Spooky scary…bottles of ketchup?

Funnily enough, I did just do a whole blog on Frictional Games and the design of their games. So I suppose it’s only fitting that we then take a look at not one, but two of their earlier games. That’s right, we’re doing a double feature today, looking at Penumbra: Black Plague and Requiem. Why the two-in-one? Largely because Penumbra: Requiem is actually an expansion to Black Plague, but the games are still considered two separate games. Requiem is also incredibly short, so I thought we could fit it in along with a Black Plague analysis.

Let’s start with Black Plague, the second entry in the three part Penumbra series. The previous game, Overture, had the protagonist Philip explore an abandoned in mine after receiving a letter from his presumed dead father. Of course, this being a horror game, things don’t exactly go as planned, as Philip faces against the terrors of the mine. Overture ends on a cliffhanger with Philip getting abducted by some unseen force. He wakes up a little later locked in a room, hearing the sounds of some monster doing its monster thing. And thus, Black Plague begins…

Fun fact: I actually played Overture several years ago but have only now gotten around to these games. I’m not sure why I took so long going through the rest of the series, but that’s irrelevant. Black Plague has a brief recap of Overture’s story in the beginning, so if you’re like me then you’ll be able to get caught up. The story of Black Plague, true to Frictional’s style, gets creepier and more sinister as you go. You start off knowing next to nothing but over time the mysteries of the environment and the creatures surrounding you start to unfold. Black Plague’s ending is pretty interesting, and absolutely Lovecraftian in style. I enjoyed it, and was honestly perfectly happy with how it ended…but we’ll get to that when we start talking about Requiem.

My biggest gripe with Black Plague’s story comes from a voice in the main character’s head. Without saying too much about the character itself and its purpose in the plot, I found its inclusion was frequently pulling me out of the atmosphere of Penumbra: Black Plague. I don’t feel it’s the dialogue or the “actions” of the character that’s pulling me out so much as it is the voice of the character, but that said there are some writing choices that are certainly peculiar such as the references to It’s A Wonderful Life and most mystery novels. No disrespect to the actor who performed the lines, but this character’s accent is so goofy and over the top that I can’t help but laugh at it. If that was the point then I suppose it worked, but it seemed so out of place in this otherwise scary game.

Like many of Frictional’s other works, Penumbra has you either solving puzzles to progress like in most adventure games or navigating past a creature seeking you out. Sometimes, it even does both. For the most part, the combat of Penumbra: Overture is absent meaning your only option to deal with monsters is to avoid them. Players use the environment to their advantage in this regard, hiding behind objects or in shadows to avoid detection. Should the monster see you, it becomes time to run away. Alongside this is your inventory, used for both solving puzzles and hanging onto resources. Available resources include batteries for your flashlight and healing items. Conservative players will have plenty of batteries and healing items to last them the entire game and then some. And even if you do manage to run out of batteries for the flashlight, you have a glowstick that isn’t too shabby as well as some flares that can be used to provide additional light sources.

Puzzles typically involve using items from your inventory and/or manipulating objects in the environment. In Penumbra, you’re able to physically move almost every object in the world. Pick it up, rotate it, and move it where you desire. This will be necessary for solving some puzzles or getting past certain obstacles. The game’s puzzles take many forms such as using a coin from your inventory to open a vent cover or manipulating levers to move around key objects. As far as interacting with these objects go, Penumbra does this very well. Immersion is easily enhanced thanks to how much you can manipulate in the game world, which further adds to that creeping dread you will inevitably feel as you progress.

However, I must admit that compared to other Frictional games I was needing to look up a walkthrough a lot more than I usually do. Puzzle difficulty is the most subjective of difficulties, but I do think Black Plague could have done more to prevent me from consulting the internet so frequently. There were many puzzles, especially early on, where I did not know certain key objects even existed in a room which would prevent my progress. A good example involves a level containing a locked door, a barrel of oil, and some sparks. Or at least, that’s what I thought. Apparently there was also a smoke detector on the ceiling, which you likely wouldn’t have seen because, come on, who plays games staring at ceilings? And besides that, it was up in a darker part of the room making it harder to notice. Once the walkthrough informed me of the smoke detector, I was able to connect the dots just fine. This is just one example, but certainly not an isolated incident. There were plenty of moments after where the solution involved some object that I wasn’t even aware existed.

As a result of my frequent walkthrough browsing, the horror wasn’t quite as strong in Black Plague as it is in other Frictional works. I’ll still tell you that it’s an improvement from Overture, but I imagine it would have been even better if I didn’t pull myself out of the game frequently to figure out what to do next. I also find the creatures of Black Plague, which are very zombie-like in appearance, to be among Frictional’s less scary monsters. For what it’s worth they are a step up from the zombie dogs in Overture, though that may be heightened by the lack of combat in this game. None of this is to say the game isn’t scary though. Black Plague definitely had me on edge on more than a few occasions. There were a couple moments in particular that made me question something I was seeing, followed by full panic after realizing what the game was sending my way. This wasn’t done through a cutscene, it was all in-game and real time. The scares just naturally happened, and they’re cemented into my memory as a result. Even in their early works, Frictional knew how to build a scene and create dread for maximum horror.

