There is a sense that the various aesthetics in the game don’t quite gel together at times. All of this brings to mind XIII, another clear influence. These are rendered in a comic book style, and there are also speech bubbles and written sound effects (“BOOM!”). While level geometry is fully 3D, most other elements are composed of 2D sprites – this means weapons, enemies, decorations, and item pickups. In other respects, the game is determinedly retro in appearance. Forgive Me Father runs on the Unreal engine, which provides for some modern effects like reflections, volumetric fog, and coloured lighting. Certain levels capture a rural backwoods horror feel even more effectively than Dusk.Īdding to the atmosphere of the game is its distinctive look. To extend the experience, an endless mode is available, with new levels unlocked each time a boss is defeated in the main story. Byte Barrel can make no claims to telling a compelling story – or much of a story at all – but their environmental design is imaginative, and each level is a new surprise. Over the course of the story, players will shoot their way through town streets, a slaughterhouse, a hospital, a secret lab, a forest, a farm, a windmill, and many more. The game has numerous similarities to Monolith’s 1997 classic Blood, and one of these is that almost every level introduces a new and interesting location. Throughout the game, what Forgive Me Father lacks in level design quality is made up for with sheer environmental variety. To be fair to Byte Barrel, though, the levels do become more ambitious and interesting as the game progresses and especially as it goes beyond the chapters available in the early access release. Early levels in particular are quite boxy and lacking in verticality progression is arranged mostly around the classic red, blue, and yellow keys pioneered by the original Doom. Level design is relatively unsophisticated compared to the current frontrunners in the retro shooter genre. Each section of the game has a loose unifying theme and ends with a climactic boss battle. Far from cowering in fear, each of them gradually amasses an arsenal and declares war on these threats to their sanity and to the world.įorgive Me Father is structured similarly to the classic FPS games of the ‘90s, in that it consists of around numerous short levels split into five chapters. Neither the priest nor the journalist fit the helpless, overawed model of Lovecraft protagonists. It immediately becomes clear that the town is plagued by a full house of cultists, fishmen, mutants, possessed soldiers, and the undead. In either case, the story begins in the New England town of Pestisville, a doomed setting in the tradition of Dunwich or Innsmouth. At the outset, players choose to control either a male priest or a female journalist. Journalists and priests alike get an unpleasant reception on arriving in Pestisville.Ĭompared with Lovecraft’s famously purple prose, the setup and story are simple. It is arguably a little too rough around the edges to rival the boomer heavyweights like Dusk and Ion Fury, but Forgive Me Father carves out an suitably ominous niche all of its own. The game is better than most at conjuring up a cosmic horror atmosphere, and will tick a lot of boxes for those already initiated into the cult of ‘90s-style shooters. The game is developed by Polish studio Byte Barrel, who have made an interesting sideways move: from games based on the TV series Mythbusters, to a game based on the Cthulhu Mythos.īeing both a Lovecraft game and a retro-influenced “boomer shooter”, Forgive Me Father bravely competes in not one, but two fields which are presently very crowded. The “weird fiction” author died in 1937 but casts a long shadow over videogames, and Forgive Me Father is the latest example. In 1996, id Software named the final boss of Quake “Shub-Niggurath”, and it represented an early high watermark for the influence of H.P.
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