In the run-up to the Dead Space Remake, the desire for horror had really grabbed me again. I came across Conscript rather by accident, which, with its pixelated top-down look from the mid-90s, takes a similar approach to the highly acclaimed Signalis. After I look at the Steam free downloadable demo I still can’t say whether Conscript will be as good as the sci-fi game from Germany, which is stylistically a little more firmly in the saddle. But I came away fascinated and a bit shaken by the experience – and not many games can do that.
Conscript by Jordan Mochi works thematically completely without typical horror or scary clichés. There’s no horde of undead to master, no overpowering monster stalking you, not even an eerie phenomenon twisting space and time into a disturbing caricature of reality that only you can get to the bottom of. And yet I associate Conscript with one of the most frightening and scariest experiences of recent times, because it depicts war as the most human and worst horror of all.
What does that actually say about us as human beings? When all you have to do is swap out a bioweapons lab for a 1916 French trench and zombies for enemy soldiers to create the same, if not worse, scary effect as a Resident Evil? Finally, the rest is the usual, solid, bird’s-eye view of Survival’s house hold: limited inventory, lots of doors bolted from the other side, a spade as a conservation measure for what little ammo is available, and tense prioritization of which of the oncoming threats to take down first. You know that.
And yet the World War I scenario makes it seem completely alien – and harrowing. In times when the first Resident Evil appeared (and long after), such a thing would not have been possible or conceivable, violence against virtual people was always perceived as too real and brutalizing. And I think that’s the trick with Conscript, because it exposes a not-inconsiderable fact about horror: that it doesn’t just chill us because it forces us to confront the incomprehensible or something unnatural. But that we also find a little protection in what is alienated from reality: no matter how bad what we see may be, we know that everything will be fine again as soon as we turn off the television.
Conscript doesn’t leave us that certainty, because war never simmers far away, almost no matter where you live. And so it happens that on the way, as a French private, you start looking for your brother, who is also assigned to the front, when mortar shells come down next to you. Or when a lonely shot with a death scream echoes through the bunker or a compatriot dragging himself to safety from the edge of the screen is suddenly shot in the back. It’s disturbing – and yes, downright gruesome in the worst horror movie kind of way.
Playful… well. The demo doesn’t look too deep. You stop to use a weapon, which feels traditional, if not overly dynamic. Often enough, you’ll get into a rhythm where you’ll anticipate an enemy punch, and the enemy will restart the animation and repeat the game until they fall over. And the fact that the running speed is not queried analogously doesn’t look very elegant either, but isn’t it something a solo developer can do differently? You have to animate stepless movement first. The footstep noise should be even less monotonous when the game appears at some point.
And finally, I’m a bit critical of games that pixelate their characters with a filter instead of using pixel art, but I was able to overlook that pretty quickly. Pixelating and animating the characters by hand in addition to the backgrounds would probably have gone beyond the scope. Otherwise it is visually detailed and dirty enough to convey the trench atmosphere convincingly.
Apart from these irritations, which will become unnecessary or at least diminish as the game progresses, Conscript exerts a morbid fascination on me. Rarely does gaming leave you feeling so hopeless and depressed as you do here. I can’t tell if that’s a feeling you need in your life. But I’m glad someone is trying to put it into a game. Take a look, it doesn’t cost anything.
Conscript is scheduled to appear “soon”.
PS: Just as I’m finishing this article, I get a press release about a title called Trenches, which is also set in the trenches of World War I, but does contain a supernatural threat. And I have to say – without wanting to offend the developers or judge a game based on its trailer: That feels a lot “over” and past the actual horror of this historical epoch. That’s why I appreciate Conscript all the more.
