Perceiving Shapes was a submission to Third Annual HAWKTOBER Game Jam and came 4th. Later this game was also featured as GOTY for 2020 on HBgames.org! Did you know this?
In any case, welcome to Saturnalia!
What's that? Saturnalia is the town that you will visit in this cool game, and I may say cool due to these two features that immediately caught my attention:
- Fully Voiced Dialogues
- Immersive Horror Atmosphere (and how!)
You can trust me, these are the strong points of this game, that really keeps these two promises, but what is this about?

Perceiving Shapes is the story of Beau, a young man who lives in Canada that is going to visit a girl he met online, Susan, in this town called Saturnalia.
Everything starts normal, then soon strange things starts happening, and then...

Ok, I won't tell you anything else about the plot since this is a short horror story, in any case expect dialogues (that, I will say it again, are fully voiced and here it was done one amazing job considering that there are about ten-twelve characters and they all sound different from each other), some exploration (well, little of it, considering it's a short adventure) and classical horror movie chases from strange and deadly creatures!


RUN, RUUUN FAST BEAU!

The game works well, it lasts about 35-40 minutes, so it's a really short adventure, but it's really immersive and detailed. I always liked the POP! Horror city sprite pack, and here it's used well, the locations are well done and I did not notice mapping errors or other issues.

About the gameplay: there are 5-6 chase scenes and some of the last two are really difficult, because just being hit three times means death. Luckily there are painkillers found on the various maps (oddly the first one is found on a tree... uhm ok!) that will completely heal Beau. Oh, and you can't save during chases (unlike during the rest of the game where it's possible to save at any time except during cutscenes, of course), so those parts are quite challenging, but not extremely hard or frustrating at all.
There are also some parts in which you have to find the right item (usually a key) to unlock a particular route and some little classic crate-puzzles, nothing new and all rather easy, but enough to keep the player entertained for about half an hour!

But there is not only the gameplay that will keep you interested: there are some particular sections where Beau is not present, and the characters will talk directly to the player, and here you, yes, YOU have to answers to their questions... that's a lot of things considering the shortness of this game, so I'd better shut up or I'll spoil something.


What would you answer him?

Verdict
It's a short, but excellent game. My only problem is that you cannot skip the death scenes (that may become annoying if you repeat the same segment a couple of times, luckily these are not too long). Also, there is one part in which you can immediately die if you choose badly (but it's not a "meaningful" choice, it's just like deciding between left or right!). Luckily the game warns about this possibility (so you can save and be prepared), anyway it's just a matter of luck and nothing else (and I was unlucky of course!).

Despite these little complaints (oh another one: it is linear so I guess there is little to no replayability), the atmosphere and the immersion of this game are excellent, mapping is quite good and the story... well I admit that, as you can expect from most short horror adventures, not everything is learly explained, but I had some interesting ideas about what happened there. In any case, it was good!
The fully voiced dialogues really added a lot, anyway also the music and sounds were used perfectly (the monsters' laughs are scary!).

Perceiving Shapes is an original story, and a perfect short horror game. Some parts are challenging but this is made to keep you on your toes. So nothing bad ad all, if you like horror this is a must play!

4.5/5 - scarily awesome!