Episode 176 - Dissolve Those Bones - Crow Country

NOCLIP

We’re old enough. Welcome back to NOCLIP, and beware, for it is Halloween! To kick off October, we’re talking about Crow Country, a throwback survival horror game that does a lot to stand out in its field. The game is set in an amusement park and has a unique polygonal graphic style that gives an oddly whimsical aesthetic. It makes good use of this with its environments: haunted houses, underwater exhibits and fantasy fairy forests. Each new area feels a little quirky, but always with that chunky, blocky texture that sells the disheveled feel of the park itself. All of this is in service of a short but tightly executed survival horror game with disempowered combat, save rooms without checkpoints, item collection and puzzles to solve. It has the hallmarks of the genre, but each mechanic is implemented in a well thought out way. We’re going to be talking about how the one location setting helps teach the player the layout while hiding surprises, how the simplicity of some mechanics shine light on progression and storytelling, and we make the tough call to shoot everything in sight. Thank you for joining us again this week! We’re excited as always to start talking about horror titles, and Crow Country is the perfect first game to play in a month like this. It feels like a nostalgic throwback, but obviously brings with it the lessons learned over decades of innovation in the genre. How did you feel about this relatively short entry into the genre? Let us know over on the Discord server or in the comments! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Omori, which is a more different kind of horror game, so we hope you’ll join us for that.