They Speak From The Abyss: A Trippy Unique First-Person Ride
They Speak From The Abyss is a trippy, wild ride from start to finish. Calling on older dungeon crawler games like Land of Lore or Etrian Odyssey. Played from the first-person perspective. Albeit combat free in the teaser, the full release promises RPG mechanics.
While They Speak From The Abyss is just a teaser for now. We have only a taste of the whole story. We, as Vanessa, wake up from a weird dream only to run into our new therapist Germain. Surrounded by eyeballs, Germain warns us that we will face horror, unlike anything you have seen before. But with that, an excellent trigger warning for the players before you decide to venture any further, warning of body horror, traumatic experiences, and a dive into the human psyche.
Then it’s off to the races. We immediately enter a “pulsating and writhing” forest as Vanessa gets her bearings. While you learn to navigate the world, collect these faint hearts to unlock openings. There are these almost spirit distorted masses around giving you the lay of the land. You quickly run into a man claiming to be the person who will end your life. Quickly psyching you out, things quickly become apparent that things are off here.
Entering the second floor, you come across this weird plant that is very keen on ending your life once some ceremony begins. As signs of this baptism event become more evident and multiple run-ins with our killer friend less and less friendly with each encounter. Eventually, coming across a snowfield of demon monstrosities, there is a nice frog who warns you that the Baptism will piss them off and to be careful.
A few more heart pick-ups later, and we come across the baptism room itself, which is a weird and horrific thing to look at. Upon entering further, we get a brief introduction through inner monologue only of Sophia. The character supposedly will help us fight the demons. Cut to black teaser over.
The imagery in They Speak From The Abyss is interesting enough to hold my interest and get me back for more when the full release comes out. We get a lite sprinkling of the story in the teaser, but it seems just surface-level introduction stuff. I’m excited to see what comes of the story and if it can keep up the surprise and oddness that we get a taste of here. The demon design in They Speak From The Abyss is fantastic. Everything has this beauty and level of disgust, from the Swan lady to the vagina dentate monster two feet away from it. Even the environment look is unique. Eyeballs darting around in the walls, blood dripping from the ceiling. It’s all very cool looking.
Something that also stands out in They Speak From The Abyss is the dreadful and isolating sound design. While there are only a few spoken lines, they all come at the perfect time when someone’s demeanor changes from slightly nice and only mildly creepy to full-on terrifying, like the Killer that I mentioned earlier or even Germaine. Likewise, the audio queue, like this ever-rising emergent sound that plays the first time you see the Killer or a what I can best describe as babby from the wall, is great. It all adds to this hellish landscape that They Speak From The Abyss is going for and nails perfectly.
Overall, I am excited about the full release. While I would like to see what will be added to it to bring out those RPG elements and how combat will work. We didn’t get to see any violent creatures in the teaser, so that is also something I would like to see how it is implemented. All that being said, They Speak From The Abyss has a lot of potential to be something unique. The teaser alone was enough to pull me in. I cant wait to see how it all comes together.
Check out the teaser on Itch.io and follow solo developer Nikki over on Twitter @TheFifthKalpa.
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