Finally, I have another game about being a freaky little nasty guy trapped in an otherworldly hell dimension to look forward to

With how advanced 3D graphics have gotten, I wish we'd use these rendering techniques to get more freaky with it, ya dig? Alan Wake 2's funky lighting and lightning quick loading really scratched that itch for me last year, but 2022's Scorn is really what I'm talkin' about: a sickening fever dream that could only be brought to life in a game. Now it looks like we're getting our first Scornlike in Necrophosis.

I'm a simple man: I love the work of H.R. Giger, the iconic Swiss artist who designed the Xenomorph, I'm a freak for Zdzisław Beksiński, a Polish painter who specialized in hauntingly beautiful and unnerving dreamscapes, and you better believe I was down for Scorn, a horror game that cribbed its whole look from both. There's just not much out there like Scorn, and post-launch patches went a long way to addressing my biggest complaints when reviewing the game.

Alpha Beta Gamer first clocked Necrophosis as a game to watch, and also uploaded a full playthrough of the upcoming adventure game's Steam demo. Right away, Necrophosis impressed me with its look and sound: spooky ambient music plus sickening crunches and squelches make for an excellent accompaniment to the nightmare desert city you're trapped in, all monolithic skulls and horribly pitted, trypophobia-inducing «buildings.» Developer Dragonis Games went full Beksiński on this one.

The demo's gameplay consists entirely of exploration and puzzle solving, with one of my favorite touches being the ability to pick up and examine objects. There's an awful little bug that just starts screaming at you when you lift it up for an examination, wriggling and writhing as you turn it over like a Skyrim smoked salmon in your inventory menu, and that's just the kind of disturbing, surprising interaction I want out of a game like this.

There is one big bummer here, and it's a gripe I share with Alpha Beta Gamer: these inhuman entities are way too god damn chatty. First time I step into the world, I'm in awe of this