Ever since I was allowed to pick my own media, I have always loved the horror genre. Especially anything between a ghost story and a psychological thriller. For these reasons, I couldn't resist taking my first Aesop Spotlight with Caffeine, a newly Steam-Greenlit space psych thriller.
In case you haven't heard of it yet, Caffeine is an Unreal Engine game that successfully Crowdfunded on IndeGoGo and is now successfully Steam Green-lit. It looks to become a very spooky space mystery of the missing caffeine addicted adults.
Wow. I've got to start with that because this demo leaves a lot to cover
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Walk Through
I'll praise the overall quality at the end, let's start chronologically. Going in you find yourself as a short somewhat fidgety first person character. You cannot see your body but the premise makes it clear that you are a little boy of unknown origin. The ship is empty. Not "dilapidated for years" empty, but not "meals half eaten" empty either. There are no sheets on the beds, but everywhere you go are empty little blue coffee cups and in every third room there is a Space Coffee machine.
The room you start in has a row of what might be "missing you" or "get well soon" cards but I have yet to be able to make out the messages in them. However the names Sara and Randy can be made out as to and from names. You can pick up and throw these cards and the several empty blue coffee cups in a very Skyrim like fashion.
The door to your starting room opens as you approach and as you leave there are a couple sticky notes telling you that coffee is important and in the kitchen. Alright, what do you expect from a game called Caffeine? Continuing, you find yourself in a hallway of similar doors, apparently in the crew's quarters. None of the beds have sheets. Some of the other rooms have a Space Coffee machine and are littered with the little blue cups. The lights flash with some untended randomness.
As you head toward the obvious exit of this little residential hallway, there is a musical sting and the flash of a shadowy figure across a lit T-section.
Exploring further, you find many dark, possibly wet hallways and overturned storage rooms. The kitchen however is quite apparent as a large communal room with a table, several chairs, and ,of course, a Space Coffee machine. There are several notes in the kitchen, mostly involving not using too many groceries, proper fridge opening procedure, and not to drink more than 2 cups of coffee. Perhaps the best thing I noticed about the kitchen was the realistic space-sun coming through the high windows. There really is space out there and the orb projects bright yellow light at responding angles to you and the window.
There is one other major destination of note in this level-concept demo. That is what I'm loosely terming the 'lab'. In this room there are a couple computer terminals, some stored books and paperwork, and a white board. The whiteboard, it's contents, and all the notes stuck to and around it are may main focus because it's where you start to see the budding plot.
On the whiteboard first is a sketch of a molecular structure with a mystery component and a note reading "what is it?" Under this is scrawled "John, if you wake up goto LEVEL *smudge*" Next to that is a vagely humanoid black scribble and scrawled next to THAT is "He Sees You". Creepy, right? Standard, but creepy. The best part is the notes at the bottom of the board.
From left to right:
- "Remember To Test Sample 5-d",
- my favorite "John ISNT Responding <3",
- "Some Samples are showing a reversed Metabolism"
- "he sees me" "he sees me" "he sees me" (6 times total down the note)
- "Coffee" "coffee" "coffee" "coffee" (etc)
- a stick figure with big eyes labeled "Me" and a stack of blanks stuck to the board.
The memos to the side appear to be reports on the sample that was acting strangely. Next to the board on a desk is a tape recorder that triggers an audio file. This appears to be "Sara" talking about that rogue sample again. Something has gone very wrong here. I wonder who John is, if we are him, and if he ever woke up.
Past the lab, signs of human habitation pretty much stop. There are a few rooms with chairs or long padded benches, but several of these are overturned. Some hallways and rooms have been flooded and worse, some hallway floor tiles have been completely ripped out. Clearly something horrifying happened here, but the player has no apparent knowledge.
In one of the hallways there is another sting and a flash of the feared "He" like shadow standing still before it is gone again. Past this point, there is a darkened room from which a "psst!" like that of a child is heard as you pass, but no child is apparent on investigation. I wish I had found another lonely space child to explore this empty ship with.
Okay, so that's about as far as we got.
The One Critique
My one real critique of this demo is that when I tried it on my usual computer, the darkness was too thick to see anything. all the screenshots are from the game pages because the computer that could take them is not mine to noodle on. An ambient light adjustment would be great. A lot of horror games help you adjust the darkness until everything is just-visible-enough.
Overall Impression
I said I'd praise quality and I shall! The textures are great, the lights are great, the reflections are great. This is an amazing demonstration of of the time and effort put into the scenes. The walls are shapely and space like, the space outside is bright and space like, and the dingy mess left behind is scary and junkie-like. If there are two things I learned from this demo, it's that detail goes a long way and never EVER become addicted to something in space.
"Before the End" Hypotheses
You know how it goes. Before the end of the horror and/or mystery, it's fun to guess how you -think- it might end. Apparently, there's nothing better than a demo for a psych thriller to get those theories pumping!
Who is the kid?
There's no real evidence that children are even supposed to be on what has been described as a "Caffeine Mining Station" much less lost and alone. Surely he's a child of the crew, but which member? Sara? the only once name-sighted "Randy"? Is John our father or are we the sleeping unresponsive "John"? There's no way of knowing yet. We don't even know what anyone looks like.
Who is "He" that sees you?
Is it a ghost? A surviving crew hyped on on so much space coffee we only glimpse it moving? Perhaps the combined caffeine or cafeine-withdrawal induced hallucinations of the crew brought to life? Is the little boy hallucinating?
If so, were WE also addicted to the bad coffee?
And if we were, is our growth artificially stunted by it? (important to consider in a growing boy)
Honestly, I have no idea how it's going to end (we barely know how it starts!) and I definitely look forward to finding out. You should too. Stick around and see what comes of Caffeine.
