I'm going to be honest; I'm not a fan of alien abduction stories. I've just never been sold on the idea itself. However, when a piece of media is centered around this subject, I still can enjoy it when it's executed well. Incident at Grove Lake does such a great job at world-building, and setting up tension, that I still had a really good time with it, regardless of my predisposition.

This is a collection of several separate, but related vignettes revolving around alien abduction. There is a lot of care and attention put into the game world, which helps to keep the player going. Near the start, there's a radio playing a couple of broadcasts that you can choose to ignore, or sit around and listen to for a couple of minutes. There's a scene in a café with NPCs sitting about, and though not much is going on, the space feels lived in.

As I said earlier, alien abduction media doesn't do much for me on its own. However, Incident at Grove Lake succeeds at being genuinely unsettling, regardless of context. There is one particular scene right at the end where the visual on display, paired with the vocal performance, genuinely got under my skin, despite how abstract it mostly was.

It's twenty minutes long, it's free, and it's a great time. I wouldn't say it's innovative, I wouldn't say it's a must play, but I can easily recommend this one, especially if you are into the subject at hand. McGrath knocked it out of the park.