Indie developers love to make retro-style games that look like the PlayStation games you'd rent from Blockbuster and speed through over a scorching winter weekend. Satisfied, here's another one. Cold And Afraid is a murder mystery that aims to channel the '90s, with chunky characters and plenty of delightful hesitations. You play a detective trying to stop a serial killer with a terrifying pattern who's preying on young women in an unnamed US city. Alongside the obligatory tank controls, it aims to feature “consequence-driven dialogue choices” and “a Time Event system where you must meet specific people at specific times to convey different story lines.” Ah, forgive me, you're here to see the chunky limbs. Here's a recent trailer showing them off.
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“The retro indie game trend has gone crazy,” says solo developer Sunamii. “But I want this to be the best game you’ve ever played.
“In a genre where visuals take precedence over content, Cold and Afraid puts consequential dialogue choices and the relationships you develop with characters at the center of the experience.”
Its cinematic bent reminds me a bit of Indigo Prophecy (that's Fahrenheit for you, US folk), which was technically a PS2 game, but let's not beat around the bush. Cold And Afraid has been in development for a while now, but we haven't heard about it yet, probably because no one here loves the warped textures and blocky vectors of Sony's glorious grey box as much as I do. “I'm working hard to get a demo ready,” the developer says. Take your time, man. As the youngsters say, I encourage cooking.
Cold And Afraid isn't the developer's only PS1-style project. They've also listed dungeon-crawler Twilight Bastion on Steam. It initially started out as a homage to the PlayStation game Vagrant Story, but its feel has changed slightly as the creator has worked on it.
“As development progressed,” they say in a xeet, “it became a mix between Demon's Souls x Symphony of the Night.”
These are tough acts to follow. As a solo developer, Sunamii seems to like to set high bar. When talking about Cold And Afraid, they say they wanted it to leave a lasting impression.
“Many indie games come and go. They're released one week and forgotten the next. If that happens with this game, then I've failed. Your work has to live on beyond release week.”
Sunamii previously released Isolania, an adventure game about living, working, eating, and sleeping within the confines of a small cell to escape an ongoing plague (oh hello traumatic Covid memories, how are you?).
As for the PS1 retro craze, it really kicked off in earnest after the Haunted PS1 Demo Discs, which were wonderful annual compilations of retro-style horror games, but other developers have embraced the aesthetic, with PS1 modern-mementos like Sorry We're Closed and (arguably) Dread Delusion. Dread Delusion features the characteristic wobbly vectors of Sony's machine, while hewing closer to PC classics like Morrowind.