Translated by
Microsoft from French
Microsoft from French
RPGMaker game quite little known (probably due to its recent release), stitched is for me a game that has the merit of being put on the same level as mad father, the Witch's House and other known games of the genre. If I were to roughly summarize this game, I would say that this is what we would get if we took mad father and Fran bow to mix them into one game.
At the level of the screenplay, one embodies Catherine Stockholmes, an 18-year-old girl from a renowned doll manufacturer. While she was coming back from her college, she found herself in a train wreck. When she wakes up, she finds herself in a doll factory without the slightest idea of what happened or what she's doing there. Catherine then embarks on a mishap through the factory in order to escape.
The characters are quite well worked; Here we are dealing with a psychological horror game centered on the character of Catherine and her relationship with her family, but also on her personality. There is a total of two purposes: a "real" end and an "alternative" end. The end that we get depends on our actions during the game.
In the screenplay, Catherine is cardiac, and this is a detail used as a rather well thought out gameplay element. We have a bar of fear that, when filled, comes down to a heart attack, and thus to the game over. The bar fills when you fall on a jumpscare or when you walk on blood. But this bar of fear also acts as a bar of life, because it fills when one is touched by an enemy outside of the races-prosecution.
To help us, there are three types of pills: to bring down Catherine's fear, to run faster and to see better in the dark. We will also find various types of shoes that change our walking speed and our blood tolerance when walking on it, which is a pretty nice little idea.
It is necessary to prepare to see the game over often enough, because there are a lot of jumpscares that are either deadly or races-Chase surprise. It can be said, curiosity can quickly be punished in this game, and the slightest hesitation during a Chase can lead us to death.
Puzzles are one of the big points of the game for me. These are not simple puzzles that resolve in a few seconds using a minimum of logic; These are puzzles that start by being simple, then that become complicated as we go back and forth and sometimes require us to use a paper and a pencil to reflect. It requires reflection without being overly complicated. In addition, some puzzles are pretty well thought out in their concept.
On the sound side, some will recognize some sound effects that come straight from the RTP of RPG maker VX ACE. However, the OST of the game is beautiful and very original, and even if there is not really music that stands out, it does its job and it accompanies well the atmosphere of the game. Note that this game takes the same idea as mad father during the dialogues; that is, the main characters have a semi-dubbing that consists of onomatopoées that are correlate to what they say or their reaction. I think it's kind of Nice, and as a personal thing, it helped to tie me to Catherine's character.
For the life span, it takes about 8 hours to finish the game the first time, which is simply excellent when comparing the RPG maker games known to the genre that tend to end up in just 2 to 3 hours during a first run. Then it will take even more time to finish the game at 100%, because it involves going back and doing other things besides before the final scene.
Among the blackheads that could be found, there is the navigation in the plant that can be risky, since we have no detailed map of each floor, and as a blow it is possible that we lose yourself trying to find the place where we have to go. Then there are the ends that are far too predictable and too empty for my liking, which is a shame.
In summary, stitched is a very good RPG maker game that has nothing to envy to other games of the genre. I highly recommend it, and I hope it will have the fame it deserves with time.