This game is an absolute work of art.

I honestly do not even have the words to describe how amazing this is, from the map, the puzzles, the art style, the music, the sound design, the eerie-ness, the creepiness, it's fucking incredible by every sense of the word. This game's story is really interesting, the level design is incredible, honestly the more I speak about it the less I have to say as I just finished the game like 10 minutes ago and I have nothing more to say than to PLEASE go to crow country and play it!

Simplesmente um MONSTRO em ambientação. Crow Country consegue resgatar com perfeição o feeling de terror dos antigos jogos de survival horror da era do PS1, e ao mesmo tempo consegue criar uma identidade própria fenomenal.

A estética de parque de diversões abandonado se encaixa perfeitamente com o gênero, gerando uma atmosfera familiar, fofa e ao mesmo tempo sinistra, o que com certeza ajuda em deixar o jogador sempre à beira de um ataque de nervos (not me though, I'm built different).

Os puzzles são bem RE-like, com dicas de como resolvê-los espalhados pelo parque em forma de textinhos, notas, cartazes, etc. Entretanto, nem sempre são óbvios, obrigando que o jogador coloque tico e teco para funcionar (not me though, I'm built stupid...), ou que use a barraquinha de dicas, esta que ajuda a apaziguar a frustração de ficar preso em um puzzle, uma ótima adição.

A limitação de recursos sempre me deixou na ponta dos pés, mostrando que até o fim do jogo o confronto direto com os inimigos deve ser evitado, algo que RE moderno falha miseravelmente.

Se tem alguma coisa negativa para dizer sobre o jogo, são dois pontos bem bobos: Primeiro, não tem resource management, então vc consegue estar sempre carregando tudo. Segundo, o jogo é bem curtinho, com um mapa bem pequeno, mas isso era esperado de um jogo indie.

Por fim, se esse time conseguiu entregar algo desse calibre com provavelmente financiamento nenhum, fico torcendo para que o jogo faça sucesso e consigam entregar algo com tanta maestria (ou quem sabe uma continuação) em um futuro próximo. Mais um indício de que a revolução indie continua forte, e a indústria AAA continua ficando para trás.

Endlessly Creative!

I remember when I first saw Crow Country during a Steam NextFest and thought, oh! This looks neat! Well, now that it's out and I've played it, I can confirm it's something really special!

I've seen people comparing this to both Resident Evil and Silent Hill, since I guess survival horror games tend to lean towards one of those paths. I can see the influence from both, it's got the atmosphere and inventory of a Silent Hill, but the tone of the writing feels much more in line with Resi for me. But I think those comparisons both fail to take into account all the original ideas this game comes up with, and that's where I think this games greatest strengths lie!

I'd love to write more about this at some point but I think the most important aspect of a survival horror game is it's world/map/location, and Crow Country (the amusement park, not the game) is an extremely good location. There's a certain dreariness the dilapidated amusement park brings, rides malfunction, some are poorly held together, etc. But underneath the rot and ruin, you can tell there once was somewhere really special. I think the locations that most amplified this for me where the Witch Wood and the entire underwater themed area, both of which really pushed the limits of what would be possible in a theme park. There's a certain rule of cool about how realistic the theme park should be, and the game isn't afraid to break that. The memorable locations make it easy to remember generally where puzzles are which is always good for survival horror games and making a mental map. However, the individual rooms within larger areas can be a bit harder to remember, and as more shortcuts and layers to the park unlocked I found myself having to check the map more, which is something I think you generally want to avoid with survival horror (I should be memorizing the map near the end). One more note on atmosphere! I really loved how near the end of the game certain things happen that effect the entire mood of the park. I don't want to spoil it but the music and effects changing with it was really cool.

