Anglerfish: Bachelor Parties Arent What They Used To Be
I’ve always enjoyed the pixel art style of games like Death Road To Canada, The Lakeview Cabin, and Lone Survivor. It’s reminiscent of the Super Nintendo/ Sega Genesis 16-Bit era but with more modernized gameplay. So I was doing my usual weekly scope for new games over at Itch.io and Steam and came across something that has already added itself to the list of amazing modern pixel art horror games in my mind. Anglerfish.
The setup for Anglerfish is; You are at a bar for look-a-like Thursdays, so naturally, all of you and your friends look alike. It is one of your friends’ bachelor parties, and he’s trying to decide who will be the best man. So he issues a challenge, whoever gets the most phone numbers by the end of the night gets to be the best man. But naturally, things aren’t as they seem.
You are free to walk around the bar and try and find hidden numbers from this point. Either from the environment, like in bathroom stalls, or from the female patrons of the bar. Then something happens, and I’m going to put a break right here if you don’t want the surprise spoiled for you. Just go play the game. It’s fun ok?…last chance
The clock in the middle of the bar strikes midnight, and then just like in From Dusk Till Dawn, the women in the bar all change into these horrific skeletal zombie monsters. Tearing all of your friends apart, it quickly changes from a slightly comedic game into survival horror. With a twist that you have to (I believe I saw no way around it) die. You wake up in this room, which I’m assuming is your house, with the chilling sight of one of your friends hanging, which is haunting. Before they disappear, leaving your door in view to head back to that night. Once you die and come back, there are some shears left out front of the bar, and you can use them to enter a room and get a shotgun. With what has to be the nicest instructions left with the shotgun, “ Please use space to end someone’s life” is also a hint about something towards the end.
Once you get the shotgun, things turn as you can defend yourself but make no mistake, those things don’t go down without a fight. The second they touch or grab you, it’s game over as they quite easily separate your head from your body. It’s a quick and gruesome death.
The gameplay in Anglerfish is pretty straightforward. If you’ve played a 2-D brawler, it plays the same, with the only attack being the shotgun, which feels great, and the sound of the blast and the reloading sound of the lever-action shotgun always makes me feel like a badass. The music in the bar is also quite good, with multiple tracks from somber soothing music, late-night jazz, bopping hip hop, and my favorite out of it all, the hard rock that fits with the bar athletic.
The surprising mechanic in Anglerfish was that you need to die to carry one. While you defend yourself in the bar on the main floor, a hatch has opened up into the sewers. If you thought the bar was bad, the sewers are even worse, it’s dark, and there are many enemies. At one point, I was using my shotgun blasts to light my way through the sewer area, and it was terrifying having the music swell and then almost hit complete silence, leading me to believe something was about to pounce on me.
Anglerfish wraps itself up is surprising. It is a smooth scary experience front to back. Once you see the “thing” in the sewer, it asks you if you want to wishlist the game. Spoiler for that if you hit yes, it unlocks the ability to pet the dog.
Overall, I was actually pleased to see Anglerfish was just a demo because I would love to see a full version of this game. I’m curious to see how they would flesh it out, but I’m here for it and can’t wait to see what developer Professional Villains does with it. Follow them over on Twitter and download the game yourself on itch.io!
For more horror fun, stay locked to DreadXP and check out the Dread X Collection 5!
