14 DAY TRIAL // 
Based on the launch trailer, Shines Over: The Damned promised to be a walking simulator with a dark atmosphere and horror elements, with a particularly gloomy atmosphere. Being a fan of this kind of game I couldn’t wait to try it. But after I have finished it I am still wondering where is the game that I expected.
There are short games out there. Some of them are lacking story or feature wise, some of them work as stocking fillers for the holidays and some of them are memorable experiences. And then there is Shines Over: The Damned, that would deserve its own category. I have played demos that lasted longer and were free.
The shock was so big after finishing my first playthrough of the game that almost immediately I booted it up again. I was not sure if I missed something, if this production was so abstract and subtle that perhaps I needed more time to find the essence well-hidden by the developer. After an unusually long struggle I have arrived at the conclusion that Shines Over: The Damned feels like a tech demo for a rejected project.
There is almost no context and story that we can talk about in Shines Over: The Damned. At the beginning you learn about a guy who met a mysterious lady practicing an alternative lifestyle so extreme that she actually lives in an alternate world. From here you start making your way first by foot and then by boat in a world that seems to be the divider between hell and purgatory.
There is no dialogue, no journal entries, no cinematic sequences. Only a few orbs to collect and points where your no face, no name, no number character syncs with the image of the mysterious lady. You have no motivation for solving jumping puzzles or escaping the souls that for some reason try to kill you.
You don’t know where you are and why you are there. The only thing that is clear is that you have spawned in an alien world or alternate dimension, and you have to make your way towards the end of the game. The chasms with floating stones that become invisible, the Asian inspired village with scythes trying to decapitate you, the boat ride from nowhere to nowhere… none of it makes any sense.
Without any plot device, any characters or dialogues it is a sterile journey with no substance whatsoever. Of course, there is a dog that half the time is not even present, and with which you cannot interact. And you could maybe argue that it is an artistic production with a way too hidden message, but art is meant to make you feel some kind of emotions. Shines Over: The Damned fails to establish any kind of connection with the player.
Gameplay-wise this title is just as barebone as the narrative part. You will walk around, memorize the approximate locations for some floating stones in order to jump on them after they turn invisible, you will go through some unexplained encounters that can be solved with the most basic QTE sequence and solve some puzzles with zero challenge.
The game does not challenge in any way your gray matter, only your ability to approximate jumps and your response time. The platforming is imprecise and uninspired, with 0 repercussions for failure. If you fall to your death, of fail a QTE you will respawn and continue like nothing happened. The most annoying part of the game remains the boat trip where there is no clue to what damages the craft even when you avoid the obvious and visible obstacles.
Shines Over: The Damned recommends itself as a hyper-realistic game making the best use of Unreal Engine 4. In reality it is a poorly lit mess topped with a weird grainy filter. You cannot adjust the brightness level anywhere in the game, so you will stumble around in areas that are dark to the point that you cannot see anything. And it is not an artistic decision since the levels would have remained as depressing as they are even if you could see where you were supposed to go.
Rarely have I experienced a soundtrack more haphazardly placed. It starts out well with a haunting sound that seems to build with the grimy visuals an atmosphere full of tension. But after the first few minutes the music takes a break and forgets to come back. The sound design is also weird with many of the effects like the jumps and then walking around being way too muffled.
The Good
- It can be finished
The Bad
- No story, no dialogues, no characters
- Primitive gameplay with no stakes
- A visual style so dark that you can barely see
Conclusion
It can hardly be called a game since it does not have a story or coherent gameplay elements, and the mysterious atmosphere crumbles without any anchor points. If at least it would have been so outlandish that it became interesting, but alas. As it stands Shines Over: The Damned is a 30-minute complete waste of your time.
Review key provided by the developer.
