Order of the Snake Scale Review - Classic Survival Horror in a Grim Dystopia

Exploring a Dystopian World of Cults, Mystery, and Old-School Horror

Introduction & Inspiration

From indie developer FM Simple games studio, comes a Lovecraftian style survival horror, set in a dystopian alternate reality. This 90's style top-down game, is a throw back to old school classics such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

Story & Setting

We play as Seth Vidius, a cyborg detective working for the NML Corporation, investigating the gruesome murder of a woman in the town of Happy Rock. The setting is a grim dystopia where the NML corporation has banned religious practice and forced the residents to work in run down factories in dire conditions with restricted pay. The townsfolk in the suburbs look to have given up hope, turning to drink and drug use, some to the point of insanity (I'm looking at you Fat Hugo!). There is also talk of mysterious Eldritch horrors lurking in the waters, tubeworms and leviathans, but many of the residents of Happy rock don't seem too concerned, some even mentioning taking a bottle of bourbon to the woods to observe them lurking in the waters.

Narrative Shift & Atmosphere

While at first this game starts as a murder investigation, it takes a huge swerve around half way through. The mood changes, you hear strange whispers of a dark cult. It seems this dank and dingy town has more to it than initially meets the eye. Complete puzzles to unlock secrets, from murder to cults and cosmic entities, a twisting story will leave you asking questions until the very end.

The game features gritty and gloomy visuals, utilising a grainy filter to give it an authenticity which perfectly fits the feel of the game, building tension and suspense.  Fixed camera angles left me constantly worrying about what was around the corner. The enemy variety is limited, I think i only encountered 3 unique enemy types and unfortunately all of them have the same garbled scream, which was a bit dull. Thankfully these encounters are few and far between.

Characters, Writing & Sound

Character models are simple, only getting a real feel for a character when their avatar is shown next to a text box.Fetch quests are the way you get to know these quirky characters, learning more about the rich history of Happy rock. The writing is extremely wonky in places and some of the dialogue almost felt like it could have been written by AI, but the characters have charm.  

In the earlier parts of the game the music was chilling and oppressive, building on the atmospheric visuals.  It did feel very atmospheric at first, but then I realised it was on a loop, which took away some of the immersion for me later on. Eventually as I progressed through the game, I had to go into the menu to turn it down as it was a bit much. 

Gameplay & Mechanics

Like the classic games that inspired it, the narrative is driven by finding items used to unlock new areas or progress dialogue with the numerous NPCs found throughout.  While most of the quests were simple and the objects fairly obvious what they were meant for, there is a painful amount of back tracking. Some of the puzzles were also lore based, so you better be paying attention to those notes you're picking up. 

This game is primarily a classic puzzler with a small amount of first person shooting thrown in. For example, at the very beginning of the game I found the severed hand of the murder victim, with no obvious use for it right away, it stayed tucked away in my inventory until around half way through the game when I reached a hotel with locked rooms needing hand print verification to gain entry. I reached for the amputated appendage and used it to interact with the panel and I was granted access to the room, in which more goodies and papers were waiting for me to collect. And in another section of the game I found myself shooting my way through a secret area of a grotty factory against hulking enemies. 

There is an inventory system as mentioned above, but unlike the games its inspired by, this system doesn't require any particular management, I never ran out of slots, I didn't have to awkwardly rearrange objects to make them fit and it all felt much easier. There is also no tutorial, the game throws you in without giving you any details about controls or mechanics, I didn't even know I had a flashlight until half way through the game. 

Controls, Combat, and the Cyborg Eye

This game incorporates two completely different play styles, first off we have the classic top down, fixed camera angles and tank controls. This did take a while for me to get used to,  I found it to be clunky and confusing keeping track of the direction I was going in, especially because the map doesn't show your location, just numbered places with names to correlate. But the game does try to help you with this by showing footprints on the ground where Seth has recently trodden. 

Whilst fans of old-school horror games are likely to find the control scheme familiar, the top down tank controls with fixed camera angles combine to make the platforming sections extremely challenging at times, and when one wrong step can mean instant death as you are enveloped and dragged beneath the murky waters by writhing tentacles, a comical if not annoying way to go and it caught me out more than once, especially as you cant always judge where the water is.

I found it frustrating, but here's where the other play style comes in. Seth has a cyborg eye, with a night vision reticle in red and green, a lovely little nod to Terminator, which gives a first person perspective, turning sections of the game into a  first person shooter. 

When you draw your weapon, a first person perspective is overlaid to the right of the screen.  Whilst its primary function is to shoot enemies , it's also used to help locate objects needed to solve puzzles as they give off wisps of smoke that you can't see in the top down mode.

Another clever function of this mode is that it allows you to bypass the fixed camera angles and see hidden sections of your surroundings that were previously obscured. I actually found it so much easier to control and navigate using Seth's red cyborg eye, but that meant I was often ignoring the delightfully crafted world the developer lovingly created. Whilst the first person view is undoubtedly useful, the enormous crosshair graphic with scrolling text obstructs much of the view, making precision aiming difficult.  

The Final Verdict

Overall the world building is perfect, a moody setting combining several genres put together in a classic retro style. The controls are awkward and clunky but using the combination of first person and top down does help. The writing is in some parts over the top and in other parts sloppy. Puzzles are easy enough but the back tracking gets very old, very fast. It could have been so much better with some quality of life changes that gamers of this generation have come to expect, and if the story didn't go completely off the rails half way through (trust me on this one!).

This is a game that could easily be a couple of hours long, but with all the back tracking and no clear route half way through this game, it ended up being a bit of a slog. Its a fabulous attempt at a love letter to the classic survival horrors, but unfortunately feels lacking in places and sadly falls short of what I feel like the developers wanted to achieve. 

Overall I'd struggle to recommend this to the casual gamer but fans of this particular style of game should definitely consider giving it a go. 

Reviewed by Gracie Ashby - Discord username: Queen_Bee