From the developer Fossil Games comes a 16-bit RPG horror game inspired by retro horror slasher films of the 80s (Freddy, Jason, Puppet Master, etc.). By the way, the first version of the game was released in 2016 for the Windows platform and received quite positive reactions from players on Steam. The developers are fans of retro materials, pixel art and classic film horror works, and now they have made the aforementioned game available to console fans as well. Camp Sunshine is their first game from the so-called Sunshine trilogy.
You start the story of the game as a teenager Jez, who is left by his mother in a camp named Sunshine. Things start to heat up when Jez wakes up in the middle of the night to find his roommate dead. He rushes off to look for help, but instead encounters the camp's mascot, who wants to kill him. After barely escaping the "medi" killer, he decides to find out what happened and at the same time tries to stay alive and healthy.
The whole game takes place at night. You progress the story by finding parts of the diary, which are, of course, scattered throughout the camp. Sometimes you will meet survivors who will have a few pages of journals, and they will give them to you if you do some task for them. When you collect them all, you discover the backstory of the curse placed on the camp, and in doing so, you begin to predict where the story will go and eventually end. Despite the somewhat predictable outcome, the story contains enough elements to keep you entertained while playing.
As for the gameplay itself, the game is based on the find-fetch/unlock gameplay principle, and the objects are located in the camp and the immediate surroundings. So you have to go around the entire camp to find objects to progress further while being chased by a killer bear with a knife. But not everything is so black. A map of the camp is at your disposal, which makes it easier for you to get around. You also have a flashlight (for which you have to collect batteries), and you are offered the option of running, but this consumes stamina, which is regenerated over time. Of course, you have the chance to find food all over the camp that restores your health if a bear stabs you. You can choose the order in which you will solve the requests (quests), so the game is not completely linear. Sometimes in certain forest and swamp levels, you may lose your orientation for a while while you are looking for something, but the paths are not so "labyrinthic" and you still manage to get out (there is no map available in those parts).
The killer bear appears randomly on the map, especially if you stand still for a long time. You are not safe even in the interior of the camp. The bear always appears after about half a minute or less and starts chasing you around the premises, but does not follow you out if you manage to escape to the exit door. After that, his status is reset and he reappears randomly. If you are not so lucky and do not manage to escape from him, it takes two stabs to kill you, and after the first stab the bear disappears. At that point you have a chance to heal. You have to be frugal and careful with this, because the amount of food to restore health is limited. Along the way, you may come across some Easter egg objects, such as the poster of the first Terminator, which here is comically called The Germinator, and belongs to the SF horror category of the 80s.
There are a couple of puzzles in the game, and that's good, because it gives you a little break from the repetitive find-and-fetch quests. It takes a bit of thinking when solving them, but they are not too difficult. The game has three difficulty levels and you need 2.5 to 3 hours to complete it. Some players may find the darkness in the game a problem, but that's why you have a flashlight at your disposal, which gradually drains the battery. Personally, I didn't need a battery, because even without it, the illuminated part around the character, which is always present, was enough for me. In addition, it should be mentioned that the game does not have an automatic checkpoint system, but you have to manually record the position by finding a clean bed in a room and clicking on it. Therefore, you have to strategically make your moves so that you don't lose progress if the killer bear accidentally finishes you off.
As the developer himself says, the game was realized with an "army" of two people, which a good part of the audience had in mind when playing and at the same time appreciated in this kind of indie title. The publisher of the game is Hound Picked Games, and today the game became available for Playstation, Nintendo Switch and Xbox. Anyway, fitting for the month of Halloween and fans of retro horror.
[modula id="1136"]A copy of the game was provided by publisher Hound Picked Games and developer Fossil Games for review purposes.
