There Are Dozens of Indie Horror Games Out There, but None Like Visage
By Amiranda Adams
You wake up in a white-tiled room with the lights flickering. In front of you is a door; below you is a giant pool of blood. You are left no with no other option but to walk through the door and into the unknown. This opening scene to the game Visage (2020) is not only eye-catching but provides fans of horror a sense of familiarity. Visage takes some familiar scenes and tropes from horror and develops new ways to play horror games. Visage is a project produced by SadSquare Studio. SadSquare Studio’s founders, Jonathan Vallières and Jonathan Gagné, decided to add their horror game into the mix in January 2015. Their approach to this project was “making things personal,” and every step of this journey for the SadSquare Studio team ensured that their fans were involved and the primary source of funding for this project.
With the help of their fans, indie team SadSquare Studio was able to release not only a demo on October 2, 2018, but a complete four chapter horror game on October 30, 2020. As mentioned before, Visage is broken up into four chapters: Chapter 1:Lucy, Chapter 2: Dolores, Chapter 3: Rakan, and Chapter 4. Each of these chapters takes the player character (PC) Dwayne through the main setting, the house. The house that Dwayne and the player find themselves in is the location of many tragic deaths and murders. The goal is to discover the stories of Lucy, Dolores, and Rakan, and find out how or if Dwayne plays any role in the house’s happenings. If players are hoping to unlock all the secrets of Visage, they need to keep an eye out for pictures, letters, symbols, and how all these stories connect.
To add to the storytelling, Visage incorporates amazing sounds like the player’s moving about the house and spine chilling breathing that comes from the monsters that chase you. Players will not want to miss a single thing when it comes to this game, so headphones are encouraged Along with this, Visage not only works with lighting, shading, and overall graphic design but creates monsters in such a way that allows the player’s imagination to go wild, which is very impressive for an indie title.
Even with all these elements in this game, which I find so enchanting, the SadSquare Studio team seemed to emphasize their goal of making the process personal and added it to the game itself. Throughout the entire game, we are met with a common theme: mental health. Each of the characters that Dwayne and the player encounter in the house are dealing with their mental health, treatment of it, and how their families cope. Visage, in my opinion, takes a real problem people face daily and personifies it into monsters. Instead of facing vampires or werewolves, the player is facing internal demons that have come to life.
If you are as interested in indie horror games like we are here at Dead Talk News, then Visage is definitely one you should check out. Currently, the game is available on Steam, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. If you’re not interested in playing the game, then there are plenty of play-throughs that can be found on YouTube. Regardless of how you interact with Visage, if you are a fan of horror, this game is definitely something that should be checked out.
Source: Sad Square Studio
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