The Subject Reviews

Great concept but the puzzles you have to solve at each hall are incredibly difficult and tedious. Takes away from any desire to continue playing when you've spent 3 hours on one puzzle trying to figure out what to do, clicking the same thing repeatedly.

Let me start by saying I love Darkstone Digital and this is just the first game that was made. While you may want to skip this one, I certainly recommend some of the newer titles such as Our Secret Below and The Mortuary's Assistant. As some others have said, this game is a good example of a new game developer who has taken negative reviews very well. It seems like every game after this release has gradually improved on the things people did not like about this one. While Kohate is essentially an improved version of this game, games after that changed it up completely. While I can't recommend this game I will be looking forward to future releases from Darkstone Digital.

There really isn't much to The Subject beyond what you experience in the first hour. Puzzles, a monster, and occasional steam blasts from vents. The puzzle are okay with a few memorable ones near the end, but I can't recommend this game to anyone. It's just not worth the time. Mostly you will just be wandering around halls trying to find how to progress to the next puzzle and then backtracking after you meet the monster -- you either die or go long the long way around.

I am a seasoned gamer and for the past 20 years have played the most difficult adventure games possible and platinumed all the dark souls and bloodborne games with ease. That being said, when I say the puzzles in this game hardly make any sense, I mean it. I walked around the same 5-10 rooms for an hour and a half and did absolutely NOTHING to progress the game. I think there may be a bug because I watched a walkthrough on youtube after I was done with this game and there was a button on the wall where in my game there was not. Unless it is randomly generated I dont know. There is ZERO direction in this game. There are little buttons everywhere to push and you have no idea what they do. All while a monster is chasing you. If this sounds fun for you go for it, for me it was 90 minutes of wasted time and goes down in the bucket of the 0.1% of games that I will never finish.

This is basically a horror/puzzle hybrid and as is the case with such attempts, it's quite difficult to 100% hit both marks. It's a tentative recommendation from me, not because the game overall isn't good -it is really good actually-, but because of two main reasons I will mention below. Overall, a few details could have made this a great game. Even as it is, it can get you hooked and thirsty for more. [h3]PROS[/h3] + Easy controls + Solid graphics, I especially liked the lighting in some corridors + Great audio + The combination of sound, claustrophobic environment, dark areas and dystopian theme, make for great atmosphere throughout the game. And all that in casual mode + Casual Mode, which is what saves the game for me. I wouldn't touch it if there wasn't a no-monster mode + You can get the vast majority of the achievements in casual mode. Very few involve the monster and even for those you don't have to beat the game or even progress much. [h3]MEH[/h3] ? The need to use the bio-data terminals every few minutes so that you don't die. I understand that it adds to the sense of urgency, but it does hinder the puzzling aspect of the game ? Almost zero hand-holding (direction-wise and puzzle-wise). This is usually a plus for me, but it's not everyone's cup of tea, so it's worth a mention here ? The maze: It's pretty huge and the only means of navigating will be your memory. Again, it does match with the dystopian theme, but some players go nuts if there's no map ? Monster design/movement: Both could have been done better. That said, whenever you encounter it you don't really have time to marvel at it, as you will be running for your life the opposite way [h3]CONS[/h3] - The normal mode gets very frustrating very fast. For me it's virtually unplayable, as the monster completely ruins it for me. It would have been ok if it appeared every once in a while, but it appears quite often AND the proximity alarm doesn't always give you enough time to avoid it. Plus, it can appear while you're trying to solve one of the smaller puzzles or right after you've solved one of the main ones. Which means you can die before managing to save at one of the terminals, so you will have to do the puzzle all over again. It's supposed to be scary, but it just gets annoying and pretty fast. - A few of the achievements involve the use of Twitch, which for me is a no-no. You bought the game and it's yours, you shouldn't have to deal with other platforms and depend on other people in order to get all the achievements. Especially the voting one seems like an attempt to advertise the game for the developer, which is a bit lame. Like I said, thank god for Casual Mode.

If it wasn't for the stupid AI monster interrupting your puzzling every 5 seconds, this game would be a decent puzzler.

