Today, UK indie developer Noisy Valley Studios have announced that their debut game, Summerford, inspired by classic game such as the original Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Alone in the Dark, is arriving on Steam later this year.
Summerford is a survival horror title that uses a fixed perspective in order to create a dark, atmospheric, and cinematic world to explore the fictional rural English village of Summerford and its surrounding areas. The site of a nuclear accident, the area is under strict quarantine, but not too strict, as the player (playing a character named Samantha Linden) and other urban explorers enter the site 20 years after the accident. However, all is not how it appears, as Samantha begins to discover the truth behind the accident when she is separated from her friends.
“I’ve been playing survival horror games all my life,” said Rob Clarke, Summerford’s co-designer, “The shift to first person, even amongst indie titles, has been dramatic, and while there are obviously many benefits that perspective can bring to horror, I feel like we’ve lost a very specific kind of atmosphere and environment that you can create using a mix of dynamic and fixed perspective cameras.”
While inspired by classic horror titles of yesteryear, Summerford does its utmost to balance between classic sensibilities and modern gameplay, with modern controls, UI, and more accessible puzzle mechanics. Usually, the player will be exploring and doing their thing until there are "moments of action", making players use their limited resources to solve puzzles that apparently goes out its way to make the player feel as though they are a part of their environment.
Summerford releases later this year on Steam.
What do you think of this news? Are you interested in yet another indie horror title? Let us know in the comments!
