Honestly, I feel kinda bad rating this game as low as I am. I feel like it accomplishes what it's trying to do, and I really like it's aesthetic and premise. The reason why I'm rating it so low is because even though I really do love ARGs and ARG elements when used in video games, this was still really disappointing for me, mostly because it's not the game I WANTED. I would totally be down to play an entire game that's JUST exploring an abandoned multiplayer lobby, liminal space style, and the narrative and ARG stuff took away from what I enjoyed about this game. But when you take away those expectations, it's probably pretty okay. Idk this game is free, if you wanna check out an already solved short little ARG experience, then yeah go for it. Otherwise, probably not what you're looking for.

It's difficult to be harsh with this given how cool the concept is, but I can't but question why did the dev not figure out a way so that no one can mess with the servers. Maybe make it so no flag spawns? Maybe make it impossible for the player to get to the other flag? Make it so that no one except you can enter the server? I may be too programmer-brained for studying programming for some years now, but it's clear the dev can inject things into the game with the example of the megaphone... so? (Edit: Oh right, and why did he code so that you can stop the megaphone by shooting it? Why not make it indestructible if it's that important for your wife?)

On another note, this was kind of nostalgic for me, because it reminded me when I would go to my father's house and I would play Halo: Combat Evolved. He had an illegal copy of the game so that means no online play. So, apart from enjoying the campaign, I would also go into empty multiplayer maps to explorer them, and for some reason some of them would get me creeped out (specifically Gephyrophobia, Sidewinder and Hang 'Em High, which the last kind of looks like the one here). Even though they were obviously empty, they would make me feel something akin to a strong anxiety feeling. I'm guessing the dev wanted to capture that with this... If so, good job. And because of that I was ready to give it a "good" rating, but then I learned that there's an ARG (not a fan of them, and this one is particularly boring), and it worsens the already flawed logic I mentioned. Goddammit.

Still, like I said, cool concept, only a few minutes long, and it's free... A decent time, overall.

★★½ – Average ✅

Despite the praise gotten from indie game outlets, this game ultimately turns out to fall off in the 'overly ambiguous/unfinished ending' disappointment among thousands of indie horrors.

The game is developed by Adam Pype of SPOOKWARE fame gained previously from the demo version found in Dread X Collection 3. The game is one of those usual fake VHS games where you play a seemingly abandoned online competitive FPS game with no players where you have to bring three flags to your base. Shortly as you wander around the arena, you start encountering few unusual things it wouldn't belong in such a game, such as a mysterious gramophone and a red light from nowhere. Stuff happens till the creator of the game pops in telling you that the game was actually programmed for her own deceased wife. From here, the game ends.

However, there's a hidden ending you can obtain by going through a small supplemental ARG (alternate reality game) from the itch.io page of the game to download a hidden game known as EYE, which reveals the backstory of the FPS game creator's deceased wife and hints for the main game's hidden passage. From there, the game's hidden path contains a final puzzle (in which i couldn't figure out by myself because, after all, i'm not an ARG player so whatever). Sadly, there's nothing much potential to see in the alternate hidden ending, where you replace the deceased wife's soul(?) with yours in order to populate the abandoned game itself with players filling every server available.

Certainly, if you're looking for a way better game about a suspicious game that is secretly a dangerous weapon, there is SUPERHOT, released years before this game, and has a lengthy enough story with really puzzling FPS gameplay.

I really like the concept behind this game but it felt like it showed its hand too early with the "ghost" flashing immediately after delivering the first flag. That and the sequences where the entity flies towards the camera and you can't move just gives the game away around the threat and the game can't recapture the same eerie feeling it had at the beginning when you know what's in store. If the reveal was more gradual, it would've been a lot more engaging but as it is, it quickly loses any scare factor. The story, by itself, is fine but the simple explanation given in-game just overexplains something that was probably better to be hinted at. Not bad and had a lot of potential but that's pretty much it.

It's hard to review this experience without having played the ARG as it actually happened, so I'll put this simply into two parts- the main, surface-level experience, and everything else I had to look up to complete.

The main experience is incredibly efficient horror. In only 20 minutes you can have a very satisfying playthrough that effectively utilizes some very simply tricks to lay out atmosphere, story, and scares. Even though each server run is identical, I found myself consistently chilled by the ghost in the machine, wondering if my mind was playing tricks on me every time I thought I saw something blip out of the corner of my eye. The icing on the cake is the seemingly permanent ending- you are warned about the consequences of your actions, and they play out. This and games like Doki Doki Literature Club can serve as reminders of the narrative potential latent in the idea of digital file storage itself.

As for what came next, I can't help but be a bit disappointed. As I said before, I didn't experience the ARG in 2019. The entire thing completely flew under my radar. It wouldn't be fair for me to hold it against the rest of the game, so I won't be harsh on the fact that I fiddled around in the servers and rebooted enough times that the game loop became a repetitive slog. All I can do is critique the direction the story goes and imagine how I might have felt if I discovered it through the community, and I have to say that it feels a little lackluster. I think the buried ending falls short, judged as a counterpart to the surface level experience. The sci-fi finale as presented felt a little antithetical to everything I loved about my initial experience.

All that being said, I think this game was lovely, haunting, and well envisioned and executed, and I hope I can find more short experiences like it. Open to suggestions!