This is such an oddball of a game that means a lot to me. I've played it years ago back when it was new and I immediately fell in love with its premise and atmosphere. It's a humble game that is incredibly flawed. It doesn't have a lot of content, you're often at the mercy of random loot that you find, some terrain generation is nonsensical, food you find is abundant making hunting undercooked (hah), game has tons of gimmick items that aren't useful, some of the more interesting items are extremely rare or restricted to custom world gen presets, controller support is clunky, and the game gets old after one playthrough. So why do I love it? And why do I come back to it every couple of years? Simply put, the game is more than the sum of its parts. It has a vibe, a great soundtrack, and delivers an experience that can't be replicated if the game had "better" game design or "better" graphics. The gameplay, as per title of the game, makes you feel alone and outnumbered. However, the robots don't know that they are outmatched! If you play your cards right, you can make it out. Getting yet another machine part unharmed after sneaking past what feels like a minefield of enemies and only using a single clock to distract the impossible to sneak past horde is a feeling that other games did not manage to replicate. You're forced to be cunning and resourceful. You find a single shack to store excessive amount of items in and mark the spot on the map. You light a fire to both cook a rabbit and clean the area of nearby robots. You place bear traps on known patrol routes to thin the numbers before engaging. You play a trombone to gather robots around and blow them all up with dynamite. Then you have time to reflect on your carnage while traveling the wasteland and surveying the landscape. Late game you can't even slow down, as an unkillable threat follows you around. Soon, even the tall grass that was once your friend becomes your foe. This ebb and flow means you get movie-like pacing where each arc is book ended with satisfying stories about overcoming great adversity. Sir You Are Being Hunted is a flawed game that knows what it wants to be and showcases a fully realized vision of the developers, despite it being made by a small team and not the biggest of budgets or polish. There is no fluff, and the stuff that is included as an extra feels like something the developers added out of passion, not out of obligation or adding more hours onto the experience. It's not the best game ever made, but it is the best game ever to someone out there.
Well executed lighting does bring the environment the atmosphere it needs for this type of game to work. The sound design is great, the water looks beautiful (if you don't mind SSR artefacts), game looks fine (if you don't look too closely), some of the corners spark imagination, some levels are nice navigational puzzles... but the novelty wears off pretty quickly. It's not long before the game falls back into typical jumpscare-less horror tropes and fails to keep things interesting in terms of its visuals. The game's not confident enough to push the envelope all the way, so at one point the game just gives up with its main selling point... the pools, the liminal vibe, and goes on autopilot relying on straight known imagery with no substance. I've seen the photos this game was based on, I've seen the stories people have written regarding the setting, I've seen the potential this setting has to offer. The game does not do ANY of that! By the half-way point I was convinced the game won't end in a satisfying way whatsoever that would fit with what the game was doing so far. I was right. The game felt like a journey into the unknown with mysteries along the way, but the ending manages to CRUSH all of that intrigue in the most unimaginative way possible. Even just going to the surface just to find an infinite ocean under a sunny real sky would work much better as an ending! There is no pacing or buildup whatsoever, it just ends. Playing the bonus post-game chapter just sullied the experience even more. I love this setting, but the game does not do it justice. The game feels like a 30 minute demo that has been stretched to 2 hours without proper planning on WHAT needs to be added in order to meaningfully expand on the concept.
