So I Tried... Life Eater

In each edition of So I tried… I will try a game that I have never played before. Will I find something new to love? Will I find something new to despise? I’ll take a full half hour to see if this is the game for me, no matter how bad it gets or how badly I do. This time, I slipped on the gloves of a killer in Life Eater, a point-and-click kidnapping simulator developed by Strange Scaffold.

What I Thought It Was

As someone who just started watching the fourth season of Netflix’s YOU, I was fully prepared to channel my inner Joe Goldberg in Life Eater, since the description states that you’ll be prying into the lives of your neighbours and unearthing enough information to kidnap them (and ultimately sacrifice them). I rarely play games where I take on the role of the bad guy — and even when I have the choice between good and evil playthroughs, I always avoid the latter — but this concept sounded like a great setup for a truly unnerving experience. That said, I’ll admit, I wondered, “Well, how uncomfortable could it really make me?”

I was also intrigued by the game’s Steam screenshots, which showed off a timeline interface where you’d perform all your stalking activities, which appeared very hacker-like at first glance. This detailed view of the targets’ day-to-day lives also reminded me a lot of Orwell: Keeping an Eye on You, a dystopian choice-based game where you similarly poke around into other people’s business — though with a much different purpose and not nearly as sinister results. As such, I thought I’d be in for some interesting point-and-click investigative gameplay, and I was curious to see how I’d have to put the information I collected to use.

What It Actually Is

Through an opening cutscene, which featured beautiful stylistic art and excellent voice acting, the Life Eater protagonist is introduced as this world’s most unwilling serial killer, as you’re forced to serve Zimforth, a dark god that will destroy everything if you don’t deliver him a ritual sacrifice in a perfectly-executed and timely manner.

You’ll do all your dirty work from a timeline screen, which is visually reminiscent of video or audio editing software with precise timeblocks. Nearly everything about your target’s day-to-day life is initially concealed by grainy static, so you’ll need to select blocks of time and choose actions that will uncover their secrets. Some moves you take are riskier than others, so you have to do your best not to be too suspicious, mixing in mundane actions like sleeping or working in between hiding in bushes and blackmailing people. All the while, you also need to manage a timer shown on the top of your interface, as every choice you make strips a certain amount of hours away from the clock.

I never thought I’d play a horror game focused so heavily on time management, but it definitely adds to the suspense, especially because you can’t mindlessly check out and go through the motions; you actually have to pay attention to the timeline. The end of each abduction results in a ritualistic quiz where Zimforth gives you several instructions on how to prepare the target’s body. For example, you might be told, “If your target sleeps less than four hours per night, remove the left lung. Otherwise, break rib #15.” There are six of these questions, and you can only complete the sacrifice if you choose the right body parts to… crush, remove, and well, you get the gist. It’s not gory visually, but the descriptions were enough to make me wince.

The thing is, Life Eater doesn’t tell you about this quiz in the tutorial, and once I got to it, I realised I couldn’t remember the target’s hair colour or how many bathroom breaks they took. When I replayed the level intentionally searching for that information, I felt so much more unnerved to the point where I was deeply impressed with Strange Scaffold’s ability to make shudder from simply clicking actions on a screen.

Will I Keep Playing?

After 30 minutes with Life Eater, I am now fully aware that I underestimated just how uncomfortable I’d feel taking on the role of a kidnapper and murderer. I’m also terrible at retaining information apparently, as I failed the first ritual quiz several times. This is definitely the type of simulator where you’d benefit from keeping a notebook, only adding to the voyeuristic immersion of stalking these characters and thus, deepening my unnerved feelings.

Though I do love a good horror game, especially a novel one like this, Life Eater is going to be shelved at the back of my to-play list for now. While I’ve never been so creeped out by my own actions in a game, the “fun” of it didn’t click for me during this first half hour. Something seemed like it was missing from the gameplay loop and visuals to make me fully invested in the experience. Mechanically, managing your suspicion meter and uncovering the timeline blocks feels a bit underwhelming. I also found myself wanting more visual engagement, such as seeing sketches of the target’s activities or seeing the target's shadow get more fleshed out as you gain more information.

The premise is great, though, and I’d love to see how the story ends. While I might not keep playing immediately, I’ll likely come back to it at some point.