The Sorrowvirus Reviews

Aside from standard walking sim gameplay. It features egghunt, padlocks and secret areas via false walls. There's 4 escalating instances of the game adding different notes, recordings and new minor areas to explore each time. As well as 4 endings. It is possible to get the True Ending in your first playthrough but your time will be limited as such. It has somewhat frequent jumpscares and a couple menacing enemy placements but the positives heavily outweigh.

I played in 4k. I am using a 3080 & 5800X processor with all current drivers and patches manually installed on Windows 10 x64. All settings were set to Ultra initially, but were turned down due to the game running poorly. I played with a mouse and keyboard. I will update this review if I continue to play and have more to add and will leave comments on. PROS: - No crashes during my time with it. - The music was completely appropriate and fit the world. - Achievements! - Many of the environments were cool and some of the "scares" are very creative. - The devs are very responsive and quite nice. It genuinely stings to give criticism of the game. CONS: - The story is essentially gibberish. I played through the game once while trying to pay attention as I adore horror games. Once I was done, I still had no idea what was going on so I came back to the store page. I learned more by reading the tiny paragraph in the top right of the Steam store page than by playing through the whole game and that is a problem. I sought out a story guide afterward since it was obvious that I had missed something, but it turns out I missed pretty much EVERYTHING. What do dolls have to do with anything? Who the heck has guilt for abandoning dolls? Why are you doing a ritual in your head? Why would the particles be called a virus for some reason? Why does a doll have your soul (is that even the case)? They just tell you that things have occurred, but the problem is that the WHY of things is never explained. It just does. Narratively, that means that nothing is of any consequence since things can just be whatever the writer wants whenever they feel like it; it's poor storytelling. This is especially a shame since the things I read outside the game sounded like a great setup. - It runs TERRIBLY. Look at my specs listed above. I should handily be able to run most things at 60 FPS, but even with options turned down still ran rather roughly. When everything was on (except AA and blur), framerate dropped in several initial areas to roughly 30 or so. After that, I changed options to try to remedy this, but I still hit stuttery patches. - There were graphical glitches all over everything for the entirety of the game. I think the engine was trying to display specular highlights and failing, but it made it an absolute mess to look at. In particular, it was near impossible to pick out needed items since 90% of the environment was reflecting lights in odd colours that appeared pixelated (?). Maybe it wasn't tested with nVidia cards? Maybe the engine needs to be updated to the current version? Maybe it was only tested with old drivers? - The timed section where you have to find candles and dolls was awful. I failed it three times and it didn't add tension, it was just infuriating; doubly so when coupled with the graphical issues making it hard to see. I'm not sure what it had to do with the narrative either (why were you finding dolls at this point?), but the same could be said for pretty much everything in this game. - The multiple endings thing is a neat idea, but I have no idea what I would change in my playthrough to achieve them. As far as I saw, I saw and did everything, but attained the worst ending. I don't want to have to do essentially the same game 4 times to find answers. That's asking me to waste time, but there may not even be a payoff. As per the devs, there is an "Abridged Branch" that makes things clearer, but I can't attempt it as I refunded the game and I'm not buying it again simply because it MAY be clearer. It may help, but if it does, why is it not the main way to play the game instead of an opt-in build branch? CONCLUSION: I really hope that when Faceless releases that it runs and plays better than this. The graphical issues really made this a slog I'm sorry to say. I will support this dev again in the future, but I can't recommend this game until it gets a few more patches and narrative clarity.

I waited like 10 years for what seems to be the first part of a tutorial for a game with still no release date............... Please PLEASE PUH-LEASE FINISH THE GAME x-D Holy shit, this kinda blew me away, huuuuuge silent hill vibes, with everything creepy we loved about slender, hinting to TONS of lore with this weird Sarrowvirus scifi twist I wasn't really expecting..... I still haven't even seen Slender or the Being or whatever they're calling him now. Game's got four endings, I've seen one so far and it just made me as giddy as finding Slendersource in the greenlight did in the beginning.

