The Painscreek Killings is a first-person, explorable mystery solving game set in a fictional town of United States in the 1990s. As a young and upcoming journalist, you are to uncover the secrets behind the town killings and publish the truth in the city papers.
I enjoyed this game and its mystery, but I don't feel like it sets out what it wants to do. It doesn't feel like you are a detective piecing things together, it feels like you are a gremlin stealing keys and reading every note you come across. Like I said, it is still fun to unravel the mystery and see things in a new light as the story unfolds, but...
I love the setup, but this game has issues. I can overlook some jank, like poorly implemented audio loops and samples resulting in obvious popping, or the very rudimentary quality of pretty much all of the audio/visuals/controls, or weird little control foibles like having an "unlock" action prompt that doesn't actually work and tells you to separately...
I have good things, bad things, and advice to share.
The good first:
The game leaves you to explore, uncover clues, and find items and codes, revealing the story as you go. I would absolutely recommend this to fans of The Outer Wilds. I was very eager to continue exploring and progressing, so if that's what you're looking for in a game, give this a...
WARNING: This game has unmarked horror/supernatural elements, including at least one jumpscare. Not what I wanted when I bought a "detective" game about solving a cold case in an "abandoned" town. Even if that kind of thing is your jam, you won't enjoy the janky interface, jarring soundtrack, counterintuitive controls and sluggish movement speed. You'll...
