Phobos: 1953: Review

We know a little about fear. Or rather, we don’t think much about it. And he just sits in our minds and controls many actions… Even seemingly ordinary and innocent ones. This is because we grow with fear, absorb it into ourselves, get used to it and cannot part with it.

After passing "Phobos 1953" willy-nilly, you will turn your gaze inward and try to figure out whether it takes up too much space in your life fear.

History without background

Many are familiar with one exceptional project from the company Phantomery Interactive — Sublustrum. It is difficult to convey in words the sensations that this multi-valued, deep adventure left. It is based on such games that works of fiction are written or films are made. And today we will talk about the next atmospheric quest from Phantomery Interactive — "Phobos 1953".

Some name is familiar, but not true? If you recently had a chance to visit a cinema, then you might have noticed “Phobos” on the poster. Fear Club". Oh yes, this “wonderful” work is related to the game that we are about to begin to describe. Although, thank God, they have little in common. Neither the plot, nor the main characters, nor even the time of the story – nothing from this list matches. The only thing that “Phobos” has in common is the location. Both here and here it is the same underground bunker.

So if after meeting the brainchild Oleg Asadulin you look at the work of developers as the very thing with the letter “g”, and once again start a song about “these boring crafts based on films,” then it’s worth stopping. This is a separate work, and a worthy work. But how interesting will it be to you personally?? Now we’ll figure it out.

Panic Room

Let’s try to imagine what an ordinary mechanic Gleb Nikolaev felt when he learned that he was called to carry out repair work in a secret MGB bunker, where scientists are trying to understand the psyche of people and are capable of tormenting a person, capable of dealing with him if this helps him get even one little step closer to a solution or just a state prize. Delight? Joy? Astonishment? No, no, fear.

Now let’s imagine Gleb’s state when, upon arriving at the place, he suddenly lost consciousness, and then woke up in an unfamiliar closet, illuminated only by an emergency lamp. Perhaps he was tormented by curiosity? It’s interesting to know why you passed out and how you ended up in an unknown room? We don’t argue, but fear he was tormented more. So we have to stay in the same state the whole game. Although no, it’s a little different. We will not always feel fear, but we will have to remember it constantly.

Among the huge number of scattered documents that we constantly stumble upon, sometimes we come across simply shocking things. Reports written in dry clerical language are terrifying. Detailed records of testing experimental drugs on humans, detailed reports of pathologists, lists of those sentenced to death.

A lot of violence happened within the walls of this bunker, and it remains here. Hatred, despair, fear – strong emotions can outlive their owners. Especially in places like the execution room, cynically nicknamed the shooting gallery. In it we will see the shadows of those people who died here, and later we will learn to hear them.

Phantomery Interactive was able to https://kittycatcasino.co.uk/ create a very deep, atmospheric and mysterious adventure game. It’s not for nothing that we invited you to imagine the feelings of the main character yourself. It was just a warm-up. After the first scripted scene, you can safely start composing versions and reasons why you are here. Because the developers won’t tell you anything.

In the description of the game, the epithet “mysterious” is used for a reason. And it has nothing to do with the genre of the project. It’s clear that any quest must contain riddles and puzzles. But "Phobos" mysterious otherwise. He doesn’t answer even the simplest questions, he just asks them. Of course, there are quite a lot of hints and hints, and if you are careful, it is not difficult to notice them. And again “but”: they are all quite contradictory.

For example, it is impossible to accurately determine the date and time of our trip through the bunker. The pass to the “special zone” is valid only until March 7. The calendar in one of the rooms shows March 8, but in another room there is the magazine “Radio Engineering”, published in June 1953. Well, we get out of the underground laboratory on March 5, the day of Stalin’s death.

Questions into the void

Although Gleb came out of the bunker? And did it come out at all?? Chances are the answer to both questions is “no.”. Why did we think we were managing a mechanic and not someone else?? They just died once and ended up in the first location, but with all the previously selected equipment. That is, we didn’t have to start from scratch, we were just “rolled back” a little. And then an idea came to mind: what if, while dying, we cannot “leave” completely, because we are already dead?

If you follow the logic, it turns out that "Phobos" we pass by as a phantom. The mechanic died, but he forgot or doesn’t know about it and is always trying to get home. This version explains several strange things. Perhaps the person we saved from suffocation in the laboratory was Gleb himself. And perhaps that mysterious corpse we found during our walkthrough was also Gleb.

