Recent reviews by Toots

I'm a few games in now so I can give an early review, I'll update this after I've seen more of the game. I was gifted this game by a friend who bought it at release.

Phylakterion is Horrifying, in all the right ways. I'll go into detail on each point further below.

Phylakterion absolutely nails:

• Value for money
  
• EXTREMELY responsive and passionate devs
  
• Pacing
  
• Level Design/Generation
  
• Hide and Seek
  
• Graphics
  
• Sound Design
  
• Co-op/Network play
  
• Atmosfear
  

Future changes/additions

• Some progression/use of character levels
  
• More maps
  
• More variety of destroy sequences
  
• More variety of tools and equipment
  
• Some minor visual glitches/QoL tweaks.
  
• More variety of objects that can be haunted
  
  
  
  • Value for money
  Especially with the 10% discount at launch it's an undeniably good purchase. Even as a newplayer to the genre it's obvious how many hours of fun with your friends you can get out of this game.
  
  
  • EXTREMELY responsive and passionate devs
  The devs are in discord and steam reviews scouring the feedback for bugs. I encountered a bug in my first game and posted my feedback. Minutes later I was in a discord call with developers who fixed the bug INSTANTLY, and deployed the update just minutes later. I have never played a game where a dev has been so agile and hands on with an update.
  
  
  • Pacing
  The pacing between the difficulties feels perfect. Easy is pretty swift, even on the larger maps. Stepping up to medium was a significant challenge and took a bit longer, the phantom was getting more and more aggressive and it became really intense at the end when my buddy got squished.
  
  
  • Level design/Generation
  The maps look fantastic. Everything looks and feels realistic, the maps are laid out brilliantly. There's a nice variety of sizes, though a few smaller ones would be a good addition for some quicker games on harder difficulties. The randomisation of the maps feels great, enough to make every run unpredictable but learning the maps will still give you a good advantage.
  
  
  • Hide and seek
  I've not played many games that handle hide and seek as well as Phylakterion.
  The different spookies can detect you in different ways.. You'll have to sneak, run, break line of sight and hide in a dark corner. Add onto that the spookies seem to get more and more aggressive the more you handle their vessel and then add onto that the creepy sound design and scarily dark lighting.. when you've run for your life down into the basement, you're huddled in the corner away from all the lights just praying that you don't hear the creek of the stairs.. the only time I've felt that scared in a horror game was playing Phasmaphobia in VR at 3am.
  
  
  • Graphics
  It looks great, what else is there to say.
  
  
  • Sound design
  The creeks, heavy breaths, ominous clanging and clanking are all very deliberate and impactful. There's a little lack of ambient sound, but it makes the sudden shock of lightning or a plate whizzing across the room more impactful. The directional audio feels great, sometimes the occlusion through walls can be a little hard to tell which direction a ghost is moving.
  
  
  • Co-op/Network play
  I've played several co-op games and have experienced no lag, disconnects or de-sync of any kind. In-game chat works great too.
  
  
  • Atmosfear
  It's very very hard to scare me or make me jump.. but for some reason in horror games I am a complete whimp. This game has my heart racing and my constant shouts of fear and panik while I crawl helplessly away from a walking shadow with a horrifying giant grin surely piss everyone in discord off. I should probably check my blood pressure..
  
  
  • Progression
  I think the biggest addition to this game that would take it from a hop-in for a few games to something you can play continuously and feel some form of progression would be.. Progression! - Skill trees, unique perks for characters etc. The great news is we already have player levels, so when this is (hopefully) added in the future, your hard work won't be for nothing! (it's like the thought of this..hmm)
  
  
  • More more more!
  I've not encountered any glaring issues, the biggest problem I've had was a plant clipping slightly through a cupboard. Who puts plants in a cupboard? Weirdos. But more content. More more more! This game has the foundations and systems absolutely NAILED. Whats here feels complete and polished, if the devs can expand and build on what they have here they will have a sure hit on their hands among the ghost hunting community of steam.

Crashy Trashy.

I was fluctuating between 120 and 20 fps in the same scene just by turning - inside the same small room. The game is horrendously optimised. For the very small amount of assets on screen at any time and the size of the overall maps, the performance is terrible. The gameplay seemed like a lot of fun but opening a door and dropping 100 frames sucks.

Playing on above the recommended hardware on Medium and High settings.

I'll give it another go in future when it's had a bit more time to cook.

About 1 hour of playtime, and about 100 hours of ... 'playtime'. ;)
meow (=｀ω´=)

10/10 best 76 minutes eva

This bean is cheekier than the others..