CROW COUNTRY

You'd have to be bird-brained to miss this one

What the hell happened here? We were thrilled to learn the new game from the developer of the excellent Tangle Tower was set in a theme park. True, Tangle Tower is about solving a murder, but it has a great sense of humour and colourful characters full of life. Crow Country is full of the opposite; it’s a run-down abandoned theme park where the theme seems to be ‘nauseating dread’. What inspired such a horrific new direction?

“It’s not as much of a departure as you might think,” claims Adam Vian, creative director at SFB Games. “Crow Country is a narrative-focused atmospheric game about exploring a single location, solving puzzles, and unlocking secret rooms. So is Tangle Tower.” For its new game, SFB is adding frights to that mix because survival horror is Vian’s favourite genre. “It’s just such a perfect, satisfying balance of ingredients. You have to engage your brain, you have to think ahead, you have to make decisions, you can make mistakes. It’s all about getting just the right amount of player agency within defined parameters.”

CAW BLIMEY