[h1] I HATE DOLLS, but I LOVE THIS GAME! [/h1] This game is nevertheless a beautiful masterpiece with lore that seems to answer your questions, and yet, you still remain curious if those answers are the ACTUAL truth. The clock mechanic combined with the spookiness of the dolls [b] (I hate Dolls a lot) [/b], and knowing there are [I] NO SAVE POINTS is PERFECT [/I], in my opinion; It gives you that sense of urgency while trying to figure out, "what in the world is going on"! (But in a Good Way). I also feel it's good game for people to watch while "backseat gaming." This game is the perfect combo of horror, suspense, and curiosity. [b] The more and more you play the game, the scarier it gets; [/b] (or maybe it's just me) also, the curiosity grows as well. I've finished 1 play through, now I'm on my 2nd and I am DEFINITELY doing all 4. [b] For $5.99, this is a NO BRAINER. [/b] If you want to see a grown get scared of dolls click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AalJasSo-QM [b] Thank You Adam Sklar and the Watchmaker Team for an amazing game! [/b]

Good time, writing is solid, gameplay is bland but; gets the job done. Fuck the hidden rooms though

Well polished horror game. Although the clock mechanic kinda annoys me, I feel like it doesn't give me enough time to enjoy the beautiful environments so i end up speedrunning everything. Edit: cool and good

The original title of the game was called 'The Sorrowvirus - A faceless short story' before the devs changed it which means this game is kind of a paid demo...kinda. The protagonist is played by a Youtuber known as 8-BitRyan which I can only think was solely for marketing purposes but this is only my opinion on it because I've seen the same stuff happen with other games/media in the past. The game requires you to go through multiple playthroughs to experience the whole thing which I don't like and I only played the first playthrough so this review will be based around that. The first thing I noticed straight away is this game has performance issues. It looks good but I don't think the GPU should be utilised as much as it is since I've seen better looking games run better but this is an indie game so, is it entirely at fault of the devs? Anyway I noticed stuttering when moving between areas which could mean the game renders everything dependent on the player's location but this is just a guess. Your GPU fans might also work a little hard because of it's performance which depends on your system's cooling. The gameplay consists of being a walking sim with you exploring areas to progress further with a time limit looming over you and slowly ticking down to your death, the only way to reset the timer is by interacting with clocks found throughout the game. The puzzles on the other hand....were not so pleasant. There was a particular set of 3 puzzles in this game that drove me up a wall (Vroom vroom sorry lol). The 1st requires you to find 1 doll and light candles in a certain order, the 2nd is the same except you need to find 2 dolls and the 3rd...the 3rd requires you to find 3 dolls and also some red candles. I think the spawn locations of the dolls and candles can get you killed because of them being well hidden sometimes. Also you need to do these 3 puzzles without dying or you do them all again and there's no clocks so you're most likely screwed if you here the protagonist say "I need to find a clock" while you're stumped on one of them. Other than that, it's mostly just like I said before, a walking sim where you interact with stuff. The game does not save so if you quit, you go back to the beginning of your playthrough. It's hard to say if I would recommend this considering i personally didn't enjoy it which is why I'm giving it a thumbs down. If this game is considered to be a demo, I don't think it's should be priced at £7.99 so maybe get it on sale if you don't wanna pay full price (Price varies depending on currency).

[h1] The Sorrowvirus: A Faceless Short Story [/h1] Updated Dec 22, 2020 Your son has terminal cancer; you can cure him, but first you have to kill him. The Sorrowvirus is an adventure game [b] meant to be played in one sitting. [/b]. There is no save system, The devs have issued several updates to the game addressing bugs and are moving on to their next game: Faceless This game hooked me the minute I saw it. I wanted something I could play relatively quickly due to time constraints. In the notes the dev has estimated that gameplay is 45-60 minutes. I have about three hours into it, and have no idea how far in the game I am. I am a Point and Click/Adventure player; I look at [I] everything [/i] twice, maybe three times. I look for hidden clues where there are none at times. There is so much to see in this game it would be a shame to finish it that quickly. I am not a “run through a museum” person, I casually stroll and appreciate art. +Artwork/Graphics +Atmosphere. So spooky +Music and sounds +Voice Actors +Story, though I cannot comment on the ending yet. +Replay that is not repetitive. The game begins by plopping you directly into it; your nightmare journey begins now and it is a spooky one! I refuse to give away the game lore, but it is there. There are a couple of jump-scares that are easy on the brain; I actually enjoyed them You access settings via the escape key and adjust video quality, volume, and keyboard controls. You navigate with the usual WASD keys, or a controller if you have one. You are given instructions along the way that teach you what you need to know, no guessing required. Yes, you can die. You will come back.... The game does have higher system requirements so watch that. I have a friend testing on a lower spec machine. I have had no glitches thus far and it runs fine. Again: There is no manual save option, buy it and commit to playing it. For the $5.00 and change it cost I’m pleased with it. When I have a free day I will sit down and finish it!

