I adore horror games. Well, I say adore but what I really mean is that I hate every second of playing them but then months later I remember them fondly. My absolute favorite series was Dead Space, with its tight corridors and twisted necromorphs. What really drove the horror in Dead Space home though was the isolation. You were in space and, if I may rip the back of the box tagline “There’s No Help Coming.” Knowing that you were alone and that no one is there to back you up, in space no less, differentiated Dead Space from nearly every game on the market at the time. Then it turned into a 3rd person co-op shooter on Hoth; which in itself does not sound so bad, but it was not the Dead Space I loved.
After that, what space horror game was there to turn to? Aliens: Colonial Marines attempted but just fell flat in its own puddle of acid. You could go back and play Doom 3, which still holds up rather well actually, but why? Excluding those two though there seems to be very little in the “space horror survival” genre after Dead Space’s fall from grace.
Enter Caffeine: A survival horror game set in space. The game is still in pre-alpha development but already hold itch-scratching promise. You are a young boy living on a “caffeine mining space station” when something goes wrong. You wake up after some terrible event and have to put the pieces together. That is quite literally all we know about Caffeine at this time but it is enough to get my hype glands moving.
Being a young child we can probably expect there will be very little, if any, combat present. Your options would be limited to Running and Hiding. In a reductive sense that would make this game Amnesia in space. In a non-reductive sense, that sounds like a game I could enjoy more than just a little. We will keep you updated as the game progresses. Until then you can find more information – here
