the game you must find out who killed her, why she was killed and how she died. The main feature of the game is the lack of characters. You will have to draw information for your article from the left documents, newspapers and diaries of former inhabitants of an abandoned town. If you don’t like reading a huge amount of text, then you obviously will not like the game. About 15 characters are involved in all history, each has their own goals and possible motives for the murder of Vivian.

Local newspaper with a heading of the murder of Vivian Roberts on the main page

You yourself choose where https://sistersitescasino.co.uk/casinos/partycasino/ to start your investigation from: whether it is an ex-mayor estate, hotel or hospital. At the initial stage of the game, there are plenty of evidence, which is very pleasing: you will come to a dead end with one of them, you have a few more in stock. Only at the end, when there is very little left before the final, the investigation is linear.

There is no list of tasks with marks on the map in the game: they found someone’s keys to the house? Look for the owner’s address. Apply the keys on each door to the most successful idea: there are many houses in Paynskrik. Perhaps someone was going to visit him and wrote in his diary his address? Or go to the hospital and see his medical card? At times, the game gives several ways to solve a puzzle at once, you just need to show the initiative.

A thorough inspection of locations is an important component of the game, because you never know what can be found under the table or in the nightstand. Sometimes to solve a puzzle, you must be very careful. By the way, to solve some puzzles, you will still need knowledge of at least basic English (well, or google translator at hand).

As in any good detective, by evidence and notes, you can calculate the killer in advance, find out the motive of the murder and leave the city, having finished your investigation. However, even with all the correct selected response options, without bringing an investigation and searching to the very end, you will not be able to get a true ending. And this is right – after all, even detectives must be read to the end in order to confirm your suspicions with irrefutable evidence.

But the use of mysticism and spirits is an ambiguous act. On the one hand – the game tries to go into realism, on the other – this does not play a big role in the investigation itself, but sets a good degree of immersion in the game. Yes, and to be honest, then the abundant number of hiding places is also not amenable to logic, but also involves the game.

Gameplay

The game for the most part is a walk from one location to another in search of keys from the next, diluted by reading diaries and other materials. Sometimes you have to go around the same locations several times to open the door from which you had no key before. All objects that can be taken in your hands, whether it be keys or a book, can be examined from any angle. So, for example, behind some objects can be tips to solve a puzzle or on a tag of keys it is written from which room they are from.

The main tools in the game are a flashlight, camera, magazine and maps. The camera can photograph important evidence, interior and numerical codes, and at the end of the game you will need to provide a photo for the title page of your article. In the journal, Dzhannet writes all important documents and diaries as evidence that will be available to you at any time. Maps here of different types: from the evacuation plan to the sketch of the main roads in the city.

It is difficult to navigate in the first hour, but soon you can easily wander between locations

In terms of optimization, the game leaves much to be desired: pro-stringing on the street in certain places gives a feeling of sequence of the map, and 15-20 second loads of locations and rumble of iron can ruin the overall impression of the game.

Graphics

But with graphics in the game there are no -evolving problems at first glance. It may seem at first that the picture is somewhat vague. Looking into the settings, this can be fixed by disabling chromatic aberration and vignette mode. Chromatic aberration adds a slight refraction to create a sensation of viewing through the camera lens, and the vignette mode adds a black fading boundary around the camera. According to the idea of ​​the authors, we are observing on behalf of Jannet, which is not clear the need for these effects.