Phobia Reviews

Good Indie Horror Game

no tutorial, bad quality..

2/10 looks cooler than it is

A crime against humanity!!!

On sale for 50 odd cents, and you like janky indie horror. Buy it!

This game I played for long time. I enjoy at first, very bad, but funny good way. Soon, I get to room. Very big, hurt my computer so frames so bad. While frames bad I need secret key passage to find 3 of them. I look all over room with bad frames but keys hard to find with shaking. I find 2, BIG SUCCESS. But other key, where to find do I? I do not find. I give up. Cry tears, many. Mom asks why I cry, I say this game. We both cry. I miss dad.

If you're looking for the game that TBFP played, this isn't it. You're looking for Phobia 1.5 Don't make the same mistake I did.

(This review contains Spoilers if that is what you want to call them, also it NEEDS a Warning for Flashing Lights/Epilepsy Warning - please implement this) Phobia makes me scared of games. Not in that sense of being spooked, but by not playing another game again. The game features, someone, that needs to "Penetrate a house". There's some massive text wall before that but let's ignore that. You then traverse through some extremely dark woods until you find a house and next minute, you are warped from one location to the next. And thus, Phobia becomes a nightmare. You go from these locations and you have a couple of things to do. First, you will probably get some monsters start charging at you (or run into a wall, depends really) and you can shoot them with the ONLY gun you get in the game which doesn't work at close range. You can insta-kill some monsters and some don't take any damage and the game doesn't explain that. If you get cornered by a monster, they just kill you and you are defenseless to their attacks. Also I hit doesn't stun you, it just takes chunk of your HP away until you die. (And as for Health, you drink wine to restore it which is barely anywhere in the game) Second, you have to find keys to open a door. Third, You have to find keys to open a door. So you go through these pretty rough looking environments trying to figure out what to do. You can look at "Notes" which give you clues and basically if you ain't trying to kill janky AI Monsters (That are probably the best looking assets in the "game"), you are looking for keys to enter a door somewhere. There's a room which is a trap and you can climb through a little manhole to escape, which was the most exciting bit of it. But the ending was super confusing. Not only do you have 2 massive Werewolves trying to rip you to bits, you are told to simply "RUN". So that's what you do, RUN. You go back through the woods you came in getting stuck on all sorts of trees and the lighting going extremely dark, then super shiny and bright, trying to go back and you get to a gate that has some Russian text pop up. I assume it asks you to get a key because of the key icon...thus begins our journey. An hour of walking around in circles in this super dark area of the woods trying to find a key. I finally find a shed like place to get the key and then yeet my way over to the end and I get to choose 4 doors. Ending 1: The game restarts and you are back at square one with no explanation. Also a jump scare flash. Ending 2: Zooms out from a door that has your characters name on it written in comic sans and that's it. Ending 3: Shows a flayed body lying in blood in a cage (From earlier in the game) and then end. Ending 4: Has a text wall saying that you quit your detective job and the germs of a Xenomorph are bad or something. Phobia is unfortunately just another indie game that won't get far. With some time and effort, this could maybe be an alright experience. But finding keys in a pitch black environment (or super bright, depends) is not that fun. And the monsters AI is just whack. Sorry folks, not the GOTY here.

the short version. Intro=read read game starts = walk walk open gate walk walk OWWWWWWWW! Hello my name is Chris Eubanks & unfortunately ive contracted lycanthropy, so sorry my friend but i have to fight you to the death! game over (like the game never started) End. holy crap this is bad.. so the beginning is text ..thats cool i dont mind! translation aint great but hey i dont mind. my controls are not changeable and it is idiot elite wasd, HEEEY!!!! I DONT MIND!! }:[ Continue.. game starts iam on flat forest ground with trees inside some walls, A long dull walk, A gate, open gate i see more woods there is abit of fire i walk toward it and aparenttly interupted midnight tea time for Chris Eubanks & Mike Tyson in werewolf form! hi guys can i have some tea? they take it in turns to chase me down relentlessly using their werewolf punching power??!? fortunately there is one power i can use.. precognition. I see the future this gaaaame suuuuucks! wow intense aaaand QUIT! think if id hit the random game generator on game guru or any other game creator couldve made A better game! This game is a waste of time dont bother, if you expect me to walk around to explore or solve it has to be better than this, no weapons, no incentive to keep crawling through your Were wolf picnic!

I was on the fence on whether to get this game or not. I quite like a good indie game, having said that; most of my library consists of indie games. I understand the limitations of indie game devlopment as well as that quite often devlopers overcharge for games such as this. This looked alright from the description etc, jumpscares and things make for alright indie horror games even where budget is low so I was quite hopefull going into it. Gameplay; So it plays as your box standard arcade horror game, you can walk, run, use your flashlight etc. At the beginning you have to avoid the monster, then later on you get a gun and the monsters have to avoid you, pretty simple. My recommendation is based on the price being reduced at £2.87, I don't think, in my opinion, that it is worth almost £5 (But then I guess price is subjective). I'd recommend based on that it is a working game, the inital few levels looks like the devloper put some thought into the design and built up quite an atmosphere considering the graphics etc. However once you get a gun, it turns into a shooter and that turned me off of the game to be honest. I will play forward and try to beat the game and will adjust my review if required. It was somewhat jarring how the game switches pace and that serves to kill the atmosphere created thus far which is a shame, as it did actually have me on edge for the first two levels. Just for anyone still on the fence about how the game plays etc I've made a video (No adverts etc) purley as a first look and to show raw footage of the game, as I can't find any other videos of it out there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4RsOGafijM&t=12s