-repent loci- Severed Waters

Welcome to review of another short spooky game. Recently I had few time to play and these these short horror games are perfect! Ok, to tell the truth this game was made in a short time for the Roulette 2 event, but it's also part of the "repent loci" game series. This is going to be' my introduction to the setting since it will be' more interesting to understand the whole context, anyway the game is enjoyable as a stand alone too, since it's quite common for short horror stories to leave matters incomplete or not totally explained.

Ok I have already said that this is a horror story, but do not expect to fight zombies or vampires, no this is am horror of mystery and dread. The story is about a cursed sports center, or better, a cursed swimming pool, as you can imagine after reading the title. We play as Robert, the chubby and middle aged bald manager, not the typical young hero protagonist, and that's an original choice, I guess.


Let's meet Robert, or Rob, our alter ego in this game! Things are not going well, isn't it, Rob?

At first I expected a simple game the just required talking and walking, instead SW (that's for Severed Waters, not Star Wars!) was a pleasant surprise when it introduced also some other interesting mechanics and a little puzzle: you can sprint and dive underwater but in both cases just for a limited time, then there's a simple puzzle about pushing people around that is more or less like the old "labyrinth of crates puzzles" but with a small crowd. Simple but nice side activity to differentiate the gameplay a bit. Then you have the usual adventure taska like finding a specific person or item in the sports center. The game is short but not boring or repetitive at all.

Mapping is quite good, I mean, the setting is just the sports center and this means less than ten maps, but these are well done, there are some interesting details like one-way passages, offices and I also think that the layout of the maps is well done: the dimensions are realistic and also structured like a real-life facility. Ok, I am not an expert, but I liked how forniture is places, maybe the only place that is a bit too chaotic is the office, but the rest of the places looks well done, both for structure and use of chipsets.

Let's speak about the characters of this story: they can be divided in two groups, actors and background actors The first group is made by Robert and other characters that besides a charset have also a nice portrait, complete with different positions/expressions. The second group is made of generic characters that are rapresentes just by grey shapes. Was this a choice motivated by the short time requested to make the game? I'm not sure since these grey shapes are also different, and probably using two or three charsets for the generic characters wouldn't have requested much time, anyway I don't mind this choice at all. It's ok, really!

Music and sounds are ok, as they contribuites well to the aura of mystery that permeates the game. I found them appropriated and not the usual tunes one would expect, they are adequate.


No, don't worry this is not a ghost, just an unimportant person of the game. But he still has a funny dialogue exchange with the protagonist!

Verdict
There isn't a lot to say about this game, because it's short and also because I do not want to spoil the details of the story. I can tell you that it's well written, dialogues are simple and straight to the point and it's always clear what you are supposed to do next, and this is always good. You can also save anywhere, even if you probably will play it in one sitting, I finished in 35 minutes, but I believed this was time well spend and also made me interested in the "repent loci" game series.
This game has no great flaws, bugs or errors. Instead it has character, quality, and can keep the player interested until the end... and after!
So it's 4/5. Very good!