Keeper of the Fog

Fog Keeper is a game created for RMN's Commonplace Book event by AtiyaTheSeeker.
The game starts with a prologue that tells in brief that fifty years ago the world has gone to hell: a magical apocalypse occurred and now there are monsters everywhere and people struggle to survive, but we play as Dana, an expert monster hunter that protects civilians from the threat of the monsters.

One day some friends did not return from a mysterious villa, so Dana decides to investigate their disappearance. Unfortunately her gun malfunctioned so it is temporarily unusable, and so she has to rely on her knife and everything else she can find in the mansion...
That obviously is a place of evil, make no mistake!


Oh yeah! Well Jill Valentine found a grenade launcher in the villa, but I won't complain! This is enough!

Keeper of the Fog is a short survivsl horror adventure entirely set inside a cursed mansion (there is a total of nine rooms, for a total of ten maps including the final scene, so yes do not expect a long game). We play as Dana in her search for her friends and the evil one that captured them, and trust me, the beginning is very Resident Evil-like: all alone in a mansion with dangerous creatures, a couple of puzzles looking for missing persons.
Surprisingly there are no zombies, not even one! But trust me, there will be worse...

Luckily there are no random encounters, all are fixed and usually triggered by some actions or movements, and not all are mandatory. This is a good thing since the resources are limited (realistically, you cannot find plenty of medikits and weapons in a villa), anyway our friend Dana has several useful skills:
She can spend TP (earned after being hit) to use the various firearms she will find, but she also has MP (Mana, if you prefer) to empower her attacks or heal. MP are slowly regenerated, but she can spend her round focusing to get some more.

Since this is a survival horror do not expect to level up or to find other party members. Oh no, combat rewards are just loot and the possibility to progress, no more. This makes the game rather challenging, be ready for this.


Video killed the Radio Stars... and me too! Evil TV is evil!

Besides combat you have to solve some simple tasks that require finding some items necessary to unlock other areas and also finding hints that are used to learn a password... and I admit that this was the hardest part for me, since I was sure I guessed it and the game was wrong. Am I the only one? Well if you are curious read below!



Graphically the game is pretty good since it uses the classical Pop Horror resource pack that I like very much! I am aware that Dana's charset and portait is custom and fit the style of the maps perfectly. I just miss the presence of portraits during the few dialogues but it's nothing bad.
Mapping is pretty good, rooms are of an adequate size and well furnished and detailed. There are many optional interactions and descriptions and this a thing I appreciate. I also liked the style of the menus and the main menu and game over screen, maybe I'd have liked a more "visual" intro but that's ok!
Music? Another very good aspect of the game, I liked a lot the choice of sounds (the constant sound of the rain, for example) and music.

I just found a couple of issues: an item (bone necklace?) that is mentioned but not found in the menu even if Dana says she can equip it replacing her scarf and a darkening of the screen after leaving the (darker) underground area. Oddly everything is fixed after a combat encounter and goes back to normal.


Ok, the bad guy is dead, we won, time for TheRpgmakerAddict to leave this cursed place for new adventures...

Final Verdict
Despite some flaws I liked this mini adventure. Well probably I'd have liked a longer story, more encounters, maps and especially more consumables, but I know that the time for an event game is very short.
The game is challenging, quite difficult in some parts (oddly I won the final boss on my first try, while two other opponents defeated me three times each... my excuse was that I tried to spare some consumables so I took some risks) but in the end it's not impossible.
On the contrary this added difficulty is something that made the game addictive and mitigated its shortness, I guess it is a question of personal tastes (i mean enemies hit hard so you have to plan carefully your moves and avoid wasting the rare consumables), but I liked this aspect: no grind or repetitive encounters, just learning to fight (and I did "get gud" after a while).

So yes, pity for the shortness, anyway it is an event game so I understad, and it's pretty good for that. I survived the cursed mansion of doom, and I had fun so it's ok, I guess!