Someday You’ll Return

The nice folks over at Evolve PR were kind enough to send me over a key to check out Someday You’ll Return, a first person psychological horror game from indie studio CBE Software. They have been working on this game for over 5 years now with an incredibly small development team, 2 people.  After playing through over 15 hours of the game, I can tell you it didn’t seem like it was only 2 people working on the game, but it does make for some interesting end game credits. I especially like the role of Director of Naps and Mood Enhancer, Kuzma the Dog.

In Someday You’ll Return, you play Daniel, who is a giant douchebag that returns to real life woods in the Czech Republic in search of his daughter Stela who has run away. She really likes running away too, due to the factor that her father is an asshole. Seriously, it’s really hard to like the guy who’s not even sure he wants to be here to find his daughter. His past actions led to not only Stela running away time and time again, but the horror he’s about to experience. What better setting for a horror video game then some woods that include a run down summer camp, rundown old castle, run down bunker, a monastery, and a spider problem. As mentioned earlier, this is a real place, crafted after the memories experienced by the developers in their home country.

This is an adventure game, not an action game, so you won’t be able to attack the Beast with an affinity for shooting rebar everywhere, or the other monsters you’ll face. Instead you’ll have to use your wit to solve puzzles as you try to survive, and ultimately find your daughter. You said you’d never come back here, and now that you have, you must face your memories and learn why you said that. You’ll uncover your own memories, as well those of your daughter to find the truth. It’s this past that has created the horror you must now survive, and push through to find your daughter. You’ll have to find recipes and create potions as well as craft new gadgets to get to the end of the story. There are some decision points along the way that will determine how your story ultimately ends however.

I’m not really a fan of horror personally, but I guess psychological horror games are maybe, as this game puts the list of psychological horror games in the past year I’ve enjoyed to 2, next to Moons of Madness. While my time with the game was thoroughly enjoyable, it did have some issues.  Bugs with a game of this scale made by two people are to be expected, and in true I Beat It First fashion, I broke the game. I was about a third of the way through the game and could not go any further, because Daniel refused to grab the last climbing block to get up to the ledge. CBE Software was quick to jump on the situation, and responded promptly on a Saturday afternoon. Also in true I Beat It First fashion, this bug was one they haven’t seen before. So if anyone needs quality testers, Jason, Eric, and myself are glad to lend our services. Thanks to their quick support, I was able to continue my adventure that same day, without any other major bugs showing up. I was able to clip through the world at some points from doing things I wasn’t supposed to do, but nothing a quick load couldn’t solve. This game runs purely on auto saves, which luckily it does a TON. It saves about every few minutes, so you won’t be losing much time for a misstep. If you are looking for a single player adventure story to jump into, I highly recommend Someday You’ll Return. Oh, and according to the internet…I BEAT IT FIRST.