Pneumata

The seven-and-a-half-year-old Resident Evil VII is the obvious source of inspiration for Pneumata, a first-person horror game developed by the one-man start-up studio Deadbolt Interactive. Unfortunately, the similarities don't extend much further than that, as in terms of quality, few titles are further apart. Pneumata is, frankly, a cosmic tangle of confusing level design and frustrating bugs.

One day, a car parks outside the main character's house in a typical American suburb. When I go to look for who it is, the car just tears off and drives away, leaving only a VHS tape on the front door. Similar to the aforementioned (absolutely wonderful) seventh instalment into the Resident Evil series, in Pneumata my girlfriend has apparently disappeared, and after a familiar wildlife accident in the woods, my path leads to a darkened, supposedly abandoned caravan park called Milton.

Not a ground-breaking start, definitely not, but on the other hand the genre is known for its cheesiness and romanticisation of B-movie conventions. Initially therefore, I'll forgive rough edges like the main character's acting and various technical blemishes, but this charmingly-rough B-movie sheen doesn't last long.

Bit by bit I make my way up and down Milton's charcoal-dark alleys and backstreets, brushing back and forth along countless, confusingly similar fences and houses. The intricate progression structures of the genre's best games, with hidden passages, secrets and alternative routes are here exchanged for a greater freedom of discovery - that is, no map or compass at all. Innovation is to be applauded, of course, but this is assuming that the quest logs do not bug out and were actually ticked off as I went along and that my journey followed something logical and that a gentle invisible hand guided me in the right direction. But here I am, going in circles and getting lost faster than the gang in the Blair Witch project, and yet somehow, eventually, I'm moving forward.

As I progress, I come across burning, human-sized crosses, pieces of paper left behind and a mighty church, all of which let me know that I'm dealing with some kind of cult here. To make matters worse, the malevolent men I meet are wearing pig masks, and if anything screams BioShock-style religious fanatic, it's something like that. The only thing Pneumata has inherited from a genre giant like BioShock, however, is the feel of the weapons.

The gradually creepy atmosphere, mysticism and rawness of models such as Condemned, Outlast, Dead Space, Resident Evil, and BioShock are gone in Pneumata. Although it's possible to glimpse where Deadbolt Interactive is aiming, apart from a couple of effective scares at the start, it's hard to take enemies seriously as they stand waiting for me behind corners and run in a straight line as soon as I show myself to them. Although I have a few weapons to choose from, and can both block and kick away overly close threats, it's always easy enough to shoot them in the face a couple of times before they fall to the ground, where, unless they just disappear, the enemies tend to reappear while standing still in a T-pose.

Yep, it's bugs abound in Pneumata, not least in the audio. The sound of water taps dripping travels through double walls, non-existent enemies scream, pigs grunt, doors open and close, and book pages are turned in the middle of the forest - but I don't panic, I just sigh and get used to all the craziness as time goes by. The game keeps coming apart at the seams, and nothing is particularly exciting or scary to offset this. Whether it's the (too) dark forest, the incomprehensibly difficult-to-navigate apartment complex, the underground sewage system or the mental hospital or boatyard, I dutifully vacuum environment after environment, experiencing annoying trial-and-error moments, solving side quests that lead nowhere, and wishing it would end soon so I my torment comes to a close.

After seven hours and a laugh-inducingly goofy ending, the cosmically mysterious horror remains mostly a jumble of mazes and unfinished game design. The horror-adventure genre is too crowded to make room for Pneumata, and I think we'll forget about this game and wish Deadbolt Interactive better luck next time.