Dom Rusalok - is a quest from Desura Online Games Stidio set in the 90s of the last century in Russia. Here, scary drawn characters periodically swear, and in general, the art is somehow not very good - well, or it is too specific. But this is not a modern representative of that very "Russian quest". "Russian" in this case is just a statement of fact - the game was made by several of our compatriots, headed by Yakov Butuzov . She herself is closer to the eerie urban legends and to the social and mystical horror films in the spirit of The Cat Lady and Downfall . All the details are in our review.
So, Russia in the 90s, a small provincial town. Alla Pugacheva , Tatyana Ovsienko and Valery Obodzinsky are being played on the radio in the shops, and the next Duck Tales or news about the decrees of Boris Yeltsin and the upcoming interrogation of Alexander Korzhakov are shown on the radio (here is a real recording of the Vremya program from ORT).
Somewhere on the closet you can find packages of cranberries in sugar (why is it still sour?), Triangular bags of milk that were once given in schools, an old metal construction kit and a diary decorated with stamps and pictures of Goofy and Donald pulled out from chewing gum. And right there next - the prefix "Dandy", cartridges with video games and posters with "Terminator".
Yes, post-Soviet romance in Dom Rusalok is above the roof. And in the middle of all this, in the same town, ordinary teenagers of those years live. Someone's father is a businessman with bucks in his purse, someone is an alcoholic, and you can hear him again swearing with his mother. Children toss around idle, chew tar, peel seeds, someone asks someone to ride a bike (not the fact that they will return it!). They swear, but without much malice, because this is their life and their language - they do not wander around the yard, but shar ... t.
Dasha, Lesha, Kesha and Zhenya, who recently moved here, and dasharoya ... I mean, they climbed into the title "House of Mermaids", an abandoned building where, according to rumors, another child disappeared. There they find a videotape with very strange pictures and a recording that demonstrates themselves and the girl Karina - a notice about her missing is hanging in the yard ...
This is where local mysticism begins. And it ends quickly enough - the game is short, 3-4 hours. Although eventful. Naturally, there will be strange monsters, and mysterious experiments, and visions, and fainting. There is even a strange girl about whom no one knows anything and whom no one but Zhenya has seen.
And everything ends, as often happens in "creep" stories, not with answers to questions, but with new questions - what was it all about, who survived, what happened to the others? .. On the one hand, this is not very good. On the other hand, it is fertile ground for building your own theories.
In any case, for the few hours that the game lasts, the plot is addictive and intriguing. At the same time, it combines the spirit of urban tales and echoes of Soviet science fiction in the spirit of the Strugatsky brothers.
It's a shame the gameplay itself isn't impressive. Riddles practically do not cause questions and brain efforts. We see a closed hatch or door - we are looking for a crowbar or a key, which will certainly be found right there or after a couple of screens. We don’t know the code for the lock or the password for the computer - we are looking for simple clues, such as the date on the photo or the name of a book found nearby.
That is, we mainly collect and use items here. Literally once per game, I needed to combine something in the inventory. There are practically no conversational puzzles either. And the dialogues themselves are as simple as possible, as are the descriptions of objects. Something on the level "But some old fart in the photo." On the other hand, everything is as vital as possible, within the framework of clear logic and in the style of those very 90s. Well, the game as a whole is not about gameplay, but about history and atmosphere.
***
Dom Rusalok, as a game itself, reminds Russia of the 90s: in places meaningless and merciless, untidy, leaving questions in the cold air about what it was and why. But it has its own clumsy, nostalgic charm - it's like listening to the songs of Pugacheva , to the books of King (Stephen King) and the Strugatskys in a room with a poster of "The Terminator" on the wall and cartridges from "Dandy" on the floor from despair and idleness to dream about something - then the best or coming up with scary stories - it's definitely more interesting there.
Pros: an intriguing mystical plot; a combination of an eerie atmosphere of urban legends, post-Soviet romance and fantasy in the spirit of the Strugatsky brothers; not very colorful, but lively and honest characters; great work with sound and music works perfectly for the atmosphere.
Cons: primitive quest part; the ending is too open.