Tag Horror

Outer Terror from Ratalaika Games is an isometric horror title that looks and feels like a twin stick shooter without a trigger.

Ratalaika Games has provided us with a code for their latest horror title, Outer Terror. The game looks and behaves like a twin-stick shooter. Only real difference is you don’t control your shots, they never stop shooting. Your focus, as far as controls are concerned, is on moving and triggering different abilities. As you level up you pick among three cards that will either heal you or power you up further. As each stage begins you get an introductory story clip with artwork that is very reminiscent of Charlie Adlard from The Walking Dead. Adlard is one of my favorite comic artists so I am absolutely here for these intros.

When you start the game there are four chapters and based on the achievement list there are others that will unlock later. As you complete chapters you collect money and can use these funds to pay for upgrades. The more you play, the more you’ll earn. The game is full of dodging and as a tip, the more money you pick up, the faster you’ll level up and that means the more upgrades you’ll unlock. By the time I finished episode 1 I had all upgrades finished within the level.

The gameplay art was a bit of a disappointment. As with most RG titles, the graphics look like it was developed for the Super Nintendo and I love them for that. However, with the fantastic intro art I was disappointed that the sprites weren’t rendered in the same style, by the same hands. Gameplay itself is smooth though and once you learn to read the map you can make quick work of some of the episodes. Overall I had a great time and look forward to seeing more of this great art as I play more episodes.

Code supplied on behalf of Ratalaika Games by PR Hound.

The Feeding, by Drew Zucker and David Booher, is a horror story centered around a painting of the same name in a tale of hunger!

Written by David Booher and line art by Drew Zucker, The Feeding is a tale of a man surrounded by death and misery, some of which is tied to a painting. This painting, with the same name as the book itself, is hungry and needs to feed. It follows the life of Nolan Ward, a Day Trader and total douche, prick, asshole, take your pick, they all fit. No matter how much he tries to distance himself from it, the painting seems to always find it’s way back to Nolan so instead of trying to escape it he instead purchases it from an art gallery it seemed to appear in by anonymous donation and tries to feed it one last time.

The book is currently a one-shot that you can purchase through Zoop but I’m hoping that we see it become an anthology of some sort. Maybe a series about the painting interacting with various people and the ruin it causes, something along the lines of the Silver Coin. Overall the book is well written with even better art and as I said, I very much would like to see the painting return for either the occasional one-shot or even a full series. In the meantime, if you haven’t already I highly recommend Drew’s series Canto- one of the best fantasy series out to date and currently at Dark Horse comics.