York Peppermint Patties were one of my favorite candies when I was a kid. I loved chipping away the hard chocolate shell to reveal the gooey minty innards, and I’d relish the occasion that one was dropped in my candy sack on Halloween. But as much as I loved eating peppermint patties, I never could bring myself to actually buy one because they were so tiny compared to a bag of Skittles or a real candy bar.
Decay Part 1 is a lot like my childhood peppermint patty conundrum. The game is joyously satisfying and does a wonderful job of impinging a feeling of dread and oppression, but its abbreviated length taints what otherwise is a fantastic revival of a dormant genre.
Decay is a point-and-click adventure involving a man who wakes up in an apartment bathroom after apparently trying to kill himself, though he has no memory of the events.
The color palette of the game immediately instills an ominous mood since the room is illuminated with an unsettling orange light. Other hues are effectively used in different areas, and much of the apartment complex is draped in darkness, only lit by an occasional flickering light.
The game does a remarkable job of revealing its story through interactions with the environment. A blood-stained suicide note, letters from family members and newspaper clippings fill in sketchy details about a dead family and the musings of a serial killer. It is kind of like if John Carpenter imagined Silent Hill as a point-and-click adventure game back in the mid-90s.
The actual pointing and clicking works extremely well on the Xbox. The triggers speed up and slow down the cursor, and locating all the crucial on-screen objects is never an issue: a plight that plagued games such as Snatcher.
Every aspect of the game works towards creating a truly disturbing atmosphere. It never enters the monster-infected realm of Resident Evil but instead relies on psychological tricks to carry the tone. The sound, or absence of sound, is another crucial component of Decay. I’d highly recommend playing through the game with headphones in order to fully appreciate the eerie tones of the soundtrack, and it probably goes without saying that this game needs to be enjoyed in the dark.
Decay falls into the same pitfalls common to the forgotten genre: the most glaring being somewhat mercurial puzzles sometimes requiring some trial and error. Most can be easily solved with some common sense, but a few involve using clues from different areas that are not logically connected. It is important to remember that nearly everything in the game has a purpose or has been placed there for a reason, so as long as you aren’t too afraid to work your noodle a little, everything should be okay.
Despite the lack of combat, I was constantly stressed out about what could be lurking behind the next door or around the next corner. Even when returning to previously explored areas, I never felt truly safe. I was always alert and waiting for something to jump out and suck out my juicy bone marrow.
But then, poof! It’s over. The “part 1” in the title did clue me into the fact that the game is episodic, but I was still taken aback when it ended after around forty-five minutes. There really is no conclusion or resolution and there isn’t really a story component explaining what is going to happen or much indication where it is headed. The magnitude of disappointment over the abrupt ending is probably indicative of how much I was enjoying the unpleasant world of Decay. Hopefully part 2 will offer a little more meat on its decaying bones, but at $3, Decay is still a good buy for those with a fondness for point-and-click adventure games or psychologically demented mind-mucks.
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