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I'm ready to be grounded!
- TheRpgmakerAddict
- 04/25/2022 08:25 AM
- 624 views
Good day! And be ready to be grounded!
Created 2013 for the All Hallows' Event 2013 (duh!) by Aeri Sicher with RPG Maker VX Ace, Grounded is a short mystery adventure that took me about little more than two hours to complete.
This scary adventure tells the story of Scarlet Holder, a young girl that remembers her stepfather trying to kill her with a knife. Then all is darkness, and when she wakes up she's inside a dark, creepy hospital that looks abandoned! What a twist!
Unfortunately the evil stepfather is still around, so... what will happen now?
Luring a cat with some bread? Seriously? Uhm oook, as long as it works...
Grounded is a sort of survival-horror/mystery-adventure: there are chase sections, puzzles and various tasks to complete finding items (the items you need usually sparkle, while others may still provide some informations. It's worth mentioning that used items are never discarded, even if they aren't useful anymore) and using them at the right moment and place. Nothing extremely new, nothing strange, but all quite good I think, for what concerns the kind of puzzles and tasks. Expect to run, hide and interact with items, and now that I realized that I wrote "run" it's not just because there are some parts where you have to escape a hostile enemy, but also because it's suggested to run around since the walking speed is pretty slow! This is a minor issue, there are instead some coll details, like the diary that is used to save and is in the inventory, so you basically have a portable save point! Nice idea!
It's worth mentioning that I was able to die after just four minutes into the game. Yeah, not even five, that's a personal record!
Anyway let's speak about the graphics: the game uses some really well made portraits that may not fit very much the characters' charsets (I mean that not even the hair color is the same) but they look very good! Maps are pretty nice, I don't recall the provenience of the assets, if custom, Rtps or part of some resoource pack (maybe both?), anyway the dark hospital is pretty much a perfect (except for the exterior, that's a bit "meh", but that is seen only during the endings, if I remember correctly!) playground for Scarlet and the other characters. The use of darkness and lights is also excellent. Only problem are maybe the icons of the items, some are in fact a bit weird, for example the scissors are represented by... spiked knuckles? Well that's the RPG Maker VX Ace Rtps used for that weapon at least!
But all this good scary atmosphere would be nothing without the sounds! Sounds of footsteps, tickling of the clock... all good unnerving ways to make the player uncomfortable. Pity for the music that is used very sparingly: we have the menu theme, the music furing a chase sections and... what else? Uhm no, nothing else! Pity. Done right in some parts some music would have been a good addition to the scary atmosphere, anyway I liked the few tracks used, like "Dark Piano Song - Night of Rain", they were good.
Guess what? Obligatory chase section! It's time to RUNNNNN!!!
Final Verdict
Grounded was the first game of Aeri Sicher, and it was quite good! It has two different endings that concludes a twisted story that was pretty interesting and well written. This page also has a walkthrough for the game (I didn't read it, but I guess it may be useful to some players!). In the end this is a pretty good game if you like the genre. It's not very horror (there are no gruesome scenes, anyway it has a dark unsettling atmosphere) but more like a creepy thriller adventure game. So not for everyone, but pretty good!
Created 2013 for the All Hallows' Event 2013 (duh!) by Aeri Sicher with RPG Maker VX Ace, Grounded is a short mystery adventure that took me about little more than two hours to complete.
This scary adventure tells the story of Scarlet Holder, a young girl that remembers her stepfather trying to kill her with a knife. Then all is darkness, and when she wakes up she's inside a dark, creepy hospital that looks abandoned! What a twist!
Unfortunately the evil stepfather is still around, so... what will happen now?
Luring a cat with some bread? Seriously? Uhm oook, as long as it works...
Grounded is a sort of survival-horror/mystery-adventure: there are chase sections, puzzles and various tasks to complete finding items (the items you need usually sparkle, while others may still provide some informations. It's worth mentioning that used items are never discarded, even if they aren't useful anymore) and using them at the right moment and place. Nothing extremely new, nothing strange, but all quite good I think, for what concerns the kind of puzzles and tasks. Expect to run, hide and interact with items, and now that I realized that I wrote "run" it's not just because there are some parts where you have to escape a hostile enemy, but also because it's suggested to run around since the walking speed is pretty slow! This is a minor issue, there are instead some coll details, like the diary that is used to save and is in the inventory, so you basically have a portable save point! Nice idea!
It's worth mentioning that I was able to die after just four minutes into the game. Yeah, not even five, that's a personal record!
Anyway let's speak about the graphics: the game uses some really well made portraits that may not fit very much the characters' charsets (I mean that not even the hair color is the same) but they look very good! Maps are pretty nice, I don't recall the provenience of the assets, if custom, Rtps or part of some resoource pack (maybe both?), anyway the dark hospital is pretty much a perfect (except for the exterior, that's a bit "meh", but that is seen only during the endings, if I remember correctly!) playground for Scarlet and the other characters. The use of darkness and lights is also excellent. Only problem are maybe the icons of the items, some are in fact a bit weird, for example the scissors are represented by... spiked knuckles? Well that's the RPG Maker VX Ace Rtps used for that weapon at least!
But all this good scary atmosphere would be nothing without the sounds! Sounds of footsteps, tickling of the clock... all good unnerving ways to make the player uncomfortable. Pity for the music that is used very sparingly: we have the menu theme, the music furing a chase sections and... what else? Uhm no, nothing else! Pity. Done right in some parts some music would have been a good addition to the scary atmosphere, anyway I liked the few tracks used, like "Dark Piano Song - Night of Rain", they were good.
Guess what? Obligatory chase section! It's time to RUNNNNN!!!
Final Verdict
Grounded was the first game of Aeri Sicher, and it was quite good! It has two different endings that concludes a twisted story that was pretty interesting and well written. This page also has a walkthrough for the game (I didn't read it, but I guess it may be useful to some players!). In the end this is a pretty good game if you like the genre. It's not very horror (there are no gruesome scenes, anyway it has a dark unsettling atmosphere) but more like a creepy thriller adventure game. So not for everyone, but pretty good!