But we will not insist on this version. Everyone must get to the bottom of the truth themselves, here you Hegel not a helper.

One day in the life of an electrician

However, we will have to guess not only about the secrets of the universe and the possibility of an afterlife and lost souls. The quests are prosaic – you have to solve puzzles and try to move forward.

Purely technically "Phobos" similar to Sublustrum. Moving "screens", view from the eyes and realistic scenery. However, the tasks themselves will be more difficult here. They are more severe.

Now we need to get into the bunker chief’s office. The door, of course, is closed – what to do?? All items that are in your bosom are not suitable. Levers, no matter where you turn them, do not open the ill-fated “gates”. You despair, you swear, you go around in ten circles. And when you want to relax somehow, you decide to read the work of the friendly MGB team – a wall newspaper. There they kindly tell us that the broadcast of everyone’s favorite program “Political Review” is broadcast from February 22 to June 19 on the range 568-476.

Well, what can dispel sadness better than a Soviet propaganda radio broadcast?? Only, perhaps, reading pro-Soviet fiction, where Lenin personally builds communism on Venus and Mars. But since there are no such books here, then let’s go listen to the broadcast. We tune the radio to the desired wave and find out that Leningrad was awarded an order Lenin.

Somewhere today we have already seen a mention of Leningrad. It’s worth rustling through all the pieces of paper found. That’s right – in the work schedule for March, Petrovsky Grad is first in line. Let’s see what other city people are working in today. Yeah, in Novorossiysk. Let’s spin and look for his wave. Surely, a miracle happened, because a set of these “simple” actions set in motion a mechanism that opened a secret entrance from the closet to the office of the head of the sector..

And so here with all tasks, even the simplest ones. Whoever you want until you find the right answer.

Don’t make a mistake when choosing

The only thing that can help you pass "Phobos" – This our walkthrough care and scrupulousness in collecting and processing facts. Without a thorough inspection of the rooms, it can be difficult to find the item you need. The system for detecting things is somewhat inconvenient; you have to search all corners many times. But at the same time, this somehow increases the duration of the game, which is extremely short. Here it is – the first, main and only, in our opinion, drawback of the project.

Four hours is approximately how much you will spend on "Phobos". The fastest and can handle it in two and a half.

On the one hand, it is incredibly unfortunate that "Phobos" so short, but on the other hand, you understand: the story turned out to be complete and integral, what more is needed? Perhaps this is not an ordinary quest before us. More precisely, he is probably special. We have no doubt. Typically, projects in this genre are adventures. Even Sublustrum offered to go on a trip. And here is the game-emotion. Three hours of fear, apprehension, sometimes horror. A sort of experiment by the developers on us. But if they keep us in this state a little longer, indifference will come. You’ll get used to the shadows on the walls, rustling sounds will become an element of the musical background, and the opportunity to meet a ghost will turn into entertainment.

So let’s not blame the creators for “not meeting the quota”. Still, we ourselves constantly repeat that games are not only a product that sells well. This is creativity. Although now most projects are designed for the market, sometimes we come across something similar. And then the main thing is not to trample such a quest into the dirt with “market” categories.

And when this “Phobian” experiment comes to an end, it is difficult to understand what is happening with emotions. And it’s difficult to develop a clear attitude towards the game in order to make an unambiguous verdict.

We are used to the fact that, having puzzled us at the beginning, in the end the developers themselves explain all the subtleties of what happened. Well, or for the sake of intrigue, they won’t tell you what the point is, but only in order to better sell the second part later. It is known for sure that "Phobos" there will be no continuation. Gentlemen from Phantomery Interactive went a different way. There is no clear answer to everything that happened in the quest. You can only speculate, imagine or guess. And for many days in a row I ask myself: “Do the creators themselves know how everything really happened??»

So if you are going to buy "Phobos", get ready to think a lot not only about riddles and puzzles. After all, the deep meaning of the project will be revealed only if you begin to scrupulously study every detail, thoroughly read all the references and try to compare the facts. Well, if you are used to working primarily for results and just want to check another box on the list of completed quests, then you won’t see anything..

Pros: the atmosphere is perfectly conveyed; deep plot; complex riddles; beautiful appearance.
Cons: short duration; sometimes unnecessarily complex riddles; some ambiguities.