Failure Has Horrible Consequences In Survival Horror Game Uncanny Valley

Cowardly Creations wants you to dread their survival horror game Uncanny Valley once it comes out. That’s why the small studio has released a playable demo for Windows – it’s so you can get a grisly taste of what’s to come.

Uncanny Valley has you playing as a security guard called Tom who starts to explore the facility he’s overseeing during his shift. He ends up finding a number of things that he wish he hadn’t… (think meat hooks, gore, and deceased human bodies).

What’s most gripping and terrifying about Uncanny Valley is its consequence system. Failing at a section in the game doesn’t always mean death, instead, the game goes on but your character or the story is altered for the worse. Let’s say you get mauled by enemies, but the character escapes to live on, but now your movement is slower, which means you have to rely on wit to escape other horrors rather than running away like you could have if you avoided that mauling.

Cowardly Creations says that it designed the consequence system knowing that repeating sections over and over in which you keep dying loses the tension in survival horror games. This way, with consequences, the tension is increased and without any of the frustration.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t die at all in Uncanny Valley, as you can, but that you must try to fight as best as you can, and as smart as you can, for a smoother ride. It’s a bit like Telltale’s The Walking Dead series in a way, except the consequences affect your moment-to-moment actions as well as the story.

If you’d like to download the Uncanny Valley demo for Windows you can do so from this direct download link. Pre-orders for the game are currently being taken, so if you enjoy what you play, you may want to throw down $9 for it you can do so via the link on the game’s website.