In the deep recesses of the indie horror scene lies The Mortuary Assistant, a small game that blends the fascinatingly scientific world of being a mortician, with the horrifying sense of dread th??at comes from cadaver posses??sion.

If that sounds like your thing, you may be pleased to know that the Mortuary Assistant is not only getting a Definitive Edition, but is also getting ported t??o the Xbox and PlayStation. Both the updated version of the game and the console release will be arriving on August 2. Check out the lovely trailer below.

As for the Definitive Edition, it's coming with some new things to keep us on our toes (tagged or otherwise). For starters, we'??ll be getting more scares, more backstory, and some new bodies to embalm.

Mortuary assistants: assisting mortuaries since time immemorial

Speaking of bodies, the update will also come with a new "embalming o??nly" mode, which will allow you to embalm unlimited bodies. If you always wanted an endless stream of cold corpses to poke, prod, sew, and drain of fluid, now's your chance. Or at least it will be s??oon.

If you haven't played the game, The Mortuary Assistant tasks you with exactly what I just described above: processing the cadavers of recently deceased people. However, things are not as the??y seem, as it becomes apparent that you've been roped into an ancient ritual designed to stop the demons of hell from taking possession of you.

The game was released on PC and ?Nintendo Switch in August 2022 and April 2023, respectfully. Therefore, the Definitive Edition, as well as the PlayStation and Xbox versions, are essentially a celebration of the title's two-year release.

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Are you in the mood for an open world action RPG with a dark fantasy setting with PlayStation 1 era graphics? Dread Delusion fits that incredibly ??specific criteria perfectly, and it's coming? out on Steam in only two weeks.

If the name rings a bell, that's because Dread Delusion launched as an early access title back in 2022, and has been getting almost nothing but glowing re?views?? from players since. Set in a literally broken world made of floating islands, you decide the fate of it and its people as you explore the land, complete quests, and fight off monsters in first-person combat.

Dread Delusion promises a lot of freedom, not only with how you progress the story and complete quests but with how you build your character. While your arsenal can consist of spells, potions, and upgradable weapons, there are ways to bypass ??combat, such as through lockpicking and charming NPCs.

The full release also comes with a boatload of extra content, including a new realm to explore, new towns, new dungeons, new quests, new endgame content, and even more enemies to fight. So, anyone who's been playing Dread Delusion sinc?e its early access launch has a reason to keep coming back to it.

Given all the positive user reviews, it looks like Dread Delusion more than follows through with its promises, and there's something inherently charming about its retro-inspired visuals. While publisher DreadXP compares it to the likes of Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind and FromSoftware's King's Field series, the blocky graphics and nightmarish enemy designs make me think of Nightmare Creatures.

Dread Delusion launches in full on May 14, 2024, as a PC exclusive via Steam for $19.99 / £15.49, though it will be discounted during Steam's LudoNarraCon festival from May 9 to May 16. Neither DreadXP nor developer Lovely Hellplace have commented on a console port, b??ut it is compatible with the Steam? Deck if that's your preferred method of playing Steam games.

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As part of DreadXP’s Indie Horror Showcase, Philisophic Games has pulled back the curtain on Hellpunk, a horror game about hitting things with things.

I’ve got a dearth of information here, but Hellpunk seems to be a game tryi??ng to nail the ever-elusive feeling of melee combat in a first-person game. It uses somew?hat lo-fi graphics, and all the press material I have just says it’s about angrily killing foes. The foes consist of CRT-headed dudes and other assorted weirdos. Don’t worry about creating CRT-headed orphans, however, because apparently, you’re fighting “through the depths of the human mind.�?The very angry depths.

To be fair, though, the short, 22-second trailer says a lot. Beyond the trippy visuals, first-person melee is a carrot that few have even touched. 2005’s Condemned: Criminal Origins is often cited as one of the few games to even come close to making it work. I’m currently straining to think of another game that did it well following that. Doom (2016)’s glory kills come to mind, but it’s just hitting a button and watching Doomguy be all vicious. That really doesn’t c??ount.

So, yeah, that’s all I got, aside from the fact that it calls itself “Murder-punk.�?We’ll have to wait and see if Hellpunk manages to achieve what has been lost.

