Indie developer Team17 killer frequency, out June 1st, surprises me with some of the best and most compelling voice acting and dialogue I’ve seen in a horror game. It’s a tragic comedy set on a radio station in the ’80s and that requires a squishy charm for its characters, but I’m impressed by how well it executes its imagination to create a uniquely entertaining, chilling experience.
Team17’s unique horror vision already impressed me t his year I played Dredge
killer frequency dips his fingers into these two categories and smears them like acrylic paint, coloring a gaming experience that is more than actual gaming and is about conversations. As Forrest Nash, a battered bigshot who went from five million listeners to a humiliating 35, I helm the Gallows Creek late-night radio show on the anniversary of serial killer Whistling Man’s alleged death. Only, as the game tells me right away, he’s not dead. He blows a three-note dehydrated tune near the police station, then the forest, and all over our small town, killing anyone he can catch.
One of his victims is Sheriff Matthews, Gallows’ first line of defense and unfortunately one of the three police officers. The other two pass out after an encounter with the Whistling Man and while on vacation in Cancun respectively.
While 911 officer Leslie makes the four hour round trip to get help from the nearest town, all 911 calls are diverted to my radio station. From the first person perspective and with the support of my occasionally flirtatious producer Peggy, I introduce amusingly on-the-face fictional synth-pop records like Knife and EZ’s “Stab in the Twilight”; play paid, hyper-local ads from “Giblet Field” (known for its “famous pumpkin measure”); and take calls from panicked neighbors who come across the Whistling Man.
Though Forrest welcomes his 35 listeners back to the station with professional glee—you’re listening to “189.16…The Scream,” he says long-throated and throaty—he’s not a perfect 911 driver. Trapped like squirrels, the residents ask him for help choosing weapons, jumping their cars, and sneaking out of office buildings to avoid being beheaded by the Whistling Man, and as he chooses from dialogue options, some of which are timed, to help them achieve this goal.
I find myself using a combination of gut instinct and Peggy’s advice to scour the office for useful information, and end up either telling people to use the taser over the pepper spray because I want it, or putting the screwdriver in the Stuck the ignition because I found a magazine in the bathroom that says so. This approach has mixed results, and it ends up killing two residents. Oops!
The game is adept at maintaining its semi-serious tone even during these tense moments, and usually allows players to choose between dark or lighthearted dialogue to decide how empathetic they want Forrest to feel in his moment as the anti-hero in his hometown. If I accidentally lead a jazz is playing For example, I choose a woman right into the Whistling Man’s blade, I choose lightly, and Forrest says he hopes the woman is Jazz flying to the sky.
I’m glad it suits my sense of humor because not much happens there killer frequency Except what you hear on the phone. Although the game seems to be set up that way Five nights at Freddy’swhere successfully navigating a scenario slowly draws you later into the night – 12am, then 12:42am, 1:04am, etc. – most of the action takes place off-screen.
The game’s visuals are stylistically coherent — smooth, colorful, and outlined with thin, cartoonish black lines — but aside from Peggy’s silhouette fidgeting anxiously on the other side of the broadcast booth, there’s not much visual stimulus. I find myself flipping through the station’s record collection or tossing crumpled paper into a trash can basketball hoop while people yell at me for help.
But visual boredom doesn’t particularly bother me. Listening carefully to callers’ predicaments in order to unravel and solve them is fun enough for me, someone who, like Forrest, interviews people at work and enjoys gossip and synth-pop in his spare time. The voice actors’ performances are flawless throughout, handling the tone and cadence of the lines with a light touch and delivering a compelling black comedy.
I look forward to playing more of these killer frequency. Renewed interest in radio could keep people from doing more podcasts.