ULTRA-INDIE Daily Dose: Delivery For Dr. Shtraus: Unsolved Case is Good Old Flash Horror
Delivery for Dr. Shtraus: Unsolved Case will remind you of the age of jumping across free game websites playing adobe flash games. That is if you were alive and on the internet during those questionable days before smartphones and mobile gaming. The presentation of this game and style is top notch but there are a handful of notable issues that do hamper the experience.
Despite being a horror game Delivery for Dr. Shtraus: Unsolved Case has delightful scares that aren’t cheap or obnoxiously frequent, while the level design might feel a bit undirected and disorienting it functions well enough. Even as I was lost on what to do poking around for interactive points and using items progressed the story eventually. The game can be completed in 15 minutes so it’s not a long story but it has a fair share of rising and climactic encounters that build tension and resolve its breaking point.
The largest hangup I have with the game is the controls. The scheme isn’t difficult however I found that when controlling the character they are often locked into a state like the aiming for example. Right mouse aims the gun and releasing it lowers it but often the character would lock into the aiming state until I fiddle right mouse again so instead of being able to turn the character the other direction they just strafe with their back facing the direction. The checkpoints are quite frequent which does amend this problem, even if it’s a short experience it does dull the flow of the game and thus the story when it happens.
The only other nitpick I have with Delivery for Dr. Shtraus: Unsolved Case is dialogue. None of the character lines are bad and they are characters that are good people. They do their best to fight off the horrors and get control of the situation but sometimes the grammar is not quite there. Maybe it’s a language barrier or just the level of proofreading. It’s not actually that much an issue I just felt I noticed it once or twice. It still was a fun story that made me feel bad for the heroes.
The scares caught me off guard but instead of feeling like I was being pulled through some horror house mocking my efforts, there was a back and forth between monsters and humans as well as the player character Bam and the police station. By no means is Bam an action cop, that’s the captain’s role, but he is resourceful. Victories against the horrors are just barely that, in many cases, you are simply finishing the enemies that were worn out by the policemen.
The story does have foreshadowing to plots of supernatural or biohazardous which aren’t really resolved, the main suspect for a mass killing disappears offscreen, and then monsters suddenly attack the police station. That’s about all we are given to extrapolate from. This game is the second part of the developer’s ongoing story and they do describe it as emulating a short film I just feel there’s more to this part of the story than what was given. Perhaps that’s what I can look forward to with this creator.
Despite all my whining, this game was quite enjoyable. The briefness of the experience is not negative at all as the developer made the dramatic moments unique and spent more effort polishing them for great effect all the way to the dance scene after the epilogue.
If you’d like to try Delivery for Dr. Shtraus: Unsolved Case pick it up at itch.io
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