There are also games, such as this one, that are elevated by their brevity. There are games that are better for having taken a long time to finish them. Maybe it's because of the Phoenix Lights, but in my mind 1997 is the quintessential UFO era. One moment, in particular, uses this audio to such chilling effect that it essentially set Grove Lake in stone as one of my favorite games of the year. Grove Lake smartly decorates choice scenes with the iconic program's audio. A few moments in the game's short runtime use real audio from Coast to Coast AM, a long-running overnight radio program and a favorite for the tinfoil hat-wearers of the world. While I find McGrath's portrayal of aliens so excitingly novel in video games, there's an added element that the game pulls in from other media that really helps it stand out. With gameplay merely coming down to "walking sim" elements such as moving through a scene and interacting with a few items, it's also incredibly approachable even if, like me, you're not all that into mouse and keyboard controls. Audio design is similarly unnerving, and McGrath is clearly a horror creator who understands how less can be so much more when it comes to what we see and hear as the player. The PS1-like visuals that are currently sweeping the indie horror gaming scene are used to great effect here, as the lack of fidelity only helps elevate the air of imperceptibility the short story is built on. In just 25 minutes, the found-footage-style first-person horror is a remarkable dose of nightmare fuel. It's these latter moments which are so incredibly exciting as a horror fan, even as they are equally dread-inducing as the player. As the player, you'll see the short story through the eyes of both the recipient of the haunting tape and the original recorder. Throwing caution to the wind, a whistleblower brings you a supposedly remarkable piece of video evidence pointing to the existence of extraterrestrials. The setup is like something out of The X-Files. Now, Incident at Grove Lake has been sitting atop itch's Trending tab since June 17 as of this writing. Some of his other games, such as Harmful and Our Lady of Sorrow, have earned accolades in the past. The pay-what-you-want project comes from Dan McGrath, a rather prolific solo developer of lo-fi horror games. Incident at Grove Lake is an equally terrorizing and mesmerizing microgame built around the unshakeable worry that, in the far reaches of the cosmos, there may be horrors we can't possibly comprehend. On itch.io, one such game is going viral, and for very good reason. Now Playing: Incident at Grove Lake - Alien Abduction Game Trailer By clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's
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