The Dread X Collection is a collection of playable teasers inspired by P.T., and while I did enjoy these experiences from clearly very creative developers, I can’t help but think that they missed something about the idea of P.T.
Despite being “only” a playable teaser, P.T. took quite a while to be developed, and, because of that, it was a very polished experience, even though it was free. In contrast, these games were developed in about a week, and, even though I don’t think that’s something necessarily wrong, I do believe that they should have taken the extra time to squash any bugs and/or add more content in order to offer a more complete experience. I believe this to be especially true when you consider the excessive amount of high quality short games you can find in Itch.io for free. If you are going to ask a “premium fee” for these teasers, then you better be prepared to offer a “premium experience”.
So, the games. I enjoyed most of them, with one exception.
The ones I enjoyed are: The Pay is Nice, SUMMER NIGHT, The Pony Factory, Outsiders and Shatter. I don’t have anything bad to say about them, and I’d really like to see them being expanded into something bigger.
Then there are the ones that I found somewhat enjoyable, but they’d need some changes if they are going to be a longer experience:
- Carthanc: Very hard. Involves a lot of very precise first-person platforming. Not a fan of the enemies.
- Mr. Bucket Told Me To: I was expecting great things from this one because of Xalavier Nelson Jr.'s involvement (writer of Hypnospace Outlaw), but unfortunately it didn’t live up to my expectations. It does present some interesting ideas, but it needed more time in the oven, IMO. It’s a time based game, so every second counts, but the environment is very glitch, getting you stuck in invisible stuff quite frequently.
- Hand of Doom: Throwback to older games, but not the kind of older game I enjoy. Very slow-paced and repetitive. It overstays its welcome a bit, which is impressive for a 20-minute game.
- Don't Go Out: Very short strategy game. The shortest game in the collection and the one with the least amount of content.
And last and least:
- Rotgut: This one is the exception I mentioned before. I hate this one, and I can’t think of anything redeemable about it. It’s from the devs of Soda Drinker Pro, so you can figure out what to expect.
Outside the games, I have some minor complaints about the presentation. It’s very amateur, as expected. The Collection opens in a window, while every game inside it opens in a different background window. It’s not ideal, but it still works. Also, they tried to connect all the games with some overarching dialogue and story, but I didn’t really understand what were they going for. Something about drugs and dangerous experiments?
Overall, I think it was a positive experience, and I am interested in playing other similar collections. I think these smaller teams deserve the money, especially if it means they can fund their dream projects and such.
