Post Trauma

Post trauma for me it is nothing but a beautiful love letter to not only 90s survival horror like silent hill but also child me who grew up playing such terrifying games at a certain age where i shouldnt have. Many games try to honour their inspirations however fail in the process this one does so successfully. You got everything 90s horror would provide for you. Fixed camera angles (however not janky) challenging puzzles, good combat, good checkpoints to save at and most important storage boxes. The devs made sure all it worked out. The graphics may look a bit muddy but it is hard work and a passion project so we love that.

This is a passion project through and through, i even read somewhere that the team is a very small number of people and to make this the way it is made, it's beyond impressive. The devs were super aware not to overuse the inspiration which is heavily inspired by silent hill mixed with a little parasite eve sprinkles. They knew their budget and knew their limits of story telling and yet made it super fresh. And at times frankly....the game looked better than some big budget games no shade.🤷🏻‍♂️

Although the game is super short, it uses its short amount of time in its favour. It classified its missions as appropriate as it could. Providing us with creepy atmosphere, super thick tension when it came to deliver action and challenging puzzles. What a modern survival horror should accomplish, giving the player a chance to take their time and get themselves together. The game starts off in a train and to escape the train you need to solve a puzzle and i thought that choice idea of being inside a train was interesting.

Because besides resident evil 0 (which i hate anyone who let that game fail) there are not many games that have a setting in like a train. It was a brilliant choice and it set the tone for later stages in the game. With a game with this title it should be evident that this will not he a heavy action horror game but rather a puzzle survival horror game. See with puzzles i like to solve them in my own time so i plan it out on a sheet of paper to think of how to solve the different scenarios. Surroundings are vital to be explored, if you have to take notes which i did do it because this isnt the type of game that will probide hints to make your life easy. This is a survival horror bitch. Figure that shit out yourself.🙄

You need to be patient because you have to figure shit out by yourself, so exploring every single corner is a must because something could be right in front of you but hidden super well. Which makes this game super unique. The devs thought everything out. Every level design is well designed. The atmosphere is perfect. This whole games will make you feel as if youre living through your own dreams. you just dont know whats real or not. Everything is unsettling even the enemies look terrifying. The concept is bizzarre so are the visuals. Last time i seen something as bizarre was probably the vagina looking boss in silent hill 3. If you know you know.

If you do decide to play it this isnt resident evil sugar. There is no heavy combat in this. You have combat however sometimes running away from danger will feel as major as involving yourself in a fight. Again very much like the 90s stuff. The devs deliberately will set you up because the movements are slow. Therefore your running is also slow. Which they wanna give you a heart attack if youre getting chased lmao. There is a surprise that i will not spoil although it is advertised that youll play as a chubby old man there are more surprises to come. Another realistic thing is even tho youre a chubby old man, when you run you do get tired, so you do have to stop to eventually catch your breath. I thought that was a very nice small detail they put there. He just isnt your typical survival horror final boy.

The fixed camera angles are wonderfully used. They dont just linger in one place. It likes to be all over the places. And i think that is excellent atmosphere build up. Not only that but it is useful gameplay mechanic because you can actually focus on where to go and not like swerve lanes like i did in re1. Like that was ROUGHHHH. Not many games can achieve that. Deep down i have a theory that they prioritised the gaming mechanics before they prioritised story and characters. Makes it almost feel cinematic.

Go and support the game yall it's beyond cheap and a well rounded passion project all in all. Like this is what games should achieve. Budget or no budget.


Version: Digital
Price: £12.49
Next Game: Gran Turismo 1

You know, if you think about it, but not too much and not too hard, this game is somewhat a Soulslike. More on that later.

Post Trauma (PT, not to be confused with the other) is a psychological horror game, heavily inspired by the classic PS2 horror games. And you can tell the devs all have love for that era and really wanted to make sure their game honored those. That being said, I'll get to the good stuff. The sound and music. From the ambience noises, like wails, screams or footsteps, that were really creepy, to the soundtrack, it was all very pleasing and really helped with setting the mood of the game and of every situation and place that you explored. Another great stuff they did was the way the implemented the whole fixed camera thing. I'll be honest, I've always hated that type of camera, but this game did it really well. I think, mainly because even though you can't move it around yourself, it is never actually static. It is constantly moving with your character, and zooming in and out, or twisting, perflectly mirroring the madness of the world you're trapped in. Good stuff.

