Lone Survivor is a 2D sidescrolling horror game that has you playing the role of a man who is the lone survivor (ha!) of a zombie infestation that destroyed his town. It's loosely inspired by games like Silent Hill, inspirations it wears on its sleeve.

I think the game's aesthetics and sound design are worthy of that homage, but the mechanics and story... for the year it came out, it certainly must have been an impressive game, but now, it feels clunky and outdated. The twists are dull, the multiple endings are unamusing and based around equally tedious mechanics. There are more interesting horror games to play in this day and age.

A lot of Silent Hill. And very little else.

The food and sleep system were great. But the game cannot stop itself from reminding you that you are basically playing a certain horror franchise in 2D.

For the French - https://lacritiquedumoment.wordpress.com/2023/10/26/trois-petits-jeux-dhalloween/#lsr

Maybe it was novel for its time, but it's a pixel indie game that speaks about mental illness and the shebang.

The basic gameplay loop is very repetitive and any added variety like the boss-ish enemies is honestly bad and arduous.

One major issue that negatively affects the subject matter is the art and scripting. Looking horribly silly at significant moments, an example is a huge monster appearing right next to the MC but between the appearance and the verbal response there's an odd two-second pause when the MC sprite just idles. Not to forget that the Pixel art clashes with the grounded visuals of the game, the game has very subpar readability.

Dialogue reads like it's written by a stoned dudebro who just logged off a COD lobby, the way that gameplay actions affects narrative is very esoteric, and honestly it's preposterous to ask someone to replay this mess 2-3 times to get multiple endings and a fuller picture when some endings tell way less than others.

Sound design was miles ahead of any other aspect, which makes sense since the dev made music before.

I understand that this is only one man's effort but there's simply too many fumbles for it to be even considered a decent experience.

The dude obviously likes silent hill, but this is a derivative and obsolete experience. Go play Signalis if you want a competent silent hill homage with a proper story.

Esse game é muito provavelmente o mais sublime dos jogos de horror em pixel art que temos. Mesmo seus gráficos retrô, ainda conseguem passar toda uma aura de desconforto graças a sua música, iluminação, e história intrigante que se interliga em delírios e realidade também. O jogo responde bem e os atalhos de comando são muito bem vindos . Os finais e jeitos de de faze Los dão uma baita fator replay, pois o jogo nos dá a possibilidade de zerar ele inteiro sem matar um inimigo sequer . Ele tem um sistema de sanidade oculto que se baseia no personagem dormir bem alimentado, se alimentar com alimentos bem cozinhados e combinados( outro sistema simples porém legal de combinar alimentos para fazer pratos melhores e com melhor efeito benéfico). Porém um ponto negativo está no mapa confuso, na qual a direção de esquerda e direita muitas vezes se confundem. Ao fim Esse jogo é genuinamente uma jóia oculta e com o anúncio do lançamento de um remaster com cenário novo e melhorias, espero que traga mais fãs para esse jogo da qual eu também me tornei.

Horror game made by an amazing musician Jasper Byrne. Game has a lot of passion put into it, it has a short catalogue of 19 songs in the ost, but each one is amazing especially the director's theme. The game has an underlying story that mainly takes a show not tell approach, and has the player piecing together the clues. The mechanics can be tedious, but resources are fair and there's always an alternative around the mechanics even if you don't like the outcome. Getting the second to last ending almost made me tear up, and growing along with this seemingly amnesiac main protag is fun. You tug the strings the whole game and decide what to do with your character. Has interesting characters too one being the director which grew on me. Can't wait for Lone warrior, the next installment.

One of my favorite games of all time. The atmosphere, music, and ambiguity of Lone Survivor all make it a masterpiece in my book. The Director's Cut adds a lot of elegant content and is, without a doubt, the best way of experiencing this game.

I totally get that this won't be everybody's cup of tea, and that's fine. At the time, I remember quite a few publications singing this game's praises, but it seems to be primarily a mostly forgotten entry in the pantheon of early 2010s' Indie Horror. After nearly ten years, it still holds up, in my opinion.

If you haven't checked this out and you're curious, the developer, Jasper Byrne, is in the process of remastering it for the PC and Switch. So I would actually suggest holding off until that's done. He's also working on a sequel, but I don't think that that's going to be worked on much until the remaster is done.

If you want to see if this is your thing or not ahead of its rerelease, the developer himself did a live stream of the remaster's alpha build. You can find that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfYkbrYqf64