Lone Survivor is a psychological horror indie game created by Jasper Byrne. The game which gives you nightmares but you still love it and keep coming back for more.
The graphics of the game aren’t all that spectacular by any means, but it certainly adds something to the feel and style of the game, which creates a unique atmosphere for the game combined with music. The background music and various sounds in the game are well thought out, I was humming various songs present in the game ,unknowingly while doing my day to day activities. This shows how good the soundtrack is in the game.
Lone Survivor feels somewhat like a throwback to old 1990s horror games. Gameplay is similar and the game itself feels a little less directed, forcing the player to explore and find their own solutions to puzzles. It is an easy and simple game to pick up, but can still provide immense enjoyment as you feel yourself getting immediately pulled in to the story. The whole art style of the game is based on pixels. The large text made of pixels which grow on you as you progress in the game or bare-bones combat along with battery sapping flash light which help you progress in the game, all contribute to overall presentation of the game.
You play as the ‘Lone Survivor’ in an apartment building. An outbreak of an unknown disease turns the world into an apocalyptic state. The protagonist is slowly going insane, unsure of whether he is seeing things and unable to emotionally cope with what’s happening. You must now explore and try to find other survivors.
In the apartment there is a bed where you can sleep. There are two reasons to sleep. The first and most important is to save your progress. Sleeping will automatically save your progress. If you die or exit out of the game, you’ll appear back at this point when you re-enter the game. The second reason is to gain Ammo and Batteries. Using a Blue Pill and then sleeping will cause you to dream. If you had no ammo left, when you wake up, you’ll find that some ammo has appeared in your inventory. If you use a Green Pill and sleep you’ll have a different dream. When you wake up, you’ll have a spare battery in your inventory, assuming that you had none when you went to sleep. The pills are very important the game, so use them wisely.
There is no health bar in the game, rather health is being tracked in the background with the Lone Survivor getting hungry or has the need to sleep. The heart beat music in the background rises whenever the health of protagonist is low, which adds to overall atmosphere of the game.
Map is the best guide you can find in the game, but first you go to find the map first. There are two modes in the game, first is ‘I am new here'(Normal) and second is ‘I know what I am doing'(Expert).The only difference I could find in the game was that the Expert mode did not allow you to use map at all times(Thanks @punkandlizard).
Mirrors act as checkpoints/portals within the game. Looking deeply into a mirror will cause you to teleport back to your apartment, where you can sleep, cook meals and replenishes some of your stocks.Looking deeply into the apartment mirror will cause you to teleport back to whichever mirror (besides the apartment one) that you last used. You cannot use the apartment mirror until you find another one within the game.
The bare-bones combat which I mentioned earlier comprises of handgun with limited ammo, flares and raw meat. Utilising these you can either be offensive or stealthy providing different tension and strategy by how you approach the game. Different monsters take different damage to Handgun, like the fat monster takes more hits then thin monster and still is not dead when it falls to the ground. I went with all guns blazing approach, which made me utilise the blue pill lot of times.