The first chapters of the game were the best. They had the best locations, the puzzles were good enough to make you feel genuinely satisfied for solving them, and had an overall scarier vibe. However, the further you progress the more all those qualities faded, to the point that by the final stages I was just rushing towards the end. Luckily, the game isn't too long, so that helps tone this problem down a bit.

I think the story is this game's weakest point. Don't get me wrong it has good ideas, but I think they could've done so much more with them. [⚠️SPOILERS] Quick summary: you are trapped in a world called The Gloom which serves as a sort of punishment for people who have done evil things, by making them live an eternal cycle of death and resurrection. As you progress, you discover more about the different characters and the reasons why they are trapped in the Gloom. Or not? By the time the credits rolled, I still didn't know who were half the characters, why were they there, what were their motivations. Also, a couple times they threw in ideas that would have been cool but didn't actually lead anywhere. For example, almost at the end they introduced the character King of the Gloom. Wow, ominous, right? No. He just appeared to spew some random words and that's it. A lot of wasted potential. Also, apparently your character is the Gloom because he killed someone? I don't know. [END OF SPOILERS⚠️] At times it felt like this game was supposed to contain two different stories, but for some reason they mushed them together (I base this on the very small section where you play as another of the characters in a first-person view, in what feels like a cool idea, but different game lore-wise.)

About the whole soulslike thing I said in the beginning. Here's my evidence: the game has a checkpoint system to which you return after you die, losing your progress; you unlock shortcuts between locations; a cryptic storytelling; third person; a combat system that consists of hitting and dodging (with i-frames) enemies and bosses, all of which depletes your stamina bar; even one of the weapons you pick looks very very very slightly like Ornstein's spear from Dark Souls 1. So... (of course I'm kidding... ...)

I like horror games. For me at least, anything with horror in it is already worth playing, and this game actually had a couple of sweet scares here and there, so I'm not actually disappointed. In fact, I think the game is worth a try. However, if you want to play this, don't expect a masterpiece of the genre, bacuse it isn't. In the end, this game is just a homage to all the classics, meant to evoke that sweet nostalgia that you may have for the days of yore.

I know I left a lot of things out, and yet I think I wrote far too much for this simple game. I'm not really used to writing stuff, so this is super weird. In any case, thank you for reading :)

"Does your sorry make her glassy eyes open and her cold heart beat?" - Jill

•highest difficulty beaten: Normal

I just finished this on hard and I was expecting something better since I saw Logan giving it an 8 👺

Movement and combat are janky and enoying, there's only 10 enemies in the game in total (including bosses ), I don't mean types of enemies, I mean enemies you fight through the whole fucking game 😂 , This game can't be called a survival horror cuz it's ain't horror and you can survive easily

if you want a real indie SURVIVAL HORROR go check out signalis , tormented souls or even conscript and if you don't I will kill you and myself afterwards . The puzzles were meh... Some of them were fun and some were garbage it was way too easy to be honest .

And something to note this game has a huge problem where you can't tell what is just part of the environment and what is something you can pick or interact with , so you'll be running across the map like an asshole spamming interact button and then out of nowhere you Will find that your character picked up something I mean....bro ?

And remind me again what is the item box for ? I never had an extra items or had to think about managing my inventory, I guess they wanted to make a safe room so bad 👀

At the end it's an mid short experience that I don't regret so much , and it's only 8$ so.... Yeah.... it's ok

7/10

While Post Trauma had a lot of great aspects (puzzle design, atmosphere, creature design, music/sound design) it was also very rough around the edges. Animations in cutscenes and sometimes during gameplay were janky and the story probably could have been fleshed out more. I will say that an indie developer made this game and it is excellent for what it is. I'm curious what else they can come up with in the future. Also, I LOVED the references to Silent Hill. ✌️🎮

Post Trauma is a game that has great bones but doesn't quite stick the full experience. Very janky animations, characters that feel unfinished, and a hard to follow story distract from some fun level design, great camera angles, and at times awesome music.

It being the first game developed by RED SOUL GAMES and released at a budget price makes me criticize it as a whole very leniently. I would absolutely love to see this developer get the chance to make another game with everything they have learned making this one.

If you are looking for a horror experience that will stick with you for a long time, this isn't it. But if you would like some fun horror idea and experience a teams first time trying out a lot of their ideas, like a rough draft for their future games. I would recommend this title only for those who have a high tolerance for some jank.

Nice game but not all chapters , the ending it’s too cold