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Phantaruk Game preview

Game preview 20 July 2016, 18:00

author: Przemyslaw Zamecki

Phantaruk Hands-on – Polish idea for Alien: Isolation

In space no one can hear you scream. Phantaruk is an upcoming Polish survival horror set in space. We’ve had a chance to try it out and see whether it’s Amnesia in space, or Dead Space without combat.

This article was written prior to the game's release.

This text was based on the PC version.

PHANTARUK IN A NUTSHELL:

  1. Survival horror on a spaceship;
  2. The protagonist is constantly exposed to a toxin that needs neutralizing with injections;
  3. In order to survive, the player must hide in the shadows aboard the ship;
  4. Splendid music.

The history of interactive spooking dates as far back as 1989, when Sweet Home for Famicom was released. The game can easily be called the forefather of all survival horror games. While it never managed to get outside the borders of Japan, it paved the way for other games of this genre. A haunted house became the premise of many productions that came afterwards, such as Alone in the Dark. Capcom made a reference to Sweet Home in Resident Evil. The horrid adventure in an abandoned mansion was an unofficial remake of sorts of Famcom’s production, but it also succeeded at establishing its own identity, in the opinion of many players becoming the real foundation of survival horrors. But it’s all in the past now. The harbinger of a new era in the genre came with Amnesia: Dark Descent. The game utilized classic stealth mechanics, and was set in a remote location haunted by an ominous being, the sight of which caused a rather unpleasant reaction of the protagonist – it won the hearts of players in an instant. Since its release, Amnesia’s recipe for success has been copied many times, and even its developers – Frictional Games – reiterate their idea in SOMA. The latest production referencing the famous horror hails from Poland; the team from Krakow-based Polyslash have conjured Phantaruk.

Something jumped out of his chest!!! Oh, it’s not that movie. Or any movie, basically. - 2016-07-20
Something jumped out of his chest!!! Oh, it’s not that movie. Or any movie, basically.

Our protagonist wakes up on a spaceship. He is a clone, property of H+ Corporation – a company that conducts experiments with human body in order to create the perfect human. For some reason, our character hasn’t joined the rest of the clones, who aimlessly wander the spaceship devoid of any consciousness. Instead, somebody has strapped to his wrist a counterfeit Pip-Boy, which is monitoring his pulse and the level of toxicity in his system. The latter is done because within his body grows a parasite, which has to be systematically neutralized by injections that can be found around the ship. This element of the mechanics is one of the few really original ideas in Phantaruk – nevertheless, it makes the game a bit more dynamic, and it’s up for individual evaluation whether you will like the solution or not.

The injections reduce the level of toxicity in your body. - 2016-07-20
The injections reduce the level of toxicity in your body.

The time in the game never stops. It only slows down when the player goes through the menu, containing inventory, notes, and audio logs, or when he or she browses the ship’s computers in search of emails and information. The mechanics therefore compel the player to hurry up, with the main hazard being the increasing toxicity level. If a certain threshold is reached, the protagonist grows weaker, and the view becomes obscured by an growing number of artifacts. As a result, Phantaruk sometimes ceases to be an atmospheric sci-fi stealth game, and becomes a frantic chase after the next dose. If the symptoms of high toxicity occurred while I was listening to an audio log, I either had to cut it short, or try to finish listening and inject the remedy seconds before it would have been too late. Reading longer passages was out of the question, so I only print-screened them and went on, which ruined the immersion for me. I feel that this element of the mechanics will decide the fate of the game, since the remaining solutions are much more generic.

This Phantaruk dude is one big SOB. - 2016-07-20
This Phantaruk dude is one big SOB.

When exploring the ship, I pretty soon crossed “meet Phantaruk” out of my to-do list. The huge creature roams the deck full of blood and littered with limbs of the crew members, whom it apparently considers a delicacy. Three hits from that thing will send you pushing up daisies, so better watch your six. Its approach is always accompanied by appropriate sound effects, so you’ll know when it’s time to get moving. Looking at it also causes the protagonist’s sight to be distorted and obscured, so it’s better to find something else to gaze at. When the creature notices us, we can try a brief escape, preferably in a direction that allows getting out of the reach of Phantaruk’s paws, or hiding somewhere in the shadows. I’m happy to say that it all works pretty well, although the game is still full of bugs and glitches, the most conspicuous and damaging for the atmosphere being those related to object collision. Phantaruk can sometimes walk through a huge crate or something similar as if it weren’t even there; other times the monster is locked in place by the tiniest thing. The authors apparently don’t have the monster’s paths figured out entirely, since I’ve seen it spawning in front of a sealed hatch a couple of times.

Too high toxicity level causes side effects such as this one. - 2016-07-20
Too high toxicity level causes side effects such as this one.

As it often happens in survival horrors, the player has to deal with logical puzzles every now and then. Most of the time these are limited to finding a paper note with access code, but the game sometimes offers a more interesting task, in which the player has to answer a few questions regarding the protagonist’s personality. If a lock is more sophisticated and requires an iris scan of one of the ship’s crew members, the only way is to bring the right body – or at least the severed head – in front of the scanner. When walking around the ship it’s best to avoid the other clones, which in theory are neutral towards us, but can pack a punch no worse than Phantaruk.

Visually the game is solid, but nothing beyond that. - 2016-07-20
Visually the game is solid, but nothing beyond that.

Visually, the game isn’t jaw-dropping. Phantaruk uses the Unity engine; the developers could squeeze more out of it. The assets are often copy-pasted, and the textures aren’t the sharpest. Before the release the game also ought to be optimized better – the build I tested had some fluency-related issues. There is, however, one unquestionable advantage to this game, and that is the soundtrack. The music written by a composer hiding under the alias Draco Nared does a great job of complementing the dark atmosphere of this game. If you like what you hear, check out the first trailer for Agony – another Polish game, this time about the exploration of hell – or his YouTube channel).

The game is currently undergoing beta-tests, and the developers made a couple of initial levels available for the press. They’re not too complicated, but as an introduction to a bigger project they do get the job done – they are intriguing and make you want to know the rest of the story. I only hope the devs will manage to eliminate the mistakes that really make it much harder to enjoy poking around the Purity-02 spaceship with Phantaruk following our trail.

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