![]() At least, that is, until the memories those walls contain emerge into the light. Where mood is concerned, The Suicide of Rachel Foster trusts its architecture to do the heavy lifting. Mixed in amongst these mildly threatening objects are hints of outright paranormal activity - a point on the stair where you can hear a voice (or could it be the squeak of carpet on wood?), a strange pink butterfly, hovering by a gap in the wall - but the spooky elements are sparingly deployed. You'll find those legendary geometric carpet patterns, a mountain diorama akin to the Overlook's model maze, and bathrooms painted a diabolical red. It's also a not-so-discreet homage to The Shining's Overlook Hotel, which means that the sightlines and decor feel vaguely predatory, like they're trying to get into your head. Spread over three storeys plus a basement and carpark, the Timberline is closer to a Comfort Inn than some Gothic resort, but in the absence of holidaymakers and staff, its spaces loom. Developers: One O One Games, Reddoll Games, Reddoll S.R.L., Centounopercento - 101%.Photographs stare from the ends of corridors, shrouded objects tempt you to pull back the sheet, and stainless steel kitchens tease your fight-or-flight circuits with their abundance of gleaming points and angles. Floorboards creak, window-frames rattle, beams shift under a mounting weight of snow. You can roam about freely from the outset, though chapter breaks teleport you from room to room, and to do so is to be gently assaulted by the peculiarities of a structure that wouldn't seem out of place in Silent Hill. This is one thing the creators of The Suicide of Rachel Foster grasp well, though their workmanlike blend of Firewatch and Gone Home is ultimately tripped up by a half-baked story.Ī three-hour, first-person psychodrama with a gossamer-thin dusting of puzzles, the game is set in the Timberline Lodge, an abandoned mountainside hotel in 1990s Montana. Indeed, the more actual, overt threat you add to such a setting, the less fear it inspires - better to let your visitor wander undisturbed, drinking in the silence of the hallways and spotting goblin faces in the contours of broken plaster. It doesn't take much to make a big, old, empty house feel creepy. Rachel's story is not melancholic or poetic as the game represents it, it's just irresponsible.The setting is elegantly eerie, but this Gone-Home-inspired first-person mystery struggles to overcome its tired, melodramatic story. I barely know anything about this character apart from the fact that she was groomed starting when she was young, got pregnant by a man three times her age, and then took her own life. No letters, no flashbacks, no pages from a diary, nothing that attempts at giving her any voice. For a character whose name is in the title of the game, I know very little about her. The most damaging aspect of how the game frames this relationship is that Rachel has no voice throughout the entire game. It made me cringe, especially as the game's marketing focuses on Rachel's retainer, an object that emphasises how young she is. There's a line where Rachel is described as 'mature for her age' as if it's some sort of excuse to her father's relationship with the teenager. An attic with fairy lights hangs above a bed where sketches of the teenager posing naked lie scattered on top. The relationship is even more worrying because it's seen as romantic. It's revealed that Rachel was nine weeks pregnant when she died and clues indicate that she was groomed by Nicole's father from a young age. As the second half of the game begins to delve into the details about Nicole's father and Rachel's relationship, it becomes clear that One-O-One Games is treading into a territory that it is not equipped to handle. However, rummaging through Nicole's belongings and unearthing the history of the hotel is where Rachel Foster gets problematic. ![]() I felt like it was heading more in the direction of a ghost story than a mystery, which I was somewhat looking forward to. Another section has you watch the old battered VHS recordings of a ghost-hunting group that captures the crew's terrified reactions to something off-screen. In one chapter the power completely goes out and you have to navigate the pitch blackness using only the flash of a polaroid to guide you. Rummaging through Nicole's belongings and unearthing the history of the hotel is where Rachel Foster gets problematic It serves as a cosy safe haven within the confines of the hotel. Nicole's room has been kept exactly the same as when she left it. ![]() You go from being scared about what around the corner of a narrow corridor, to massive ballrooms, dining halls, kitchens, and lounge areas where anything could be lurking. The hotel uses both its corridors and open spaces to build tension.
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