Reveil is a new story-driven horror game developed by the team at Pixelsplit. Whose other titles consist of Deadly Days and Indoor Lands. They have released Reveil for Steam, Xbox and PlayStation as of March 6th this year. On Steam, you can pick the game up for £16.99.
Also available is the “Reveil Funhouse Pack”, which contains the game’s Soundtrack, a black and white camera filter, Developer’s Commentary and Digital Artbook. The price of the pack is £8.50 for anyone who loves behind the scenes on their media.
The Circus is supposed to be fun.
In Reveil, we play Walter Thompson, who wakes up disoriented and can’t recall anything. Walter starts to wonder where his beloved wife and daughter are. Thus begins Walter’s story as he tries to uncover where they’ve gone. The player will solve puzzles and face challenges as they try to solve these mysteries with Walter.
Gameplay
The overall gameplay of Reveil is walking around and interacting with the environment. The player will examine notes to learn new information about the story or pick up items for different puzzles. I was happy that you could press a button to help find what exactly is interactable instead of clicking on everything and hoping for the best.
The puzzles you come across in Reveil are placed well in the game. It made me feel like I wasn’t walking for ages with nothing to do except look for notes. They never feel too difficult either, making you use your brain just enough for fun but not too much that you need to be a mathematician. (or maybe I’m just not great at puzzles to begin with).
Monsters
In some Reveil, Walter has to solve puzzles or collect items while hiding from creatures. He can do this by crouching and remaining quiet as you walk past them. A helpful heartbeating sound will warn the player that the creature is nearby. If you are playing with a controller, it will also vibrate during the sound.
Graphics & Audio
There are a few good aspects to the graphics in Reveil. Quite often, during gameplay, there are sequences where you walk to a supposed dead and turn around. Once you’ve turned around, you’re usually in a new area. These transitions happened seamlessly, and Reveil ran smoothly for the most part. Some framerate issues appeared, but not during those transition sequences. The textures and lighting present are also pretty good. One of the enemies during a forest segment had a great design and was my favourite out of all the enemies I had seen in the game overall.
On the downside, while the environment wasn’t necessarily empty, they weren’t interesting either. Some of the levels, while not poorly designed, were just okay and didn’t offer anything I hadn’t seen before in a horror game. The voice acting from the main character was also a little dry.
Longevity
Reveil consists of five chapters and only took me three and a half hours to finish. There are a few endings for players to unlock and collectables to find throughout the game. The collectables come in the form of various items that Walter has some connection to, for example, Tarot Cards and his daughter’s toys.
Final Thoughts
The game itself runs quite well despite some frame rate drops. However, it was annoying that the camera kept drifting to the right while I was using a controller. The story overall was lacklustre, and the horror elements felt non-existent in the game. The segments where a threat is present still don’t add to the horror since they’re easy to bypass.
Reveil looks great but comes up short with bland voice acting and a predictable story. That’s why I’m giving the game the Thumb Culture Silver Award.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
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