In Sound Mind Is Free On Epic

Monday, the early access release for the only multiplayer game I’m interested in was revealed. Wednesday, the only thing missing from the reveal of Coromon‘s release is the accent (ó) over the second O to be a Pokémon knock-off entirely, and Wobbledogs release, looking like a cross of dogs auto-generated in Spore/a dog made of pipe cleaners. Meanwhile, the second lot of March’s Game Pass releases were revealed. Thursday, if you thought adventure games didn’t have enough needless faff around them, you can add golf into the mix later this year. A bit of a short week for news, it seems.

On this week’s game on the Epic Games Store and more complaining from my end, as it is In Sound Mind. I said it last week, I don’t like horror so ineffectual at selling itself for what it is, it requires a trailer with a bunch of YouTuber’s gormless faces yelling at a jumpscare. Is it so hard to sell your game on what it is? I remember when a game like Silent Hill or Resident Evil could just let the atmosphere, which was so thick you could hardly cut it with a knife, sell the game alone. Is it that hard?

Ok, suplexing faux-Spanish pitchfork-wielding hordes or running away from the physical manifestation of trigonometry homework coming back to haunt you isn’t the first thing you come up with. However, and I am going to stick my head out here, jumpscares are bottom-tier horror. I apologize to the late 00s and early 10s, you just hitched your wagon to the wrong train. Ever since things like Five Nights at the Mental Institute and that one I keep waking up and forgetting for being so generic at this point, you ended up ruining almost any hope of decent horror. Horror where the atmosphere is so thick it feels like it has its big wet tongue slurping through your ear cannel and manually making your heart pound a little faster.

Am I actually going to talk about In Sound Mind? No, why should I? If the developer can’t be bothered enough to sell their game on their own (without YouTubers) there is no point in me attempting to do it for them. You’ll pick it up anyway no matter how much I rant about “back in my day,” making all these paragraphs on the true sense of horror, pacing, and atmosphere about as useful as shouting boo in a dark room. Sure, you get the short-term kick of it happening, but you expect it next time and it never has the same effect because it had the same set-up as before.

All this week, you can pick up In Sound Mind on the Epic Games Store for free, until the 24th of March. On to next week’s game! Is anyone up for crossing several genres that have no business crossing over? Demon’s Tilt, a pinball game crossed over with a bullet-hell shmup, will be available. No, I don’t understand why anyone thought that was a good idea either. Anyway, onto next week when I’ll be bored to death by flashing colors.