It’s not without its flaws, but Penumbra: Black Plague is still a good horror game that delivers the scares effectively while also continuing the story of Overture and taking that story to some interesting places. The biggest thing the game could have done to improve itself is to make some objects important to puzzles a bit more noticeable so that I don’t consult walkthroughs as often. That immersion is very integral to the horror experience, and if I keep pulling myself out of it because I’m stuck then it will only hurt the horror. Despite that, I got many of the spooks I was looking for and overall walked away from the game’s ending feeling pretty satisfied…

 

Penumbra: Black Plague Rating: B-

 

…and I want to say the same about Penumbra: Requiem, but I walked out of that game feeling more relief from it being over than relief from the terror. Here’s a brief little history lesson for you; Penumbra was originally meant to be a trilogy of games, but through a series of events only went on to be two games. Those games were Penumbra: Overture and Penumbra: Black Plague. The people at Frictional felt kind of bad about it not being a trilogy like they originally promised, so they put out Requiem as an expansion to Black Plague. Quite kind of them, really, and an action that’s certainly unheard of in the games industry. Or at least, the AAA games industry. Yet one more reason to support indie devs, am I right?

So that’s the story of the game’s development, but what of the game itself? Though Requiem still possesses many of the mechanics of Black Plague, this game is focused exclusively on puzzle solving. In fact, it’s been likened to Portal but without the portal gun. If you’re going to get compared to anything, being compared to Portal isn’t a bad way to go. But curiously, most people mean this in a negative way, wishing that the game was less like Portal and retained the scary encounters that previous Penumbra games had. For indeed, there’s not a single monster encounter in the entire three hour adventure, so anyone going into Requiem expecting that is going to be disappointed. I knew this going in, but I must admit that the creepy atmosphere loses its touch when you know that nothing is going to seriously threaten you. This dramatic change in gameplay structure clearly bothered a lot of fans of the Penumbra games, with many of them saying it’s a disappointment. I feel that may be a bit harsh, but again I come from a position where I knew what I was getting into.

As mentioned before, Requiem is all about puzzle solving. The goal of a given level is to locate these keys that will open a door to the next level. These are obtained by solving the puzzles, which entail manipulating objects in the environment. Penumbra: Requiem introduces a plethora of new objects which have their own unique mechanics to keep every level unique. Sometimes those objects simply move a ball around from point A to point B, and other times they affect the gravity of a certain area. The strangest of these items is the exploding bottles of ketchup (no, I am not joking), with the explosions typically being used to manipulate levers from a distance. While some of these objects are certainly strange in the context of the world, it’s neat to see the variety on display.

Remember my complaints about Black Plague’s puzzles? Specifically the bit where I said it’s easy to not see an object integral to the puzzle? Requiem is like that but worse. Levels are often very large, which means it’s that much easier to not see an object that would help you solve the puzzle. There were even times where I’m relatively certain I broke the game, requiring a restart to do the level proper. Hard to say for sure considering the levels are so huge that maybe I just lost track of items, but in the moment it did seem as though I managed to make a puzzle unsolvable. That said, when I was aware of the important objects in the scene I was almost always able to connect the dots and solve puzzles on my own. It might have taken some time and a few attempts, but when I did piece it together it felt very satisfying. Even if I only got about halfway through the puzzle before getting stuck, I was at least enjoying the act of solving the puzzle a little at a time in the run-up to that roadblock.

Amidst all this puzzle solving, there is a story in this game. Requiem attempts to tie up any loose ends from the previous two games. Characters from Black Plague and Overture make a return in some form or another, and there’s an attempt to explain what’s happened to our main character. But unfortunately, I felt that this story was largely confusing and unnecessary. I was already satisfied with how Black Plague ended, so Requiem made the tale of Philip feel like it was going on for too long. Other than a mildly interesting discussion with an old friend towards the end of the game, I don’t think I would have missed out on anything in the story by not playing Requiem.

If my thoughts on Requiem seem short, that’s because they are. It’s a short game after all, plus I already talked about some mechanics when discussing Black Plague. Penumbra: Requiem, more than anything, felt like a tech demo of Frictional’s HPL engine. None of the levels have any sort of cohesion, as you get warped into each location at the start, so what you end up with is a collection of experiments. The experiments are kind of interesting from a historical perspective, as you can see how this game showed Frictional what their engine was capable of in later games, but for a player they are just experiments. Most people when talking about this game complain about the lack of monsters, but I don’t think that’s Requiem’s main issue. You can have a horror game with no monster encounters. There’s three problems; first, this game is the third part of the Penumbra series and thus there’s an expectation of what the content will be like. Second, the puzzles have this communication problem where it was easy to miss important pieces to the puzzle. Finally, the story of Requiem doesn’t add much to the overall narrative of Penumbra. Of all of Frictional’s works, Requiem is the weakest but not because of a lack of monsters or dread.

 

Penumbra: Requiem Rating: C-