I went into ‘The Subject’ with a very loose understanding of what I was going to be getting myself into. I got the understanding that it was a horror puzzle game set in space and the price was good for the amount of playtime these games typically provide. So I started up the stream, loaded my game, and rolled up my sleeves. My first attempt at the game was bittersweet. I got past the first main puzzle and was rushing to perform my check-in, which is something you must do before your character is euthanized. Steps from the console I needed to activate, I ran out of time and was killed. Not realizing I had to manually save in this build of the game, I was put back on the main menu and prompted to start a new game. According to the developer it was since patched in that you save when you use the check-in terminals. Regardless, I loaded back in. Ready to accept the challenge from the beginning. The second playthrough went a lot better and resulted in me beating the game and the only gripe I had was that I wanted to play some more. What’s there of a story is pretty good. It’s not a very in your face story but more of a subtle tale that unfolds naturally as if you were actually the character in the game experiencing these insane events. It’s definitely a shorter game. Depending on your puzzling skills, it could take you somewhere between 2-4 hours to beat. However, I do feel like there is some replay-ability. A few achievements promote challenge runs that I think would be fun to try. Running from a monster in a maze is a big part of getting between the puzzles, but the real game is in solving the puzzles. There are four main puzzle rooms in the game consisting of one puzzle each. Depending on your skills these could either be really easy or not so much, but all of them bring a different style of puzzles to the table and kept me excited to see what was next. You also have some things to solve outside of the main rooms in order to open locked doors and discover secret areas, easter eggs, etc. The maze that connects all the rooms is pretty well designed and even when I thought I knew my way around, I was still getting lost. Furthermore, I would turn a corner see my big monster friend and have to book it in the opposite direction getting even more lost. Navigating and finally finding the door you have been looking for was always a wonderful mini-victory. This being the first full game created by the dev, a team of one, it definitely has its rougher spots. But compared to most indie horror games that I play it was definitely among the more polished. The dev is actively updating this game almost daily at times and listening to players feedback. Bottom line, for the price you really can’t go wrong if this type of game appeals to you as it does to me. If you like games like Alien Isolation or are just a fan of puzzles, tension, and horror games, you’ll definitely find some fun here. In my opinion, if this is the first game DarkStone is putting out, future releases can only get better and I’m excited to see and play those games in the future. If you’re still on the fence, watch some of a stream or look up a YouTube video, but I highly suggest going into this as blind as possible as to not spoil the puzzles or the atmosphere for yourself.`

You spend 95% of the time running down long corridors trying to find something to do. The game artificially prolonging its gameplay by making you run in circles without a clue. Absolutely terrible game/level design. Basically a walking simulator.

Beautifully designed environment and a poorly designed monster and monster mechanics. When the monster catches you it is insta kill. Also, the only way to temporarly hide from it is to hide in a proper hiding spot. Most of the puzzles will require you to roam and get lost in dark corridors while searching for countless switches. It is a bit scary at first, but it gets boring fast. Although I had the game video quality maxed out and had a good framerate, I had problems with the antialiasing. It was enabled but it just didn't look like it actually was. Regardless of the AA problem, the game was not very fun to play so far and I would not recommend it to others.

The Subject starts out promising but you'll quickly realize how annoying the game play will be, as the majority of "puzzles" are buttons and switches that may do something, somewhere. It's all guess and check work. There are 4 rooms that have some real puzzles, but these are the tedious, brute force solving kind. Getting to all these rooms, buttons, and switches is a huge pain since you have to navigate a 4 section maze of corridors with a monster wondering around. (You can turn the monster off at least at the start of the game.) The monster sounds scary, but it looks very goofy and moves like a wacky waving inflatable arm tube man that just learned how to run. The game has a proximity alarm go off when you're near the monster, which is nice for surviving, but completely takes the tension away. I might actually be scared if I didn't know the monster was near. Also the alarm goes off even if the monster is on the other side of a wall or floor, making it misleading. All these annoyances while having a time limit too. You have to keep saving the game at scan stations to reset the time limit. When you re-load your save file, some puzzles reset while others don't. Not sure if that's a bug or intentional. Starting a new game instantly erases your previous save file, and it won't let you replay the tutorial again, so you can't find the combination to the Easter egg door. Overall, the game looks great. But the monster is more silly than scary, the puzzles are simply annoying, and the whole experience is just tedious. If you like walking simulators, random button pushing, and good space aesthetics, then you might like this game.