The Sinking City

The key to enjoying this atmospheric horror adventure is to set and manage your expectations of your experience in this nightmarish town. The Sinking City was clearly developed by a small and passionate team with a grand vision and limited resources, resulting in a game that can frustrate as much as it entertains. For example, the city of Oakmont is satisfyingly large and stylized, evoking an authentic 1920s vibe infused with eerie tinges of horror and weirdness, but it's not nearly as detailed as the open worlds players have seen in many other games, and many of its inhabitants feel much more like lifeless automatons than real characters. They spout the same lines over and over and heedlessly walk into walls and cars. The action is a similarly mixed bag, with competent but lackluster gun combat, simplistic crafting mechanics, and derivative sleuthing sections that involve finding and organizing clues. These things have been done significantly better in games with bigger budgets that allow for more nuance and complexity.

Where the experience begins to shine, though, is in its storytelling. The writers have created an engaging world full of riddles begging to be solved and mysteries in want of answers. What caused the flood? Where did the creatures come from? Is there any connection between the city's cults? Why do so many people share the same dreams? Is our hero going mad, or is he simply gifted? Even when the game's limited budget shows itself in the story -- characters don't always have a sufficient stock of lines to create smooth and useful conversations -- we're still left with the desire to know more, which should prove enough to keep players who enjoy cryptic Lovecraftian horror stories playing through to the end. The Sinking City is a game that wants to be more than it is, and while the seams show, it's hard to fault it for trying.