DeathOmen Review (PC) – Working From H-omen
Picking up an indie horror title is always a bit of a roulette, truth be told. For every Mortuary Assistant, there’s a Scholar’s Mate, for instance. While many have good ideas or concepts, they’re often either derivative or tepid. Imagine my surprise when I picked up DeathOmen and within ten minutes of playing, I’d almost bunny-hopped from my couch into the ceiling, thanks to a perfectly curated jump scare.
Despite its very short length, DeathOmen exceeds its small offering with excellent use of atmosphere and fantastic jump scare moments. I do wish there was more of it to sample, and the gameplay is rather basic, to put it mildly, but I’ll be damned, the horror notes are on point.
Oh Man, I Forgot
Clocking in at roughly 30-40 minutes long, it’s best to temper your expectations of what DeathOmen is. The developer makes no secret of it being a short and definitely not sweet time, so enter it with that in mind. However, length aside, the brooding atmosphere, foreboding thumps of footsteps and slow pace will immediately put you ill at ease. Even if you know it’ll be over quickly, DeathOmen won’t make getting there easy.
You play as an amnesiac, awakening to an empty home in the dead of night. Burdened with depression and agoraphobia, you work remotely by watching cameras of a location you don’t know. I’m sure there’s a deep meta-narrative here about the cursed trap of home working and the convenience of isolation causing sanity disruption, but it also works to keep the game contained to a single house with half a dozen rooms.
There’s a bit more story here, but really it’s just a vehicle to bring the scares in. I wasn’t too fussed about the meaning of it all, but it’s a solid enough setup.
Death March
You might think that DeathOmen is therefore a bit of a resource management sim or a Five Nights At Freddy’s setup, but in truth, it’s neither. You’ll need to order food, medication and a torch by clicking on the cameras on a PC, but I only needed food twice, meds once and the flashlight once. The camera observation chunk is literally just clicking on them to rack up money, so it’s not exactly the height of thrilling gameplay.
Rather, the focus is on slowly moving about the house, doing a small subset of tasks in sequence. DeathOmen is rather linear and very straightforward to progress. There are no real puzzles or solutions to think up, aside from the odd code from a note to put into a keypad. As such, gameplay wise it’s fairly uninteresting. If your sanity meter runs out without you popping one of your medication tablets, the game will end, but the time limit is pretty forgiving so don’t worry too much.
Where DeathOmen is less forgiving and far more interesting, however, is in its fear-inducing moments. The house is plastered in thick, intimidating shadows. There’s a constant eerie and disquieting tension, amplified by the sound design of the footsteps, moments of silence and environmental cues. This is where the game excels, and as a horror title, it’s pretty superb.
An Omen Or Just A Bad Sign?
The jump scares in DeathOmen are genuinely some of the best I’ve suffered in recent years. Even when knowing they were coming, they still caused me to leap out of my skin like I was in an episode of Scooby Doo. There’s probably a good three or four curated scares, and a few more randomised environmental moments. For a game that’s the same length as an episode of The Office, that’s quite impressive.
As I mentioned before, the house itself, while relatively barren, becomes littered with creepy imagery, pitch black space and even a physics-bending clock room at one point. While it was only a single punch, DeathOmen packed quite the wallop behind it. I did spend about ten minutes wandering around at one stage unsure of what to do, thanks to a very tucked away item you need to progress. While a bit irritating, it was no-holds-barred from that point, so I can forgive it.
All in all, I was thoroughly impressed with DeathOmen. I’m a little disappointed it’s only good for a single sitting or two, but I sense it’ll be a real hit in the streaming community, thanks to its well-crafted screams. While not wholly original and lacking in the gameplay department, it delivers plenty in its terrifying atmosphere and jump scare delivery. For the price of a coffee and potentially a new ceiling (in my case), it’s worth checking out.
DeathOmen is available from February 5th on PC via Steam (review platform).
Developer: Jeff Winner
Publisher: CreativeForge Games
Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.
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