Life Eater is a short, gripping “kidnapping sim” that will make you question everything you believe

The Life Eater caught my attention as soon as it appeared. My Twitter feed, describes itself as a “horror fantasy kidnapping simulation game”. My initial thought was “oh god no” as I was immediately worried about how brutal a game like this would become in our current climate.But although it yes A bit sadistic, but also full of heart.

Considering the game was developed by the likes of Strange Scaffold – talented minds filled with bizarre ideas like neo-noir shooter El Paso: Elsewhere (soon to be adapted into a movie ) and Market Tycoon – Space Marine Organ Trading Simulator – It’s really no surprise that Raw Eaters is a strange concept, but at the same time incredibly welcoming.

It definitely doesn’t feel right to describe a kidnapping simulator as “enthusiastic”, but it’s that idea – that jarring feeling – in itself that makes Life Eater stand out from other games in my opinion. When you start the game, you play as Ralph, a druid who must guide you through your typical daily life while completing an annual sacrifice to his dark god, Symphos.

In order to complete these sacrificial rituals, you need to track your target for a set amount of time to learn more about their daily activities – choosing the right target that Zimfus requires – and in the process you will end up really getting to know them. who is it. This is all presented to you via a simulated timeline, where you can choose which parts of your target’s personal time you want to know more about. You’ll be doing this while trying to prevent arousing suspicion and successfully sacrificing them, and you need to make sure you know every detail of what they’re doing… Do they sleep more than six hours a night? Do they live alone, or do they have children? etc.

As you track your targets and determine who is who and what is what, you will find yourself engaged in a psychological battle. I really enjoyed Life Eater. As I slowly figured out the game’s mechanics, it was a real adrenaline rush to discover the differences in people’s daily lives and unlock the unique events they experienced, ultimately giving me the perfect window of opportunity (and enough information) Come sacrifice them and save the world for another year.

But that’s where my mental struggles come from. I had so much fun completing these kidnappings and had to remind myself that I was in the shoes of Ralph, who is so haunted by what he’s been doing over the past few decades…

Alas, I know Life Eater is an uncomfortable puzzle game, and I don’t need to worry too much about my psyche, but it sure is fun to experience a tennis match with your own mind, one that we can imagine The game is all too familiar to our protagonist, Ralph.

Speaking of Ralph’s experiences, we see a lot of them in between the kidnappings. Cut-scenes voiced by Xalavier Nelson Jr. and Jarret Griffis and scored by DREDGE composer David Mason pop up frequently to give us a sense of what’s happened year after year, and the situation is grim. Combining these with a unique, gritty art style, Life Eater is definitely similar to other vibrant yet thematically dark games like Hotline Miami, the recently released Children of the Sun, and even Emily Gone .

I know, the latter is a bit gangster, but Emily Is Gone stirred up in me an emotional conflict and a constant curiosity about other people’s personal lives, which I definitely experienced while playing Life Eater Condition.

Alas, Life Eater does have some less-than-impressive moments, but these are minor in the grand scheme of the game. For example, the daily lives of my victims are sometimes not entirely realistic. Are you saying that most of these people don’t need to use the bathroom at all? On the other hand, other routines are surprisingly easy to “hack” once you understand the mechanics of the game. In many cases, you’ll stumble across a particular event completely by chance – and often it’s these events that determine who you target, and the best time to strike.

The game becomes fairly trivial once you’ve mastered your annual sacrifices for Zimforth; analyze your schedule of changing daily routines, track your victims to determine when they’re alone, and then kidnap them. You still need to know them well enough to complete your sacrifice – do they commute? Do they have dark hair? – But all in all, by the time your few short hours of playing the game are over, you’ve become a professional killer. That’s why these concerns are minimal.

Life Eater is a short experience that only takes a few hours to complete, so by the time you find yourself becoming too proficient in these violent rituals of Zimforth, you may as well be getting close to the finish line.

Don’t be put off by the Life-Eater kidnapping fantasy, as Ralph’s actions are at no point glorified. In fact, the Life Eater is characterized by constant pain (if any at all); the pain of his victims and of Ralph himself. So much so that it feels uncomfortable to enjoy such a harrowing story, but it’s really a testament to the strange, niche experience that Strange Scaffolding manages to create here. It’s creative and refreshing, and it’s great to see a developer focusing on something weird and deeply uncomfortable rather than playing it safe.

Life Eater is available on PC via Steam. As of this writing, there’s no news of the game coming to any other platforms.