Hellpunk is coming to PC via Steam. Its page is available to wishlist, but there is no target release window.

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DreadXP has announced that developer LUAL Games�?text adventure [I] Doesn’t Exist will launch on PC September 9, 2023.

Described as “Classic Zork meets existential crisis,�?[I] Doesn’t Exist has you awaken in an unfamiliar fore?st and has you use your noodle to try and?? escape. However, things promise to not be as they seem, which is great because they already seem weird and unsettling.

Like many text adventures of the early PC days, [I] Doesn’t Exist doesn’t just provide you with walls of descriptive text. It also uses graphics to depict its strange world. Beyond that, there are animations, so y?ou?? don’t have to rely on your unreliable imagination to paint you a picture.

//youtu.be/91PdAe-n5VA

[I] Doesn’t Exist also touts the use of "Natural Language Processing" to support its parser and make things more intuitive. While this means ?the use of AI, the developer is quick to c??larify that it isn’t involved in the creation process and is just to make the language parser more natural. In their words:

"Publisher DreadXP and developer LUAL value the authenticity of human-made narratives, and none of the in-game text in [I] doesn’t exist is AI-generated. The Natural Language Processing technology utilized in the game is not affiliated with ChatGPT or other similar AI platforms and utilizes only the player’s input to access pre-written responses by the ?game’s super-cool writers."

That’s rather comforting because we all know how well it went when Square Enix tried to make a text adventure using AI.

[I] Doesn’t Exist launches on PC on September 9, 2023. A demo is available to try out right now.

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Who hurt you?

Turning beloved children’s characters into horror monsters isn’t something new. I think “nightmarish Alice in Wonderland�?has been done roughly a bajillion times. So, My Friendly Neighborhood’s idea of murderous Sesame Street puppets may ??not seem that novel. Except that’s not?? what it’s about. I know. It kind of took me by surprise.

I’d also say it’s “My First Resident Evil,�?and the argument could be made, but that’s selling the game short. My Friendly Neighborhood wears its inspirations, sure, but it’s more than just a horror game made friendly for a younger audience. Its themes of non-violence, its goofy characters, and its approach to horror? all convey much more depth than you �?or certainly I �?might’ve expected.

[caption id="attachment_391837" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

My Friendly Neighborhood (PC [Reviewed], PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S)
Developer: John Szymanski, Evan Szymanski
Publisher: DreadXP
Released: July 18, 2023 (PC), TBA (Console)
MSRP: TBA

In My Friendly Neighborhood, you play as maintenance professional, Gordon. For the last job? of the night, he travels to a derelict television studio to disconnect the transmission tower on the top floor. It has spontaneously started airing a canceled children’s TV show over the normal TV b??roadcast.

Upon arriving, Gordon doesn't look too surprised to see that the puppets are alive and hungry for deranged hugs. In fact, rather than feeling hor??rified at his situation, he seems mostly just annoyed and inconvenienced. He just wants to finish the job, go home, and watch TV. The puppets have other ideas.

Your expectations may be that this is a hide-and-seek kind of horror game where you navigate the studio while avoiding confrontations with murderous puppets. That’s not the case. Instead, as I mentioned earlier, it has more in common with Resident Evil. You have weapons that fire deadly letters, and the puppets mostly just inhabit the halls, waiting for you to alert them??. You then have the option to take them down with your alphabet or just avoid them and conserve your ammo.

If you choose combat, however, they won’t stay down. They’ll be back up the next time you enter the room. You can make sure they stay down by duct-taping them, but tape is in short supply. In a way, it’s sort of like the Crimson Head zombies in the Resident Evil remake, except? you won’t be spared kerosene with a chance headshot.

//youtu.be/l7XeUD-0f_o

The Neighborhood is coming to town

It’s largely a non-violent affair. The puppets, when hit by projectile letters, react like puppets and make a cute comment as they fall into a heap of inanimate fabric on the floor. When you’re attacked, there’s no real indication that Gordon is sufferin??g any permanent bodily harm. Sometimes he comments that he’s “going to feel that in the morning,�?but otherwise, he just sounds annoyed about the unwanted affection he’s being subjected to.

