Pinewood Valley, a first-person open world horror game from developer and publisher Cold Chop Studios, has officially gone live on Kickstarter.
Although this means the game is not complete, a playable demo was recently released on Steam, where you can also add Pinewood Valley to your wishlist. The devs are hoping for a console release at some point in the future. Here’s the Kickstarter announcement from the Cold Chop Studios Twitter feed:
Although Pinewood Valley’s Steam page isn’t especially readable, the trailers and Alpha demo already look quite promising:
The devs have smartly wielded their open world environment, letting the behavior of fellow NPCs maintain some level of tension, even when the enemy isn’t in hot pursuit.
It’s unclear how much the AI will respond to line of sight or sound, which are familiar mechanics used in comparable horror and asymmetrical horror titles.
Pinewood Valley also has a pale visual approach, which reflects some of the game’s influences and helps create a sort of gritty dread. Although the game shows its budget, it’s only an Alpha, and since there are a variety of killers it will be interesting to see how creative they get.
After all, a lot of the shadowy imagery and atmosphere suggests that the devs are knowledgeable in the genre. The music is on point too, and further justifies why Pinewood Valley is set in 2006, which would otherwise be an unusual setting.
This is a conceptually ambitious game with a solid step forward. It would be very satisfying to see a completed, polished version that elaborates on some of the finer details. Adding things like stamina, cleaner effects and synchronized music cues would be fun too. Basically, Pinewood Valley seems like a world worth expanding.
You can read more about Pinewood Valley, Cold Chop Studios, and other horror indie games by checking out the rest of our news section!
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