Maldo19, 2020

Set in post-revolutionary Chile of 1992, Ignacio “Maldo19” Maldonato's The Horror of Salazar House (formerly known as The Enigma of Salazar House) is a visually distinctive adventure game that tips its hat to the classics of Italian horror cinema, something of a recurring theme in games published under Puppet Combo's Torture Star label.

Taking the role of journalist Elisa Muñoz, you're dispatched to investigate the deserted house of author Jaime Salazar, whose entire household disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 1986, the house left untouched ever since. As you wander its corridors, you'll find yourself at the centre of a cursed ritual, which you can end... or complete.

The graphics in the first person viewing window are inspired, the creator says, by the Virtual Boy. Their atmospheric use of solid block colour leans into that, but there's also something of 80s first person graphic adventures like Shadowkeep in there.

Gameplay revolves around exploring the map, locating a series of ritual sacrifices and learning how to safely negate then, all while avoiding the monsters that wander the corridors of the Salazar house.

The monsters are lovingly created, with rotoscoped animation for you to enjoy as they beset you. The house is dripping with atmosphere and personality, and it's worth the 3,29€ entry fee for this alone, but I'm also having fun working out the solution to each victim.

Although the graphics are simplistic, there is real horror, a couple of jump scares, and some dark themes here. The game carries content warnings for: “A hanged depiction, a face without skin, and the use of medical drugs and overdose.”

It works very nicely on Steam Deck using touchscreen, touch pads, and controls. Native Linux and Windows builds are available. Helpfully, the deck appears to default to native Linux runtime.

Buy it on itchio: https://torturestar.itch.io/salazar-house (steam key included, better profit share, you should get this one)

Buy it on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1405440/The_Horror_Of_Salazar_House/

Screenshots

#IndieGames #LinuxGaming #NativeLinux #SteamDeck #HorrorGames #SurvivalHorror #RetroAesthetic #AdventureGames #PointAndClick

Ubi Soft, 1986, 1988, 1990

One of Ubisoft's (née Ubi-Soft) first games, Zombi, was an unlicensed adaptation of George A. Romero's 1978 film, Dawn of the Dead, going so far as to share the film's Italian title.

Originally released in 1986 on the Amstrad CPC, Zombi is a first-person, flick screen action-adventure game, and is absolutely a proto-survival horror game. Combat against zombies and a hostile gang is real-time.

Arriving on the roof of a shopping mall in a helicopter that's now out of fuel, you control Alexandre, Sylvie, Yannick and Patrick (named after the dev team).

Every member of the party can and must be controlled individually to allow you to survive long enough to collect fuel and get back to the copter.

Collectible objects are marked blue in the CGA DOS version of 1988, which wisely uses a monochrome palette with coloured highlights. Controls in this version are keyboard-based, and involve using the arrow keys to navigate around an icon bar and on-screen hotspots. This can get a little tense during real-time action sequences.

Download the EN/FR DOS version from Abandonware France – just unpack and run the COM file with DOSBox-X (or your own preferred DOSBox fork).

I actually recommend playing one of the other versions – my personal favourite is the Amiga edition, which gives you the luxury of point and click mouse controls, colour graphics, improved sound and very on-point music.

You can find it at MyAbandonware – this download is EN only. Unpack until you find an ADF file and play using FS-UAE.

The franchise was unexpectedly (kind of, ish) raised from the dead in the form of 2012's ZombiU for WiiU, later ported to Windows, PS4, and Xbox One under the title of Zombi.

Lemon Amiga Walkthu – English: https://www.lemonamiga.com/games/docs.php?id=1851

Dokokade Walkthru – French: https://jeux.dokokade.net/2017/01/18/soluce-retrocompatible-zombi-amstrad-et-amiga/

Screenshots

#RetroGaming #DOS #Amiga #Horror #Zombie #Zombi #SurvivalHorror #retro #Review