True Virus Review

When I think about point-and-click games, the last thing that comes to mind is the horror genre. The concept of trying to add fear to a generally slow gameplay style is a tricky one. However, 100 GAMES and Farmind Studio have decided to try and make this combination work with their latest game, True Virus. The question remains: is this a game that is worth clicking on, or should you just take some medicine and sleep the virus away?

True Virus has a pretty relevant plot to the experiences of the world, partially at least. The game takes place in a small European town that has been placed on lockdown due to a virus. This disease appears to transform people into monsters, which has led to the few survivors hiding where they can. You play the role of a nameless protagonist who wakes up chained to a bed. They’ll need to find out what happened, meet up with other survivors, and try to discover who they are. The plot is pretty bare bones for the most part, and there’s nothing groundbreaking going on. There are some generally creepy moments, and there’s even some humour, but it's all quite run-of-the-mill. I will say that there are some interesting characters to encounter, but they don’t change the overall issue all that much.

Visually, True Virus has gone with a pretty unique art style. It reminds me of old children's books, albeit much creepier. There are even some unique animations that help to up the creep factor; all I’ll say is that if you hate dolls, then this will work. The problem is that these moments are few and far between. While there are some dynamic areas where things move, there are more that are just dull, stagnant images. It helps to maintain the storybook image, but it doesn’t up the creepiness factor. This is especially the case when you have to go back and forth over and over again.

Thankfully, where the visuals fail to create a sense of unease, the sound design succeeds. The music is bombastic and loud in some places while being subtle and draining in others. There are a myriad of bumps, knocks, and groans that punctuate the locations. It helps to make everything more interesting, although the contrast can be a bit jarring at times. The odd feeling you get from standing in a cupboard while the music suddenly has its drop is… well, strange, to say the least.

Gameplay is also a mixed bag and one of the more frustrating parts of the game. True Virus is a point-and-click game in the truest sense. This means that you are going to be moving a cursor over the screen and clicking everything, and I do mean everything. One of the issues is that it isn’t always clear what you need to do, and some of the prompts are needlessly obscured. That being said, there are some interesting puzzles, and when you do make progress, it can feel great. True Virus’ gameplay generally follows the trend of being stuck, hunting for clues, getting annoyed, suddenly finding a clue, and then making a bunch of progress before getting stuck again. It can be frustrating, and it isn’t helped by the UI.

 This is an important note for any developers. If you want a cursor-driven point-and-click game, then make the base speed of the cursor relatively fast. While you can fix the speed, it is set at a painfully slow pace, and it gets frustrating. While changing it is simple, it shouldn’t be something you have to do at the start. Adding to that is a strange menu choice where you have to drag an item over to what you want to use it on. If I have the item needed in my inventory, then just auto-select it. This isn’t just a problem with True Virus but is instead a pretty common issue with a vast majority of point-and-click games.

True Virus is an interesting title, and it does manage to inject some horror moments into the point-and-click genre. The issue is that, while it does some things well, it fumbles others. The issues with the UI and the backtracking nature of the game will turn off casual players, and more seasoned fans of the genre will probably want something with better fundamentals. Saying that, the art style and music do make it worth some attention, and it is certainly a labour of love for the developers.