Eldervale

i can't believe how much this game reminds me of Silent Hill, the sounds, the map, the horror... the game is really good, i'm glad i found and bought the game. What caught my eyes, was that the MC kinda looks like Alice (of Mcgee's Alice). Some indie developers that wants to make horror games should look your game.

Unfortunately I will not be recommending this product. As a whole the game has an immense amount of promise. Reminding me back in the day when I would play games like Silent Hill among many others. My biggest issue with the game will be most noticeably its controls. In particular controls regarding your flashlight, running, attacking, and interacting with environment. It seems that even though the game is controller compatible that isn't completely true. Where the mouse is extremely predominant with any action required in the game. You even have to click on objects when you open a drawer and have to line up and click on every door you open too. The flashlight though, whoo boy, that is another issue entirely. As of this moment the flashlight requires you to take it out, turn it on or off, aim it, or switch to another weapon with it staying on your hip. The flashlight really should just stay on the player's clothing at all times allowing the player to turn it on or off at the flick...

I'm a huge fan of Eldervale!! The game checked a lot of boxes for me, from the sound, atmosphere, level design, character designs etc. I was surprised how well done the game is, considering it's made by a solo dev. The amount of work put into this title is impressive. I appreciate how much attention to detail there is, and the story is ultra creepy! Absolutely worth the price point, you won't be disappointed.

Game has some highs and some lows. Tested on steam deck i wouldn’t recommend it on the deck.

Everything about this game feels "cheap". Graphics, animations, sound design (or lack thereof with not even voice overs), but the worst part, which was the dealbreaker for me, are the absolutely horrible controls. The control scheme itself is fine, but the mouse sensitivity and character movement are all over the place, making precise movement a pain. I haven't even gotten to the part where you get weapons and I can only imagine how awful aiming must be with these controls, because I rage-quit when I had to do a stupid "chase" sequence and died because of these terrible controls. I don't mind a game being difficult, but I do mind if it's difficult because of poor controls.

If you are a fan of the last 90's early 2000's survival horror games you will love this. It reminds me of Resident Evil mixed with some Silent Hill. The art style and atmosphere are a perfect throwback to those early PS1 horror games. There is a bit of a difficulty spike towards the end but you always have the choice to switch difficulty. The dev is very open to feedback and can take constructive criticism well. I highly recommend you try this out.

The atmosphere is good, the story isn't much but is a welcome, is heavily inspired from Silent Hill and has some decent spooks in it. The issue is the game is really jank and feels unfinished so I suggest getting it on sale, if you don't mind jank or if you really love survival horror games. I suggest to play it in bursts to avoid frustration. So overall it is a negative review but if you don't mind the warnings I gave I highly suggest this game. The gun combat is serviceable and I like how scarce finding ammo is but the melee combat is horrible. No pain states to stun enemies, feels the animations don't really line up with attacks so you just end up trading blows with it being hard to dodge and block feels useless because of this so it just ends up exchanging health instead of ammo. It is hard fighting one enemy with melee, and the game likes to throw multiple at you or one really strong one. So what ends up happening is you end up running a lot, but you can't run far unless you know...

Eldervale is probably what the later "Alone In The Dark" games after New Nightmare should have been. It goes far beyond the simple "zombie outbreak" schlock we are used to, instead opting for secluded schoolhouses,mad science,extra dimensional creatures,weird plants,and eldritch cults. As Ophelia you want to find out what happened to an institute that used to help gifted children after it was unfairly taken from her parents whom built it from the ground up. As expected, the new overseer and his cronies were not the nicest of people. I don't know why teenagers never just call the cops in these situations but I suppose if they did we would not have an adventure on our hands or a mystery that needs to be solved! (The game explains the residential zone around the institute is practically a ghost town so that alludes as to why the police are not there to be at anyone's beck and call. I'm just being a little fictitious!) It is a good thing Elvervale can pull you in with decent story tellin...

5.5/10 Yet another indie game where the dev was too lazy to have control configuration, or even make sure controllers work correctly. this makes combat more tedious than it should be. Sneaking isn't really an option either, as the ai is really inconsistent. We're not gonna even talk about the puzzles. Shame really, because it does have good atmosphere and did a few things i didn't expect. another unfortunate member of the trend of mediocre at best indie horror games that only lost in vivo has managed to break out of.

I'm always very happy when I find a nice indie horror game that isn't a walking/hiding sim (of which there are far too many). This game has a nice, unique atmosphere and is fairly scary, while employing some decent puzzles and some decent action gameplay. I think the gameplay could have been a little bit better if I had to criticize it. Would personally have liked more strategy and engaging with the enemies (like in the Evil Within) because in my opinion, the gameplay would have been well suited for it if it had been just a bit better. As it is, the gameplay is a little derpy with the melee combat being quite awkward and the correct choice usually being to run, whereas the best action-horror games abide both running and fighting or at least employ the use of strategy in determining which is the correct decision. All in all though, this one's good. For some frame of reference, I enjoyed all the classics that this one was made in the image of, and other horror indies like Lost in V...