No, this game was not for me. My fault in I didn't realize that this is a "no save" game. You are to play through completely and then each time you play again, things will change and you have a new experience which will further the story. Game play time is about an hour. If you stop anytime before completing the game you will need to start again. The content of the game and the environments are so full and rich and detailed, that you want to linger and take it all in. However there is a timing element in that you need to touch the Grandfather clock every so often to keep yourself alive for a little bit longer. Anytime you fail in your mission, you die and will be brought back to your last clock touch. Now here's the thing. I have played for over 2 hours and I have yet to make it though once. This is two sessions and if I go back I will have to start from the beginning. To make the game more exciting there are a limited amount of clocks around and in one very key place there are none. So in this place I have died several times, but fear not because I can start again right at this point, as long as I keep playing... I cannot quit the game or I will be forced to start from the very beginning. I did finally make it through that part and looking at the time I had played I figured I was at the end of my play through. Alas it was not to be and another challenging area opened up that I needed to complete w/o dying. But I did die, a few times. Then it was time for dinner, so all progress was trashed when I closed the game. I am not a happy person right now. Nope, I tried again and there is an instant death challenge at the end with a wonky flashlight that just puts the cherry on top of another tedious scene. Sorry but this is not fun at all.

This beautiful horror game is amazing when it comes to the story and psychological effects, but there are some potential technical problem. While I was having bugs that prevented me from finishing the game, the developer quickly fixed those so I was able to complete it. I am not going to leave a negative review for it because it's a good game at a low price, it just needs a couple of patches and frankly a lot more player testing. First of all, it's unusually demanding on GPU, my RTX2060 is working at 80% to run it, making it more demanding than Resident Evil 3 Remake. To be fair I am not getting too many performance issues aside from a few very specific areas where the framerate drops significantly. Unfortunately, the game does not have a save system aside from checkpoints that only work before you leave the game; that is a pretty big problem if you have some kind of softlock that forces you to reset the game . Additionally, some of the hotspots can be very annoying, such as moving things around or trying to find a correct spot to click. Oh hey it's Fran Bow! Yes, Fran is a character in this game, how sweet of Killmonday to let you borrow her, certainly elevates this game to another level. I have to say that universe of the game is pretty fitting for Fran anyway, there are some parallels with Killmonday in terms of dark fantasy themes with disturbing elements. The story is instantly compelling, even the voice acting is surprisingly good, although sometimes the volume seems too low. This is one of those games where I think people would love to draw its characters, a mark of any great game with an interesting universe. Aside from just having beautiful visuals with all kinds of spooky effects, the doll characters have a really cute design, raises all kinds of questions in regards to the narrative - the game just has that awesome mystery element. As far as I can tell the game is designed for replay value as the puzzles have some RNG elements, but at this point, I can't say much else until the bugs are fixed. [h1] Pros: [/h1] + gorgeous game if you have GPU to support it + enjoyable narrative, interesting characters + actually kinda scary, good horror effects + pretty decent voice acting + Fran Bow (makes any game 20% better by default) + achievements, RNG puzzles, replay value? [h1] Feedback: [/h1] [u] Noticeable optimization problems [/u] - you probably need a decent GPU just to play it on the tolerable level. I am sure some of the performance is justified by how pretty the game is, but it's probably not very polished on top of it. Again, the game is running okey on my RTX2060 with occasional frame drop in certain areas, but I never heard my GPU fans work so hard. [u] Lack of Save system & Softlocks [/u] - the lack of the save system is amplified by bugs that can force you to restart the game . However, the developer already fixed the bugs that I experienced personally so it might be more stable now. [b] Overall Thoughts: [/b] I love every aspect of this game including the visuals, story and character - frankly it could be the best indie horror game I ever played, if polished. However, if you buy this game, you pretty much beta testing it right now, assuming that your PC can run it at stable framerate. It's hard to enjoy the game when every 5 minutes I have to report something, not to mention that I am constantly resetting the game to get past a glitch. I honestly want to see this game succeed, I really do love the world that it created. [code]For more Hidden-Gems: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]