Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
Website: https://carrion.game/ or https://devolverdigital.com/games/carrion
Price: 19.99 USD on steam at the time of writing.
Blurb: “Stalk and consume those that imprisoned you to spread fear and panic throughout the facility. Grow and evolve as you tear down this prison and acquire more and more devastating abilities on the path to retribution.”
Carrion is a monster simulator with a bit of “metroid-vania”. You sneak around an underground laboratory, murdering everyone in sight. If ever you had one of those rubber octopus toys that you soaped up and threw against the wall, just to watch it climb down, you had an awesome childhood. Your character feels like that, but with more chaotic tentacles. Moving around the screen can almost feel satisfying in itself. The movement feels effortless and almost “floaty”. You need to feed to grow, and damage will make you shrink. Eating pesky humans is the way you do it. Size has another perk. You gain new abilities that are tied to your current size. Killing humans is not the only thing happening on-screen. You have puzzles to solve as well. These puzzles require specific abilities to solve, which in turn is tied to size, which make the puzzles clever.
Size isn’t everything (that’s what she said!); you can not just grow and steamroller everything. The enemies are varied, so that a ‘mechs’ or flame-thrower wielding soldiers can whittle you down in seconds. You need to use the terrain to ambush your prey. The level design helps you a lot, and is usually designed so that you have the freedom to tackle a problem from any angle. If you misjudge a situation, there are numerous ways to hide and flee. I would say that sometimes you need to be creative, but it is actually encouraged all the time. You do not need to “think outside the box” – the game just wants you to rub your hands with glee once you have pulled off a very sneaky, underhanded manoeuvre. This is where a lot of the enjoyment in the game lies. Some of the not-so-satisfying moments are when there is a lot happening on-screen, and you have your own tentacles swishing this way and that. You just do not know which of your tentacles you are controlling. The other is when you play a human. Not sure where that fits in.
The graphics are ok, the rag-doll physics are ok-ish. Somehow it does not matter that much as I found myself looking at all the flailing tentacles and dripping blood. The sound fits this game like a glove; the screams sound like screams, and ripping doors or skylights apart makes just that sound. Crunching bones and clanging metal make the sounds they should, and will deepen your immersion into the game.
For a reverse horror game, I found enjoyment that I did not think I would. I almost burnt my supper trying it out. I think you should try it out too.