Summoning

Summoning is a short horror game in which we play as a girl named Ashley.
She meets with two friends, Milly and Jill, and they decide to have a sleep over to which all agree. During this night something bad happens and Ashley has to face a supernatural being to save her friends and herself.

Ok so this is the basic plot. What we have here it's a classical short horror game with chase scenes in which the v̶i̶c̶t̶i̶m̶ protagonist has to avoid the killer and/or find a hiding place. The rest of the game consists in looking for items and perform an exorcism ritual to banish the evil entity that is haunting the place.
The whole adventure takes place inside a house (including its garden), so do not expect a lot of maps or a long story.


Yeah. This is me, I mean this is Ashley!

Summoning is a linear adventure game in which the game consists into searching for hints and combining items. Periodically the killer will try to kill us with a bloody knife, and then there are two choices: running away until we lose him, or find a hiding place... but it must be a good one since some hiding places will lead to a game over! Luckily it is possible to save anytime and anywhere! Anyway do not worry too much, despite the small maps escaping the killer usually is pretty easy, except if you are taken by surprise (see below!). Anyway if you are caught it is instant game over!

Graphically the game is pretty good, there is dynamic lightning, and some custom graphics like the character's busts and some cutscenes of the salient moments. Lightning is very important because to advance the game you should investigate some points of interest (often more than once), and these are always indicated by a source of light (so check and search each place carefully if you are stuck, anyway the postion of the items is often logical... if you need a rubber duck you can find it in the bathroom... NO. Wait, there are no rubber ducks in this game!)
For what concens the custom art, it is well done and fits nicely the rest of the game. Music and sounds are also well selected and atmospheric.

An important thing I noticed, that is both a good and a bad thing, is that the killer appears both during some specific moments AND at random, probably after some time. As I clarified before this is both a good thing since it adds a sense of surprise (a couple of times I expected the apparition of the killer after reloading... and no, nothing happened!), but also happend to me in a couple of situations where Ashley was talking about the item she was examining, leading to a really silly death ( "Oh strange, I see that here there is a sTGHAHAAIHAAAAAAA..."). Uh yeah a really unjust death!
I was also killed when Ieft a room (leaving a considerable space between Ashley and the killer) and then BAM, the killer was next to me! Heh, maybe I was just unlucky...


Oh yeah, Ringu was a good horror but this one is good too!

Verdict
Summoning is a short linear horror game that took me 30 minutes from the beginning to the end, and ending that I liked a lot and I guess it is the only one. The game is set in a single house that it's realistically mapped even if feels a bit weird due to a couple of strange things: the first is that it's a bit empty and lack of details in some areas (like the room when the girls use the ouija board... totally empty!), and also there are some odd choiced (like the carpet in the living room that uses the same texture of the walls). It's not a terrible problem, but considered the nice charsets, busts and custom pictures, I guess that there could have been just a little more details (for example I expected someting more related to the ... instead no, nothing! Not even a line of dialogue).

Ok guys, clearly RpgmakerAddict today is getting a bit picky, this game is still good even if a bit short and simple. Anyway the custom art and the ending in my opinion makes this a little better than the usual average game since it entertains and it's not always predictable. And for a (very) short story this isn't common so good thing. Many things are also never explained, but I don't think that this is a problem, I liked that, and I liked the easy difficulty of the chase scenes. I think that many player will appreciate this easier approach (even I also expect that some others would prefer more challenging situations), anyway do not underestimate the lethality of the killer.

It's a nice game, gets a 3,5/5 from me.
Hey, now don't try fiddling with Ouija boards, ok?