Almost a spitting image of Routine, or perhaps Alien: Isolation – these were the first thoughts that emerged in my mind as I made my first steps aboard the abandoned spaceship of Caffeine’s pre-release demo. Granted, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Dylan Browne’s upcoming sci-fi horror is shooting for the same kind of semi-retro feel that we’ve already encountered in the above mentioned titles, nonetheless I feel it is most definitely deserving of at least a quick glance. According to the basic premise, the protagonist is a young man who – according to the laws of horror clichés – happens to wake up all alone on a seemingly abandoned space station. As you would expect, he’s not exactly alone. Based just on my brief initial impressions after trying the demo, the game was giving me slight System Shock 2 and Alien vibes, which is most definitely a positive sign.
Exactly what kind of real, imagined or supernatural threats haunt the hallways of the derelict space vessel remains to be seen, but one thing is sure: coffee and the titular substance are going to play a key role in all this. In all honesty, although I’m still somewhat baffled by how the dark beverage is going to fit into this horror mystery, ultimately I’m more intrigued than anything. However, as it is the case with many a project these days, not much can be done without money. Browne, going against the majority trend of turning to Kickstarter, instead decided to seek aid on IndieGoGo – if the campaign is successful, we can expect an official release sometime in 2015, at the moment only for PC, with a potential PS4 port if the stars align and Sony wills it. In the meantime, the pre-release demo is still publicly available for download, and although it most definitely doesn’t quite reflect the quality of a product that’s anywhere even close to being finished, it’s decent enough to give a quick taste of what we can expect from Caffeine.