I also enjoyed the story! It's not the deepest story, I guessed one of the big twists as soon as it was possible to guess, but it serves as a cool backdrop for this adventure. It also is surprisingly darker than I thought, with some really heavy "real life" horror at certain parts. I don't think the game ever capital S Scared me, but it had more of an existential dread. The characters within the game are fun too, I like how nonchalant some characters are about everything while everyone else freaks out about the monsters. Julie and Tolman were the standouts for me. I liked how off putting the entire mood of the game is, there's a little pit in your stomach each time you read about what these monsters are and how this whole crashing down came to be. I didn't guess the big twist, which is an, interesting twist, so that was a fun final moment. Also the final ending screen was really good, I love when a game applies something it's used the whole time in a new way. The monster designs were also really cool, ranging from zombie looking characters, to pinnochio looking freaks, to things I couldn't really describe. There's a really great collection of critters on display for a first time survival horror game!

Talking about monsters, my last point is the difficulty, which was my biggest issue with the game. I think the game is very very very easy. On a first play through I didn't die once. Now, this could be chalked up to me being pretty decent at survival horror and knowing when it's time for fight or flight, but I very rarely felt I needed to fight. I always felt well stocked up on ammo and healing as most things could be taken out with a single handgun clip, especially if you have the upgrade, and by about 3/4 through the game I had enough ammo for my shotgun I wasn't able to pick any up the rest of the time. Most of the damage I took came from the traps that spawn when you enter and reload areas, some of which I found really annoying (mostly the poison ones which were hard to see.) I think these traps would work better with a fixed camera as there were times where a building would be in my way and I would coat myself in poison or step on a little goo puddle enemy purely because it was fully obscured by something in the foreground. I also felt the puzzles were a tad too easy, mostly because many of them would have a note explaining exactly what to do a couple inches away, or have Mara think to herself "Hmmm, I bet the solution is x." Some of this can be avoided I suppose by not reading the magazine clippings, but also some puzzles are entirely reliant on the magazine clippings. I think finding a balance between explained and unexplained would be nice. I'm saying all this with a bit of a "hesitant" tone since the roadmap for updates says they'll be adding a hard mode soon, so this may fix a lot of my little issues. Oh and one final note, the tank controls are a cute addition but I don't think they really work in terms of non fixed cameras, rotating the camera WITH thank controls was clunky and I resorted to modern controls quick. Not an issue just thought I'd toss it out there.

Overall, this was a fantastic game! Creative in every way! A few hiccups for me personally, but I think that's expected for a first foray into a genre. I would easily recommend to any survival horror fans!

(Slight "Spoilers" but while writing this I realized the double meaning of the enemies being called guests.... that's really clever.)

Crow Country is a very decent horror game. I enjoyed it, but there were some aspects that I felt weren't executed perfectly.

The game's presentation is what first caught my attention, and it's really nice. The excellent choice to set the game in a theme park creates a great opportunity to have a lot of fun locales, and the game does a great job at contrasting the jovial amusement park with the decay and horrible creatures that currently inhabit it.

One of my favorite things about Crow Country is how its combat works. To shoot enemies you have to stop your movement and aim in 3D, which is made harder because your character's hand isn't entirely stable and you have to account for that movement, but also many of the enemies have very jittery movement. The bipedal monsters have extremely twitchy torsos so they might end up dodging a bullet if you aren't careful. I can imagine an alternate universe version of this game where the enemies walk like zombies from Resident Evil 1 where they walk straight towards the player without altering their course, and in that version of the game the enemy movement would be too predictable. Having your swaying aim and twitchy enemies gives the combat a sense of unpredictability that really works for a horror game. Your bullets also will deal more damage the closer an enemy is to you, which creates a tense risk reward where you want to wait for enemies to be close so you can save as many bullets as possible, but also that puts you in a risky spot, especially if you happen to miss (which the previously mentioned systems make more likely). The result is combat with some meaty tension. That being said, it's also easy in a lot of situations to just avoid the enemies which maybe isn't ideal.

Unfortunately, the puzzles are my strongest criticism. I don't think all of the puzzles are terrible or anything, but so many of them fall into the camp of "find the note that gives you the code" puzzle design. If you just read the notes littered around the game, you can often just find the answers to a puzzle, which undercuts a lot of the thinking you might have to do. As an example, there is one room where you can shoot fish for points, and you have to get 21 points. That's a puzzle someone could math out, but also there's just a note somewhere else that tells you the literal order you need to shoot the fish to score 21 points, and at that point the puzzle is just a literal shooting gallery test. Not all of the puzzles were terrible, and even at their worst the puzzles were just not all that deep. I was just a bit underwhelmed by the puzzles in this game and would have liked to see some more challenging logical quandaries.