Likewise, the horror aspect feels somewhat understated. There are some attempts at jump scares, and the atmosphere can be a bit spooky, but there’s no grotesque imagery. In the dark, the puppets natter away to themselves about nonsense th?at might seem goofy to most but merely unsettling otherwise. It’s a good horror experience for you??nger people or those who can’t handle the gore and danger of typical horror.

With that said, your expectations might be on a low-calorie �?i>Resident Evil,”�?but really, My Friendly Neighbor?? doesn’t pull any punches. I played on normal difficulty, and it still included concepts like limited saving and sparse supplies. ??There are also multiple unlockable difficulties above Normal and Survival.

I never found any of the puzzles to be taxing, and there are clear signs of it being a smal??ler production than any big-budget horror, but I never felt like I was playing a lesser product.

[caption id="attachment_391836" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Unwanted affection

Really, though, the non-violent angle has more to do with the game’s overall message. It takes place in a different world, in a city that once waged war against its Northern Neighbor in a parallel to?? the Vietnam War. There’s a lot about corporate overreach, humankind’s collective obsession with negative media, and the resultant need to dull our pain.

The whole climax of the game is, unfortunately, a bit of a stumble. The last act of My Friendly Neighborhood is visibly less polished than the first parts of the game. Certain parts of the plot aren’t as fleshed out as they should be. There’s a moment right near the end where you can viscerally feel the message of the game, but rather than knock it out of the park, My Friendly Neighborhood chooses to bunt.

I think it would be less disappointing if My Friendly Neighborhood had fewer ambitions and was merely average throughout. Instead, you can absolutely see where it’s going, it’s exciting, and then when it pops instead of booms, it leaves an empty fee??ling. Agh, my heart??.

[caption id="attachment_391838" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

My First Horror

On the whole, however, My Friendly Neighborhood is a terrific experience. It’s designed with a cohesive vision, and aside from a disappointing last act, it largely succeeds in achieving it. It’s the sort of game that gets me more excited as a critic than as a player. I find it difficult not to appreciate all of its layers. It's also about five hours l??ong, which ?makes meeting deadlines easier.

Where it succeeds best, however, is in being a terrific introductory horror game. Whether or not you’re a youth whose parents disapprove of gore or if you’re just one to hide beneath a blanket when a zombie appears on screen, My Friendly Neighborhood provides the depth of the Resident Evil experience without any of the violence. Not only does it fill an important ??niche, it proves that this sort of horror game can stand on its own without any of the blood.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Lo-fi realms to quest through

Some games have style that imitates life, some adopt animation techniques and cartoon aesthetics, and then some have a look that just knocks you down flat. Dread Delusion looks like the latter.

Dread Delusion is an upcoming open-world RPG developed by Lovely Hellplace and published by Dread XP, the label behind the Dread X Collection lo-fi horror anthologies. The game itself looks like an expanded version of the one found on the "Haunted PS1 Demo Disc," and yeah, it looks l?ike something a haunted PlayStation would create.

//twitter.com/LovelyHellplace/status/14212098??19848060937

Dread Delusion has started making the rounds on social media again, likely because a few folks (myself included) have been discovering it now. And later is better than never, because wow, Dread Delusion is really something to behold. It's got all the eerie, retro-horror vibes that have made games like Cruelty Squad stick out.

It feels like the closest parallel to draw to Dread Delusion would be something like The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. In the Steam description, developer Lovely Hellplace says it's an open-?world RPG focused on player choice, with either a central quest to follow or optional content to uncover through exploration. Of course, those areas that lie off the beaten path probably have some creepy monsters, so, adventurer be warned.

A visual aesthetic can get me in the door, but the more I've read about how Dread Delusion is looking to have some RPG systems like magic, trading, and speaking with the local townsfolk, the ??more I think this might be one to keep an eye on. There are plenty of fantasy journeys to ??go on, but I'm digging ones that look as unique and intriguing as this.

Dread Delusion is aiming to launch on PC, though no date's been set yet. Keep an eye on it through Steam or Itch, and check out the free demo here.

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