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Look Outside is like football in that it’s a game of two halves. And in absolutely no other way is it like football, because this is a survival horror RPG about being trapped in an apartment building where your neighbors have been transformed into Cronenberg-esque monsters that are about 90% eyeballs and teeth by weight.
One half of Look Outside has you exploring the warped building you live in, fighting strange creatures and gathering supplies. An inexplicable astrological phenomenon means that anyone who looks at the sky either dies instantly or is twisted into something dangerous, and many of your fellow apartment-dwellers have already succumbed. These Junji Ito nightmares attack with knives and bonus mouths. You fight them initially with a baseball bat, but later with a whole host of scrounged weapons, in Earthbound-style turn-based battles.
Because they used to be people (except for the ones who used to be rats), sometimes you can talk to these monsters. You’re never quite sure if any given pixelated cluster of shadow tendrils and eyes will be a friend or a “fuck off please don’t eat me”, and engaging them in conversation might give them time to get close enough for a special attack.
The other half of Look Outside happens when you return home. You get bonus XP based on how long you spent away, but you also need to sleep and shower, and eating gives back hit points and stamina. You can craft medicine and Molotov cocktails, do a crossword to pass time, and chat to your party members.
Your three-room apartment is as spacious as the ones in American sitcoms, so your recruits just hang out in the kitchen like Kramer. My favorite so far is Papineau the caretaker, who describes himself as a “scholar of the custodial arts” and has given me a quest to track down the building’s various janitors.
There’s also a videogame console in the apartment, and multiple games to collect. Playing them makes the hours pass, and the little text descriptions of a turn-based tactics game where you control a squad of ants, or a Dungeon Keeper-like where you torture wizards in Hell, are extremely on point. I would absolutely play this XCOM/SimAnt mash-up. Stick with a game long enough and you’ll learn a skill, so it’s not just wasted time.
Apartment hangouts aren’t always free of stress, though. Knocks come at the door and you can peer through the peephole at whoever is visiting, then decide whether to let them in or not. Though they usually look sinister, they might just be trading or begging for food. It wouldn’t be neighbourly to turn them away, even if one of these days I’m sure I’ll be attacked.
Look Outside seems to have been designed in RPG Maker, which means you’ll have to press F4 to make it fullscreen and Alt-F4 to quit. It’s got the vibe of a classic RPG Maker horror game like Yume Nikki, with a bit of World of Horror thrown in. If that sounds like your thing, publisher Devolver Digital just shadowdropped it on Steam.
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Kurt Indovina
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