All that being said, I like the story. The story of the amusement park is fun to learn about and the character writing is pretty competent. I'll avoid saying too much about it for people that want to play the game themselves, but the strongest part of the narrative for me was at the very end when the mysterious Mr. Crow explains where the monsters come from. It's an incredible reveal, one that raises a ton of questions and dark implications that I was not expecting, while also tying together some really interesting themes about short sightedness and greed. Like I said, I won't fully explain it in case you want to play the game yourself, but the ending is worth experiencing.

Overall, Crow Country is a really solid game. It has really good combat, a beautiful aesthetic, and a story that perhaps starts with a lot of what you would expect that takes some great swerves into truly horrific implications. I definitely recommend giving it a playthrough, even if the puzzles are a bit weak.

Overall a great time. Its setting is fantastic, feeling diverse while still being interconnected. I loved the visuals and the narrative has some great pay offs by the end. Enemy designs are creepy and unsettling. Overall sound design is gold. Its writing balances creepy and comedic tones very well as it's suprisingly very funny. It's really easy to sing this games praises.

It's just really solid and an easy recommend to fans of the genre. It punches well above its weight and I'm sure it will be a favorite for many.

For me I think survival horror works best when it takes the form of an atmospheric puzzle box, and that’s exactly what Crow Country nails. Pulling at all the little threads on the edges of this amusement park as you piece together the mystery at its core is just really delightful. It’s delectable survival horror comfort food. It’s really only betrayed by its extremely easy difficulty and lack of hard mode, which had me breezing through the game only occasionally dying due to chandeliers crushing me which were more annoying than difficult.

Survival horror is a genre I have never viewed as my favorite despite my consistently great experiences with these games. From the thrilling scares to great soundtracks and simple gameplay progression, survival horror has evolved over the years but retains much of what makes the genre so special. Crow Country is the most recent spiritual successor to this genre, being a stellar callback to the horror games of the 90s both in look and play and also making creative choices that make it stand out more.

The game's plot has you playing as agent Mara Forest as she is sent to the titular Crow Country amusement park to locate its owner Edward Crow. From here you set about exploring the amusement park to progress all while fighting a series of increasingly grotesque monsters. The game takes a lot of its inspiration from Resident Evil with the loop of solving puzzles and collecting key items being a staple of this genre. Outside of the usual items one would collect, such as ammo and health, there is also a load of secrets one can uncover that give both upgrades and new weapons.

One of the best aspects of survival horror is exploring every facet of a space whether it be a mansion or a space station. Slowly learning the layout of the amusement park and how it intertwines with the different parts of it is an immensely satisfying feeling. Each bit of progression in the game also causes the status of the rooms to change to be more dangerous so you are always left on your toes especially if you want to comb areas. The basic controls for the game are fine allowing you to line up your shots so as not to waste ammo. I played this game on a keyboard and I would recommend following the game's recommendation and playing with a controller as that will surely lead to a more satisfying experience. I got used to the controls after some time but I never fully felt as in control as I would have been if I used a controller.

The game is a pretty simple entry into the survival horror genre it being pretty easy in both the combat and puzzles. I would say the base difficulty was a little too easy with there being only a few moments where I felt stressed for ammo and health pickups. This also leads to the game not being super scary for me but it still succeeds in setting an unnerving tone throughout. The game is getting a Hard Mode in the future which will hopefully add to increasing the tension. For the most part, the puzzles are fun to solve and not too difficult either. There were a few cases where the solution to a puzzle is found on a note that is located somewhere else resulting in some backtracking and also requiring you to see the note in the first place. One puzzle I had to look up simply because I could not find the note that would give me the answer. This highlights a problem I have where the notes are collected in handbooks found in save rooms. I do not know why these notes could not be simply viewed from your inventory screen as it saves you from having to go back several rooms to read a note.

