O
ver the past couple of years, horror-focused
gaming website Dread XP has collaborated with
small and solo indie developers to produce
eclectic collections of short horror games. Subtitled The
Hunt, this latest collection is directed by David Szymanski,
developer of the incredible retro-FPS DUSK. Offering seven
short games, The Hunt is a great example of the weirder
side of indie game development.
All seven games are horror experiences that involve
hunting in some context, but vary wildly. The two best
games are Black Relic and The Fruit. In the former, you
play as a medieval monk battling hordes of cultists with
a crossbow, as the theft of a dangerous relic turns your
peaceful monastery into a fiery hellscape. It’s a tense and
gritty survival horror with vivid and crunchy pixel art.
The Fruit has a similar backwoods horror vibe, but
with a completely different visual style. Set in 1884, this
thoroughly modern-looking game involves sneaking and
fighting through a village where the inhabitants have been
corrupted by consuming a black and ichorous fruit. It blends
stealth and puzzling with a fantastic hit-and-run combatsystem. At the forefront of the latter is a musket that must
be manually reloaded after each shot, with the player
pulling back the hammer and dragging the bullet into the
breach with the mouse.
Most of the other games are recommendable. Axis
Mundi offers an emotional, time-travelling story about
a ghost hunter exorcising the souls of the dead from a
Swedish shopping mall, while Uktena 64 sees you play a
redneck hunting mutated animals in a twisted facsimile
of a Nintendo 64 game (with remarkably accurate
visual presentation).
A couple of the games are harder to recommend,
particularly Rose of Meat, a surreal horror adventure
that involves using a sentient leg to spawn bizarre flesh-
monsters. Meanwhile, Seraphixial has a decent premise,
with you playing a father searching for his missing daughter.
However, it never seems to settle on one idea or theme, and
some of the enemy and environment designs appear to
have been thrown together in a hurry.
The Hunt’s experience doesn’t end with these seven
games either. The games are packaged within an eighth
metagame that involves exploring an abandoned Arctic
research base. It’s a fully fledged experience in its own
right, featuring its own puzzles, story and voice acting. It’s
an ingenious way to tie the Collection’s disparate ideas
together, although sadly, the script leans towards ironic wit
rather than playing it straight, which lessens the tension.
There are a few rough edges to Dread XP Collection: The
Hunt, but that’s understandable in a showcase for emerging
talent. Even so, the ideas on show are more than worth the
price of a takeaway pizza.
RICK LANE/VERDICT
It’s well worth
spending on a
tenner on this
horror collection
from the fringes
of indie gaming,
even if it’s a
mixed bag.OVERALL SCORE
74 %
HUNTER
+^ Intriguing
collection of ideas
+^ Clever metagame
wrapping
+^ Some genuinely
great gamesHUNTED-^ Other games
not so great
-^ Metagame
writing is odd
Dread XP Collection: The Hunt / £9.89 inc VAT
DEVELOPER Dread XP, David Szymanski et al / PUBLISHER Dread XP