Amarok's Howl

Amarok’s Howl is a short horror game made for the ‘Kill the Cutie’ event. It’s about a group of college kids and faculty who get stuck in a snowstorm and find themselves being hunted by a pack of mysterious wolf-men.

Let’s Talk About Assets!

Pretty sure these are all MV RTP. The maps have that trademark RPG Maker squareness to them, but that works okay for a modern setting like a college. Default assets are put to decent use to create an atmospheric game. It’s not mind-blowing, but it works. The ambiance is more effective indoors where visibility is low and there’s sneaking to be done. The outdoor areas are in a snowstorm, but the howling wind is less ominous and you can plainly see any threats on the map.

While the indoor atmosphere is effectively creepy, it’s a bit of a letdown in how it’s designed. Part of it is that lots of sound effects are set to play at random. Most of the ones chosen suit the job, but it neglects the significance of sound in a horror setting. Because the sounds play at random, none of them actually mean anything, and once you figure that out, you don’t need to pause at every bump and crash you hear.

That’s not to say there are no important sounds, only that the randomized ones don’t matter. There are still distinct sounds for specific events like getting spotted or attacked. The chase music is the one thing I felt didn’t really fit. I don’t know if there’s a lack of intimidating tracks in the program’s bundle, but this one isn’t exactly pulse-pounding. It doesn’t contribute to the horror and shifts the tone as a result.

Let’s Talk About Story!

You play as Alistair Morgan, a young man staying at his college for Christmas alongside his girlfriend Natalia and a few of his classmates and college staff. The prologue introduces us to The Legend of Sedna, an Inuit creation myth that probably wasn’t meant to be as amusing as I found it. The relevant details are that Sedna was wedded to a dog and had repulsive dog/human hybrid children. Some of them eventually became regular people while others remained lycanthropic, and now the latter are after the former in this scenario.

With that context, the story begins properly with a moment of calm where you can talk to everyone involved and get to know them a little. Then it hits the fan and everyone has to hide from the wolf-men (known as the Adlet, not werewolves). Alistair and Natalia took refuge in the doctor’s office with the campus physician, and it’s up to you to get everyone else there safely.

There isn’t much to the story beyond the setup and conclusion (which I won’t spoil). The characters don’t have a lot of depth, so they more exist as McGuffins to be rescued. They’re mostly believable if a bit stereotypical. I wouldn’t say the narrative is the game’s main draw.

Let’s Talk About Gameplay!

This had some thought put into it. There’s more to it than just searching dark buildings and avoiding monster attacks, although those are the core mechanics. As before, you have to rescue the other people on campus by gathering them at the doctor’s office, which is large enough to accommodate them all and somehow safe from invading Adlet. The people fled all over the area and you’ll find a few in each building, but it’s not a blind search. Natalia can offer you advice on where to find each of them, listing off a few places they might have hidden. She’ll have a lot to say the first time you ask, but each person found is stripped out of her dialogue so you know where to focus when you check in again.

There are a few mechanics at play in the field and it doesn’t use RPG Maker’s battle mode for anything but a Game Over. You have two stats: HP and Endurance. The former goes down when monsters catch you. The latter decreases rapidly in cold weather and increases slowly inside buildings. You can run out of Endurance twice before succumbing to hypothermia, but HP can only deplete once. Both can be fully restored by the doctor anytime you stop by. The buildings are almost all separate from each other, so you must step outside to move between them and you can’t avoid the cold weather completely.

Navigation is simple enough. The gameplay comes from avoiding the Adlet, both in staying unnoticed and escaping when you are. The enemies don’t have predictable or consistent routes through the areas (at least none I noticed), so you can’t exploit their patrolling very well. There’s also a shadowy ghost dog (called a Keelut) that appears in various spots which will alert the Adlet if you are too near. You can walk to reduce your detection range and standing still makes you even harder to spot. Apart from the Adlet and Keelut, there’s also a threat from Amarok itself. On occasion after rescuing a friend, you’ll hear a howl and Alistair will note he’s being hunted. Amarok appears as a large, semitransparent wolf at the top of the screen. When this happens, you must get back to the doctor’s office before Amarok becomes fully solid or it’s an instant Game Over.

While being chased, there are a couple helpful controls you can use to avoid getting stuck. One is a key that lets you change the direction you’re facing without moving. This is meant to work in conjunction with your other special movement, which is to jump forward two tiles. This allows you to hop over an enemy if they are blocking the way or have you cornered. It has a cooldown so you can’t just bunny hop everywhere. Enemies strike when you’re adjacent to them, but under some circumstances, you’ll be able to hit them instead, which stuns them. As far as I know, this is random, but it’s nice when you luck out and take no damage. It once happened when I was running directly away from a monster and they were punched while my back was turned, so I get the feeling it’s only by chance.

With these advantages, all that’s left is your capacity to flee. The monsters are only slightly faster than your running speed, but they get frustrated in a long chase, so you can shake them off just by traveling far enough. Their AI is decent enough that they won’t get stuck on obstacles, so there’s not much one can do to cheese it. Your best option to get out of a chase is to change maps, so passages between buildings, moving up or down floors, or going outside are all viable for escape.

The way all these mechanics work, the game is really easy. You’re more likely to die from your own carelessness than most of what it can throw at you. The things it has for you to overcome are functional in theory, but they’re too merciful to be any real threat. Being able to escape an Adlet through a door is only one such thing, though this could be remedied by letting them follow you if you took a warp during a chase. The cold weather is barely a factor because you never need to spend much time outside. Losing two bars of Endurance is highly unlikely with the rate at which they decrease. Likewise, the Amarok hunt segments hardly matter because the campus is small enough to cross one end to the other before Amarok would strike. I waited it out once to see how long it would take, and over five minutes went by before I was finally killed for it.

Let’s Wrap This Up…

This game has a neat concept and the mechanics are good in theory, just its bark is worse than its bite and it could afford to be meaner in many areas. It has difficulty levels, but they only impact your stats, like how many hits you can take or how slowly your Endurance depletes. It’s not to say the game should be an excruciating challenge, but there’s more it could do to make its mechanics feel significant. As it is, it’s a breezy horror game that’s easy to play. I suppose it’s good for horror lightweights and it’s amusing, I only think it could deliver more with a few tweaks. For this, I give it a…

3.5/5


Amarok will strike within 82 hours