Shady Brook

Release Date: October 5, 2005

Adventure, FPP, point-and-click, horror, indie games, singleplayer

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A classic point-and-click adventure game with an original horror story. As a writer Jake Tobin we move with his blind father to the small town of Shady Brook. Soon it turns out that this place hides a dark secret.

Shady Brook is a classic point-and-click adventure with a first person perspective. Chris Brendel and his independent studio Unimatrix Productions, authors of the warmly acclaimed Lifestream, are responsible for the project. The game was recognized as the best independent adventure game of 2005.

After watching a rather ominous intra, in which a certain Anthony Clave records words of warning on a dictaphone and advises us to leave this place as soon as possible, the action takes us to a small American town of Shady Brook, located - as it is in horrors - somewhere on the sidelines, at one of the many insignificant exits from the motorway. This is where our hero, writer Jake Tobin and his old, blind father are heading to. Jake has just bought a house there, where he intends to provide his father with decent conditions, and regain his creative inventiveness and return to writing, from which he makes a living.

Apparently, everything seems to be the way our hero dreamt of it. The inhabitants of the town are nice and warmly welcome their new neighbors. This is until one of the locals unexpectedly commits suicide. The writer who is interested in this fact does not believe in the official version of the events and, led by instinct, begins his private investigation. He quickly discovers the real connections and dependencies that exist in this seemingly ordinary and happy town. It turns out that Shady Brook hides a dark secret about the existence of which the world should not know.

Developments in the game are observed from the perspective of the first person, and the movement is made in a jumping way by moving the cursor to the appropriate edge of the screen. Its upper part contains a ribbon with objects - an inseparable element of the point-and-click game interface. The game boils down to moving around the relatively large area of the title town and conversations with the characters we meet, most of which can always be found in the same place. After getting acquainted with the required number of dialogue issues, the game moves us to the next block of time. After finishing the plot, we are rewarded with the right result, depending on how many secrets we have discovered. An interesting option is the ability to turn on censorship mode, which will result in less drastic scenes and a softer language.

Shady Brook is proof that in a good adventure game the plot is the most important element. Graphics made in Adventure Maker program does not impress with its quality and detail, and animations of characters often look almost ugly. In addition, we often deal with various types of graphic bugs, e.g. the disappearance of objects, etc. The stronger side of the game is the soundtrack - diversified and well suited to the atmosphere of production.

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Last updated on August 14, 2015