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I don't typically play horror games.
A good slasher flick, though? That's a different story. Give me a bunch of young teenage idiots wandering around, slowly getting killed off by the menacing monster in the woods, and I'm in.
However, for you dear reader/watcher, I am willing to become the very thing I fear most: the person responsible for keeping those idiots alive.
Enter The Quarry, an interactive horror game where you spend the last night of summer camp trying to keep various counsellors alive from whatever is trying to kill them.
Sebastian recommended the game to me, flagging it for the cover art and concept. I looked into it and was immediately intrigued.
Developed by Supermassive Games and published by 2K, the game draws on teen slasher movies like Friday the 13th and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. You play as a group of counsellors staying at summer camp one last night, and it is a spiritual successor to Until Dawn. The choices you make affect the story path you go down, à la Mass Effect or Telltale's The Walking Dead.
As a horror movie fan and former summer camp counsellor, The Quarry seemed like just the thing to make me a happy camper.
If you want to see how I fare, click play and enjoy.
As for my review, I've really enjoyed what I've played so far (granted, I'm only about an hour in). There is at least one or two moments that genuinely shocked me (as you can see on my face in the thumbnail).
So far, the positives are the concept, the cast, and the story. The summer camp setting is perfect for a horror movie. It's been done before (the most famous example being Sleepaway Camp and more recently Hell of a Summer), but there's something timeless about a group of counsellors stuck in the woods with something trying to kill them.
The cast is stacked. The standouts for me were seeing Skyler Gisondo (Primetime), Justice Smith (I Saw the TV Glow) and Brenda Song (The Suite Life of Zack & Cody), but the performances of the actors who were more unknown to me have been good so far, too. Siobhan Williams and Ted Raimi (brother of Sam), were excellent in the Prologue.
The horror aspects got me, as you can see from my reaction in the video. I wouldn't say I was scared so much as I was shocked, but we've only just begun.
I don't think it's a perfect game, so far. I think some of the dialogue can feel a bit flat (though I'll give the game some slack and hope it's a bit intentional considering these are love-struck teens), and the controls are a bit confusing, though I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of them.
Overall, it's been fun. I'll stick with it, so long as I don't get brutally maimed, slashed or sliced.
Come knock on our door tomorrow for even more 31 Days of Heistoween treats.
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