One aspect of the game that stands out the most for me is its very unique art style. Every part of the game looks like it is part of a plastic toy set with many of the character models looking like a Playmobil figure. This look creates a lighter tone for the game overall and is one of my favorite-looking games I have played all year. Despite its soft look, the art style is used effectively in creature designs making it hard to comprehend exactly what you are looking at at times.

Crow Country is a stellar survival horror game and one I could easily recommend as an entry point into this genre. As soon after I beat it the first time, I quickly did a second run to achieve the highest rank possible. My second run showcased how optimized the game's progression making it ripe for speedrunning. I also loved seeing all of the foreshadowing the story presents early on basically spelling out many of the late-game moments early on. This has been my favorite game to come out this year so far and one I could not recommend enough for fans of the genre.

Short, sweet, and nostalgic. Crow Country does everything fairly well and doesn't overstay its welcome. The story is interesting to uncover, the setting is interesting, and (outside of the lackluster options menu) the game brings in a modern take on design for guidance, mechanics, and puzzles, almost to a fault.

To elaborate, Crow Country has a strange habit of handholding to a point that felt disrespectful to a player. It places and repeats guides and hints all throughout the game. It gives strong hints to puzzles that could have been deciphered to a greater euphoria without them. Most enemies are ignorable or trivial due to their slow speed. Supplies are everywhere. Resource management is inconsequential because there are recurring sources of ammo or supplies that can be referenced. The game litters and constantly respawns obnoxious traps throughout every area more to slow you down or frustrate you than to actually challenge you.

I don't regret playing Crow Country by any means, but I would like to have had a mode of playing that would appeal more to survival horror veterans.

After years of drift towards third-person action, survival horror finally returns to its roots: dunking your entire arm into every single trashcan you can find and showing disobedient vending machines and lockers the righteous fury of your boot heel.

Thank God the indie market is so robust these days, because the increasing homogenization of the modern big budget game and shrinking genre space therein means you wouldn't get proper survival horror otherwise. Crow Country and others like Signalis have been filling that void, but despite clearly playing to the charm of PlayStation era horror with its visuals - especially with its character models, which look as though they've been unearthed from an old Net Yaroze kit - Crow Country is no tired pastiche. It's safe rooms, puzzles, and resource management might harken to a design ethos that was at one point more commonplace, but these elements feel authentic and borne from a place of appreciation and understanding.

Nowhere is this more strongly felt than in the park's layout and the way in which the player navigates it. The amusement park theme allows for neatly defined areas with their own theming and unique attractions, with hidden passages, back rooms, cast tunnels, and a subterranean network serving as the connective tissue between each "land" in a way that feels appropriate for the setting while serving to make the park feel highly interconnected. Crow Country is great at providing a sense of space while conveying where the player should go and what to do next. I never felt lost or completely stumped by a puzzle and was consistently engaged and encouraged to revisit old locations to explore - the part of my brain that starts processing how I want to route my way through a game activated pretty early, and as far as I'm concerned, that's a sign that a survival horror game is living up to the promise of its genre.

The setting is also small. Crow Country is less Disneyland, more Santa's Village, so one way developer SFB Games succeeds in making repeated loops through the park threatening is by gradually introducing more enemies and traps to familiar locations. As the time of day progresses, rain and darkness further obscure the player's vision, and boobytrapped pick-ups begin to litter the map to prey on the sense of trust they've developed with their environment. I sprinted my way through the opening two hours, juked most enemies and picked up any crap I saw laying on the ground. By hour five, I was walking everywhere, stopping frequently, side-eyeing boxes of ammo, and finding that I actually had to conserve what I had due to the increased expectation that I shoot some damn "guests."

