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Prodigal

Time for a horror game this week.

The premise of prodigal is simple. One day, out of the blue, Jacob (the player character) hears from a brother he hasn’t seen, or wanted to see, for some time. However, he is persuaded to meet with Mike who tells him of some mysterious situation he is getting into with some unknown people. He wants Jacob to come after him if anything happens.

Sure enough one dark night he goes missing, his car left by the side of the road with no discernable sign of a struggle or any other reason for abandoning the vehicle in the middle of a wood. It isn’t long before Jacob tracks down an apparently empty (although clearly recently used) shack some way into the wood. As you would expect, strange things start to happen as you explore the area… however, don’t be fooled by the apparently standard clichéd start, things get better the further on you go.

Graphically, the game does look good for a freeware game although there is quite a variation in graphics throughout. Largely the backgrounds are 3d modelled with 2D characters, which isn’t everyone’s cup of tea for starters. The character models are noticeably not as good as most of the backgrounds but are functional and OK. In cutscenes, particularly in the intro, close ups of characters are hand drawn in quite a different style. In short, there are quite a few different artistic styles going on which is confusing at first.

The intro is mainly in 3D with the hand drawn close-ups and runs together as a film with moving cameras and some really very decent backgrounds. Most of the game itself is more static, with the 3D rendered backgrounds (animated in places) and overlayed 2d characters.

The sound is atmospheric by and large with typical “horror” sounds and creepy ambience which backs up the “empty” feel of the game (or certainly the first part of the game). Although it is a 3rd person game it somehow has the feel of a first person game to me (and in fact the screenshot above is one of the very few from a 3rd person perspective) which may come down to the heavy exploration focus of the game.

However, the game is not in any way devoid of puzzles and chances are you won’t breeze through that far before having to employ the old gray matter to progress and track down Mike. Generally the puzzles are of a good standard and what you would hope for from an Adventure Game although there is one that falls into the “pixel hunt” category which annoyed me!

The story is a simple one - find the “black sheep” brother, but it is well executed and develops nicely over time. I certainly don’t want to spoil anything, but it is fair to say that while you may think you see more or less where this is going from relatively early on in the game the ending definitely delivers on the horror front in quite an unexpected and chilling way.

The game is, in some ways, a bit of a hotchpotch of good things and not so good things but take it as a whole and the experience was certainly positive for me. It is quite a long game by AGS standards, at least a couple of hours if you know the game but probably quite a bit more for a first playthrough.

If you can look past the oddities of the game and enjoy a horror/thriller scenario then this is well worth a look. The game won the AGS Award for “Best original story” in 2005 and was nominated for several other categories.