From the creators of Babysitter Bloodbath, Sanitarium Massacre, and Minotaur comes Power Drill Massacre, a bloody tale of horror, madness, and death for your PC. It's a tribute to cheap VHS horror movies and PlayStation 1 survival horror. Run for your life!
The Walking Simulator Problem
I have to admit that I don't care for games that are dismissively called "walking simulators". Having played flagship titles like Slenderman and the brand-new Layers of Fear, among many others, I can safely say they're bulletproof rubbish. They do nothing for me, not even a little challenge. The blame for this scourge lies with YouTubers like PewDiePie, Markiplier, and others who play these monstrosities on camera, screaming at every opportunity, pretending to be scared. None of them deserve an Oscar, but that forced acting style has paid off: fame, fortune, and millions of followers. Followers who, by the way, buy every game showcased by their idols. And since their idols benefit from screaming at the camera because that's what their fans love, they always prefer horror games.
Many developers, then, decide to bet on this formula: make a horror game full of so-called "jump-scares" to get noticed by one of these YouTube celebrities. With just one or two influential YouTubers picking up a game, it's enough to make it viral and multiply sales by infinity plus one. "walking simulators" aren't hard to program either, since they generally don't have many enemies (or none at all) and they live up to their nickname: they're pure walking, walking, and more walking. Power Drill Massacre could easily fit into this list, but it's too charming, too genuine, to judge it with the same severity.
The Man Behind the Drill
The thing is, Power Drill Massacre was developed by someone (named Benedetto Cocuzza) who is clearly a fan of slasher films from past decades, and it shows. Big plus! In his portfolio of previous games, for example, we can find gems with names just as great as the game we're presenting here. Those games are Babysitter Bloodbath and Sanitarium Massacre, each also deserving of an article on NeoTeo. Games that mix graphics and controls in the style of PlayStation 1 survival horror (tank-style) with the B-movie grindhouse cult cinema of the 70s and 80s. Power Drill Massacre would be like a more professional remake of his third game, called Minotaur, where the killer is the same: a masked madman who kills his victims with a drill, slicing and liquefying the brains of every skull he pierces.
The Demo: A Nightmare on a Dirt Road
This hidden gem among so much useless web information, whose demo you can download from its official website, is still a proof of concept, unlike the aforementioned games, which are complete and you can download here for free. It tells the story of Megan and her boyfriend Jeff, who have an accident on a deserted road and need help. Since Jeff breaks his leg in the crash, it's up to Megan to get them out of trouble. And there, in the distance, atop the hill, there seems to be a house... maybe its owner can lend you a phone! OR MAYBE THIS IS THE LAST TIME YOU'LL HAVE YOUR BRAIN INSIDE ITS ORIGINAL CONTAINER! MUAHAHAHAHA.
VHS Mode and the Road Ahead
The game's development is simple. There's a lot of walking, but there are also small objects to find if you want to escape the nightmare... all while a serial killer with a drill is on your heels! As I've said more times than I should, everything in the game is a tribute to its creator's cult favorites: PlayStation survival horror and VHS horror movies. That's not only noticeable in the game's design, story, and the way it's told, but also in the VHS Mode, which puts a lovely filter of "worn analog tape" over the action. Note that this is only a demo, and the full game will have a lot of stuff absent here, like more characters, dialogue, a different story, better puzzles, and improved graphics overall, as you can see in the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/g5MdVjMiIRMA Word of Caution
WARNING: Both Power Drill Massacre and Babysitter Bloodbath and Sanitarium Massacre are very, very hard to chew, with extremely low budgets and an amateurism confessed by their own creator, who is still learning to make games. The controls are terrible and it's hard to get used to, and it's never obvious what you're supposed to do to avoid dying at the hands of the psychopath of the moment. The graphics, meanwhile, are from the "PlayStation era", so they can also be aggressive to those used to HD graphics with millions of polygons. But that is, in part, what makes these games so genuine: they not only resemble an old grindhouse production aesthetically, but also in their manufacture: cheap products, made by not always professional people (learning on the fly) and with much and evident passion. Benedetto Cocuzza, he even has the name of an artisan!
