This game is a treat! | Indigo Park: Chapter 1 Full Playthrough (in admittedly low quality)
1Longer upload because I wanted my full playthrough uploaded to show my full thoughts on the game as I went through it.
Sorry if it isn't very interesting to watch because of its length and my genuine yet kinda bland personality lolo.
Anyways this is a Mascot Horror game I found out about one day before release, it's REALLY rare I find out about games this early in their lifespan so I REALLY wanted to do a full playthrough on it.
-= Review =-
Overall: 3/5
There's 1 big issue with the game - Gameplay.
The game's gameplay feels really uninspired, your mechanics are moving around, jumping, sprinting, interacting, and toggling flashlight.
While general movement is fine, jumping felt pointless. It felt barely utilised and I think it could have been removed and the game wouldn't be impacted at all. It felt like it was there just because every free roam game has it rather than it being there because it actually should be.
As for the Interact key, it would have been fine if there were interesting things to interact with but there just isn't any. It's only used for grabbing items and opening doors. Though I did like the part where you could vibe to the piano.
Toggling Flashlight was also completely pointless, it added nothing to the game. It was just there for the sake of being there.
Overall the gameplay is just a fetch quest with a chase sequence at the end, the chase sequence was fine but the grand majority of the game just being a fetch-quest was just bland.
The whole point of a game is that its an interactive medium, games should have interesting mechanics or at least interesting ways to interact with things in-world, this game doesn't do that at all. As a player it really didn't feel like I was playing a game, moreso just experiencing it.
That is my only main complaint though, so here's where Indigo Park does well: Atmosphere and level design.
One thing I really enjoyed is that the game didn't rely on cheap scares, it very slowly builds tension for the final climax which was the chase sequence.
I think this works extremely well for a chapter 1 introduction to the game, a slow burn that makes you question when exactly things will go wrong because you know it will, it's just a matter of when. I really liked that.
Level design was really good because it was always clear where to go and it did so in a way that wasn't immersive-breaking. Good job there. I hate games that feel like I'm just brute-forcing a maze.
I cannot comment on story because I completely missed and ignored it, that's on me.
Overall, I would say this is an extremely strong start. I like this as a Chapter 1, but there are definitely things I would suggest for the rest of the game.
First off, a slow burn will not work for an entire game, the player WILL get used to it quickly and will stop being on their toes the whole time and will instead just think "oh it's chill now". I kinda had this vibe where the game left off, the chase sequence was such a clear climax that I was certain that if the game had continued that it would be a while before I had to worry about stuff again. This would be bad for a horror game, if that assumption was correct.
I would not change Chapter 1, it being a slow burn works well. I do think thought that now we have had the climax of Chapter 1 that the rest of the game should now be more tense as a whole. No more mindless fetch-quests, the game is a horror game now where each section is tense with just little pieces of downtime inbetween (I have played games that are tense the entire time trust me, some downtime is necessary).
Also as mentioned earlier, there needs to be an actual meaningful gameplay mechanic. I suggest start off Chapter 2 with introducing something new that will either persist throughout the whole game or be exclusive to that area specifically. If the latter, do introduce something new each Chapter. I always personally liked games where the final boss is a combination of all the gameplay sections you've had previously so the option of doing something different each chapter would be my personal bias lmao.
And also, for me: Make 1 specific fire hydrant have a funny secret please thank you. :)
Indigo Park: Chapter 1 v1.0.0 by UniqueGeese: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2504480/Indigo_Park_Chapter_1/