Maroc - 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - 02/Jan 04:29

oneway.exe: Module 1.0 – Review

If we have to describe oneway.exe: Module 1.0 in a nutshell, it’s a combination of everything that’s currently popular in horror. Analog scares, early internet nostalgia, mascot horror, meta narratives, and all of that is packaged into an interesting puzzle game with changing mechanics. This game is the first title made by indie developer Disordered Media, though as the name might imply, more modules are to follow. We hope they’re similar to this, albeit with a few tweaks. Story Leaning hard into the fourth wall right from the start, oneway.exe: Module 1.0‘s story concerns a game within a game. The titular oneway.exe (often referred to as UNTITLED.exe as part of the plot) is a video game that three developers were working on together, letting their creativity come to fruition. Now downloaded onto your virtual PC, you get to delve into the uncompleted project, gradually uncovering the different routes planned for the game, but also the strange occurrences around it and what happened to the developers. Which parts are reality and which are fiction can quickly become hard to tell. Since more content is planned, the story is currently inconclusive, but fun to explore, and you can come up with your own interpretations for a lot of stuff. The game also has a connected ARG, which is great for people who like narratives that cross between different media. Graphics Oneway.exe: Module 1.0 makes full use of its roots in the early internet as a setting, designing a virtual desktop computer that looks like it comes straight out of our childhood. The graphics are glitchy but frightening, and if you like analog horror, you’ll definitely appreciate this game. The segments where you’re playing the incomplete ‘game within a game’ that the story revolves around are actually set in first-person. And yes, the 2D animated cutscenes are a great addition. We think that the blend of different visual styles works very well in this game, where in other games it comes across as sloppy. Sound We similarly must say that we were pleasantly surprised by the authenticity of all the sound effects produced by our fake computer. This game really knows how to bring you back to the late 90s era of electronics, when everything was clunky and loud. The music for this game was made by Marcy Nabors, who also worked on music for the online comic and cult classic Homestuck, as well as Deltarune. Suffice to say, we have some chiptune bangers to enjoy here. The game also comes with voice acting, which we didn’t expect, and the actors did a solid job, so that was nice. Gameplay Oneway.exe: Module 1.0 is a puzzle horror game with different branching paths. You get to pick a character’s route to explore each time, with the order being completely up to your own preference. Each segment starts with a first-person area where you walk around and interact with the environment, solving simple puzzles to progress the story before transitioning to gameplay on the virtual desktop. In those segments, you can click on apps and use your keyboard to interact with various websites and programs. Again, several puzzles will need to be solved to progress. It’s hard to explain the gameplay since one of the most interesting features of this game is that each segment and route has unique mechanics that tie into their respective narratives. One of the uniting factors is horror. The game will constantly keep you on your toes with a tense atmosphere, and sometimes there’ll be a time limit to ramp up the pressure. It’s possible to ‘fail’ at specific puzzles or die during chase scenes, with appropriate jumpscares as a result. However, we found the checkpoints to be pretty lenient. The only real complaint is that some of the puzzles are rather vague, and oneway.exe: Module 1.0 does not have an easy hint system built into the game. A lot of similar games that focus heavily on puzzles do. We’d really like to see this feature added to the subsequent modules, because getting stuck on the more obscure bits can cause frustration in an otherwise good game. Conclusion Oneway.exe: Module 1.0 is a promising horror experience, with decent scares and great visuals. We overall liked the ode to analog horror, but the aimlessness of the puzzles and lack of explanation about some mechanics were a small annoyance. We hope the devs will really polish the next module and make it more accessible for players, but keep up the good work, because we haven’t played something this nostalgic and scary in a while.