I must kill...: Fresh Meat

You don’t necessarily need horrible monsters to make a horror game truly scary, because you can achieve even greater results by making use of a pressing atmosphere. Psychological tactics work much better on players, and it is that much more terrifying when they don’t know what’s after them. The right combination of music, graphics and story can result in a memorable experience most of the time.

I must kill...: Fresh Meat is not your typical horror game, that’s for sure. For starters, it uses point-and-click gameplay mechanics, which although is not unheard of in the genre, it’s certainly not very common. The story and the visual design are pretty unique as well, but unique does not necessarily mean good in every case. Thankfully, there seems to be something worth the effort with the game at hand.

It must be pointed that this is still extremely early in the development phase, so the actual game is more or less empty. You cannot interact with anything yet, so you’re just stuck walking around and looking at the environment. Speaking of which, the story puts you in the role of a butcher who despises modern society and technology, making him a rather unpleasant neighbor to have around.

As mentioned before, there’s not much you can do in the game as of right now. However, there are some problems that need to be fixed as soon as possible, especially interface-wise. In short, it would be nice if the main character moved a little bit faster. The backgrounds scroll sideways too slowly as well, which is mighty annoying in certain situations. Moreover, it’s sometimes a bit difficult to figure out what you can click and what you cannot, at least when it comes to exploration.

The graphics are hand-drawn and pretty disturbing, although not very eye candy. Better artwork would go a long way, but the sketchy look somehow makes the atmosphere that much more pressing. On top of that, the soundtrack is very well-chosen, especially when it comes to the sound effects that break the silence every now and again.

In the end, I must kill...: Fresh Meat is not much of anything in its current state, since it can barely be called a game right now. However, the idea is certainly interesting, which means that the developers should keep at it and improve their project as much as possible.