I also appreciate Crow Country for telling a complete and coherent story, something I think a lot of horror games have pushed away from. I think the Five Nights series has poisoned the genre and led a lot of other indie horror creators to believe a complex and intentionally vague narrative is the best way to ensure franchise longevity. Keep posing questions, provide no answers. I get it, sometimes it's best to let the audience fill in gaps, you don't want over-explain horror, but in the hands of a weak writer, the "unknown" can just be a euphemism for "nothing."

That's not to say Crow Country fails to raise any questions of its own, rather that in true PSX survival horror fashion, you're given all the clues you need to form the big picture through memos, context, and dialog. How well you do that is entirely dependent on how much you're paying attention, and whether you view Crow Country as being so cliched that its horror can be explained by way of Resident Evil and Silent Hill. I was extremely satisfied by the ending, which leaves just enough unanswered that you'll still have something to think of without feeling like you'll need to consult a YouTube series or read like, seven fucking books and play a dozen more games. An indie horror game with a conclusion that is both cogent and earned, thank christ.

So make the most of your Memorial Day weekend and bring the whole family down to Crow Country. Come ride our newest attraction: The Seven Seas, and discover new types of bacteria. Remember, vets and children under 6 get in free!

A little gem of a game, Crow Country is set in the abandonded theme park of the same name, with protagonist Mara Forest looking for clues on the whereabouts of the park's missing owner, Edward Crow.

Certainly more puzzle and navigation centric than combat focused, Crow Country makes up for its simple combat encounters with puzzles that are often challenging to unravel and reward you with more and more context on the truth about the park the further in you get, often via staff notes which are a pretty much a staple of the genre.

Crow Country felt to me like a beautiful (even if not too challenging) toy-looking puzzle box, if you've played a couple Survival Horrors then you probably won't struggle with the combat at all, but I think that's fine, as the experience imo feels like it's worth more than the sum of its parts; I had a great time even if the game wasn't trying to constantly kick my butt, if anything I felt that this allowed the puzzles to take center stage without excessive frustration.

This was cute! I played it because I liked the Detective Grimoire games that the devs made and this is definitely different but enjoyable in its own way.

I'm always gonna like a game that lets me walk around a creepy amusement park and this one was well designed, they really maximized the space they had and made the park feel big enough that exploration felt satisfying, but not so big that it was a pain to get around. Also the art direction was fantastic. Story is a bit slow to unspool but it leads to a great payoff.

The combat was awful though, aiming was incredibly clunky and also controls on the gun were inverted from the motion controls which I thought was odd? Fortunately there's an "exploration mode" that lets you turn off combat entirely (I would not have been able to play the game otherwise) but unfortunately it fully removes all enemies from the game, which made the maps feel a little empty.

I wish that they had just neutered the enemies and made them not hurt because I did want to see them still walking around and stuff, but that's just a skill issue on my part. Would have given it four stars if that were the case though.

Competent old-school survival horror overall. Its gameplay system draws more from Silent Hill than the old Resident Evil games, which is nice to see. I think the thematic choice of an Amusement Park is quite interesting as well, and going for a more chibi, cute visual style for a survival horror game is quite a creative move.

Many ideas are used interestingly here, such as the files, puzzles, plot twists, and upgrades.

In the end, it's not a game that's groundbreaking in any sense (nor does it try to be), but it's a very competent game in everything it sets out to do, a great homage to the formula of horror games from the 90s. And I judge its pacing to be perfect; it's a game that lasts practically the right amount of time.

This is how a spiritual successor should be done, for the most part.

Taking massive inspiration from early Resident Evil games, Crow Country feels strangely comfortable. There's something so soothing about the Resident Evil formula TM. The gameplay loop of exploring a slowly expanding environment via puzzles and light combat just works so well for me. And Crow Country does a great job at it.

I ended up also enjoying the simple story they go for here quite a bit. It's nothing crazy but it's fun and interesting throughout.

I do think that the game is maybe a bit too easy. Even finding the secrets isn't crazy difficult. I also wasn't a huge fan of the RNG bonus loot mechanic. I get that it's there to make sure players can't accidentally screw themselves over by running out of items. But it feels a bit too generous in a game that's already on the easier side.

Any fan of the old-school RE games needs to give Crow Country a play.