Divest Time

Divest Time is a short horror game made by Illy, originally for the Fourth Annual Hawktober Game Jam.
The plot is pretty classic (at least considering the horror genre): we have a group of boys and girls that go to "Camp Far Off Land" for a vacation in the wilds. Unfortunately all visitors in the area soon encounters... someone or something, and they disappear. What's happening here? Our five protagonist will surely experience and exciting holiday!

This game is a really classical survival horror complete with chase scenes and lots of them. Game isn't particularly long and it took me 45 minutes to complete, it's also rather linear and simple, the only difficult part (except a couple of chases scenes where I was caught, but because I was not careful, I admit this!) is the final section. But let's start from the beginning: in this game we play as Julis, the goth girl of the team and game protagonist. Uhm ok, there isn't a lot of backstory for the characters, we just know the name and most of them have just some lines of dialogue (that in a couple of case gives some hints about their personalites), but I like to identify with the classical stereotypes of the horror movies and american schools: we have the goth girl, the jock, the quiet guy, the nerdy gal, the punk. During the game, even if Julis is the protagonist, we will control them too in different sections.
Anyway, even if these sections are different (and pretty short), the objective is more or less always the same: look for hints and items, and avoid being caught by the big bad guy, since he has the power to kill instantly in rather gruesome manner!


But of course, Bruno! We know it's perfectly safe here! What could happen?

As mentioned before, game isn't really long, there is a total of nine maps in total (uhm yes I'm good with numbers inferior to ten!) and luckily you will often know what you're supposed to do. Well often, not always, because in the beginning my impulse was to immediately run away to civilization after the first chase, but... I was wrong! Ok, I mean I know that leaving the others there was a selfish thing to do (not that some of the characters won't try to do the same!), but I meant to search for help and also the dialogue did not tell me that I had to... go back! Yes, you have to run away and then to go back, a bit of a strange thing to do.
But aside from that part al the rest was logical and easy to follow. And I liked the story, is a simple short horror scenario, but it has some details about the "monster" that are quite nice and original (like the spectacular way in which he kills people. Ok, it's messy but do not worry there is no realistic gore or morbid scenes of any kind).
Last section was also pretty challenging and took me about five tries to win. I do not mind, it was difficult but doable and it also came out unexpected, a nice diversion and I wished there were also one or two more in the game, maybe a nearby save point would have been useful, anyway I don't complaint, I liked that!


Oh nooo, didn't you listen to Bruno? It's all about superstitions. Sure.

Mapping is pretty good, I just found a couple of locations that look a bit odd, but one is used in a particular phase so it's more functional than realistic, the other I think it's like that due to the limits of the chipsets. Overall maps, characters and facesets all use the Vexed Enigma's POP Horror City resources, and I liked them a lot, so I appreciate that. The resources are pretty and also used well. I also liked a lot the music used in this game, I do not recognize the source but is appropriate and rather "discrete", so it does not annoy. I'd also have liked a some more interactions with the surroundings, nothing much just some descriptions, but this clearly wasn't possible due to time constraits.
For the rest I liked pretty much everything about the game. Except TWO things. Game is good, no bugs, no problem, and all is well done... I just found a couple of things not as good as I expected but maybe it's a personal opinion. Spoiler time!



Whoa that shotgun is huge! But will it be enough to kill the mystery man? Find out playing this game, now it's time for the...

Final Verdict
I know this game was made for a game jam so, as many other games it was developed in a short time. Originally the submission included just the intro and first chase, but I admit that music, storytelling, pacing felt just right. The same could be said for this complete version, despite some things that could have been different to provide some more variety. But I do not mind, game is polished and dialogues are well written, mapping is also good.
If you like short horror stories and games (like me!) 3.5 is the rating, if you do not like them take away 0.5 points, if you love them add 0.5 points. But play this game, you will need just little more than thirty minutes. So, why not?