Hide and Shriek (Video Game)
Ted Hentschke
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Developed and published by Funcom
Available on PC through Steam
Suitable for ages 12+
There are some ideas that when you hear them, you instinctively cock your head about two inches back, furrow your brow, and purse your lips in a half smile. It’s the universal expression of, “wut?” I try my best avoid instinctive skepticism, but Hide and Shriek is a game that describes itself as a, “one vs. one multiplayer romp,” where the objective is to, “be a mischievous little rascal and scare your opponent half to death before time runs out!” Oh, and you’re both invisible. How do you win? Well, “points can be acquired by scaring your opponent, luring them into traps, or performing an ancient ritual.” How does that all work? How do you do any of this if your opponent is invisible? How do you perform ancient rituals? Guess you’ll just have to play to find out!
Or, you know, you could read this review. I got you fam. When you actually get down to it, Hide and Shriek isn’t as complicated as it sounds. You and your opponent both start on different sides of a five room map modeled after a mystical high school. The rooms are randomized from a set, but the middle is always a long locker filled hallway connecting all four classrooms. Going through these rooms, you can find spell runes, score orbs, and the occasional collectible. You’ll simultaneously try to collect these score orbs and trap/scare your opponent.
Scoring is pretty easy. You grab an orb, wait a few seconds for it to spin around, and then follow the arrow to your altar. The altar moves after each touchdown or a set period of time without a score. Unfortunately, scoring makes you vulnerable. While you’re normally invisible, your opponent can see the orb you carry floating around. Since you don’t also have the benefit of seeing them, it’s a sure way to get yourself hit by a scare. As a secondary objective, it works just fine. From my experience, it’s much more effective to try and scare your opponent.
The altars are usually in different rooms, but fun configurations like this lead to some interesting games of chicken.
“Scares” can be achieved at any time by “screaming” with the spacebar. If your opponent is in your crosshairs, you’ll hit them with a spooky custom jumpscare and force them to respawn. Hit them three times in a row to win. The recharge on the scream is incredibly long, so you’ll want to wait to use it until you’re sure the enemy is in your sights. To this end, you’ll craft a number of spells to track, trap, and trick your opponent. Or just fuck with them. That happens a lot, too.
Runes are used to make spells, with a total of seven runes to play with. Basic runes can be fired off for simple effects, or combined with another rune for increased effectiveness. There are only four triple rune combinations in the game, so this never gets too complicated. Each round is also randomized to contain only five of the seven rune types, further reducing the confusion. Even just picking the game up, it only took me about ten minutes to learn how it all worked.
To make it even easier, here’s the cheat sheet. Not a lot to remember.
It only took an additional ten minutes to learn which combinations were bullshit. I’m speaking to you directly, Funcom, when I say the homing black hole to the purple melting dimension is bullshit. There is a lot of variety to the spells, allowing you to boobytrap doors, objects, the floor, or even just thin air, but not all spells are created equal. Given the option between setting a powerful fart trap that knocks someone down and sending a homing missile of perpetual annoyance that teleports your opponent to the pain dimension, which would you choose? Pain dimension, every time. And like hell if that wasn’t what happened every single round it was available.
I spent more time here than in the actual classrooms.
Some traps are just way more useful. Traps on the floor can be surprising, but are easily avoided with a sprint or reveal spell. Traps on doors or cabinets cannot be likewise worked around. Need to get in a room where both doors are blocked? Tough titties, eat the trap and the following scream to the face. One of the spell combinations is a light spray of fairy dust that makes sparkle noises when people walk through. Or, you could summon the stalking doom whisp that drops them with a portal gun into the world of their nightmares.
Oh no! A light spray of color! I sure hope it doesn’t make a light tinkling sound, that would really rustle my jimmies.
So yeah, the game is hella imbalanced. Oh well. It’s a $6 indie title, I can accept some design oversight. Take my Hide and Shriek complaints with a grain of salt. In reality, the game impressed me more than it frustrated. As much as this game looks and sounds silly on paper, it works well. I actually would jump at the scares, even when I knew it was coming. The different rooms and traps look great. It’s not AAA budget high resolution, but the visual design is distinct and effective.
I promise this is way less silly when its jumping in your face.
It takes a heavy degree of shit to not recommend a $6 game. If you’re looking for a good way to kill a few hours with a friend, this is definitely worth it. That being said, I don’t see this game living long. At time of writing, the daily high of users playing was 20. For a purely 1v1 multiplayer game, that just isn’t enough. There are leaderboards to climb, but what’s the point? If they had instituted a 2v2 mode, where one character can play offence and the other defence, this game would have a much longer shelf life. Hide and Shriek is an innovative title, worth checking out on concept alone. Beyond that, there’s nothing to keep you coming back.
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Game
Categorized:Horror Gaming Reviews
