Gangstalk is a cat-and-mouse sport by which you play each cat and mouse. It is a stalking sport by which you’re the particular person stalking you and likewise, you’re the particular person being stalked. By you. Sure, I too am carrying an expression of puppy-eyed dismay and confusion. But it surely sounds attention-grabbing, sufficiently attention-grabbing that I can disregard the very loud DYSTOPIAN WORLD framing within the trailer.
Devised by Kitten Burst developer Jam2go, Gangstalk is the story of Cam, an city explorer in a high-vis jacket with an emoji for a face. He is being hounded by the evil megacorp PANDO, who seem to specialise within the manufacture of digital ghosts. Or a minimum of, he thinks he’s. In line with Wikipedia, gangstalking refers to “a set of persecutory beliefs by which these affected imagine they’re being adopted, stalked, and harassed by a lot of individuals.” So it is doable that every one that is taking place in Cam’s poor befuddled noggin.
As the sport begins, Cam has infiltrated a secret PANDO firm city, Kudzu Vale, which jogs my memory of The Blackout Membership‘s ghoulish chunk of suburbia. There are hauntingly empty carparks, hauntingly empty procuring markets, and haunting items of high-concept surroundings, like piles of smouldering TVs or gaggles of marionettes who positively will not transfer whenever you look away. Lively threats embody predatory phantasms referred to as Datamoshers, who appear to be Slender Males product of VHS crackly bits. However the intriguing half, once more, is the entire “you might be your individual stalker” conceit.
In lieu of a generic digicam system you’ll watch Cam “by way of the fragmented views of CCTV Cameras, Units, Brokers, and the enigmatic Datamoshers”. Typically, you are peeking by way of a CCTV digicam within the nook, with the view rotating jerkily to observe him/you throughout the room. Typically, you are the horror chasing him/your self, wobbling alongside as he/you disappear round corners, whereupon you will presumably have to attend for your self to catch up with a view to maintain… escaping from your self.
Whereas displaying a soon-to-be sufferer from the killer’s vantage is a well-known tactic, I really feel like Gangstalk is making an attempt to push past that clichéd cinematic system. It is instructing you to concern your individual gaze, which poses a enjoyable sensible dilemma. Presumably, you will need to stroll the road all through the sport of being simply seen sufficient to retain management.
The Steam web page comprises a observe warning about “sturdy depictions of hysteria and paranoia”, and that is definitely one of many fancier takes on such issues I’ve discovered in a online game. I can think about some methods it will not measure as much as its potential, thoughts you. Maybe the “stalker POV” stuff will simply boil all the way down to traditional survival horror mounted vantage factors, a lot of the time. Maybe it will simply be laughable in apply. Maybe it being laughable is the purpose. We’ll discover out someday subsequent yr.
