‘Terpenie’ is a Horror Game, which was seemingly inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s movie classic ‘Rear Window’. That being said, I am pretty sure Hitchcock would be angry about my comparison of his masterpiece to Terpenie.
You play as a guy living in a small flat of a residential apartment complex in apparently a Post-Soviet setting. The developer at least put that in the game’s description, but I couldn’t spot any specific Post-Soviet elements. This could easily also take place in a Western or Asian country in any random time period.
A big part of the game consists of everyday activities, like cleaning your apartment or cooking a meal. Towards the end of the game you will however spot a nearby murder you shouldn’t have and you now have to try not to become the latest victim yourself. This is the reference to ‘Rear Window’, but I feel nearly bad for bringing it up, since Terpenie is a pretty flawed game.
The biggest part of the game are only the everyday life activities, which are simply not much fun. In a good game those are activities, that help with the pacing and neither overstay their welcome nor brush over before you can blink. In Terpenie those tasks however suck for two main reasons: The bad translation/programming and the clunky physics features.
A lot of the objectives in this game are only displayed for a second and many of them are either misleading or straight up incorrect. This makes figuring out the activities more convoluted than necessary. At some point an incorrect dialogue display even spoilers the game’s story.
The other problem is the physics engine. You can grab objects and drag them through the world, which might sound interesting, but is more frustrating than useful in this game. You will often just get stuck on objects or walls in the tiny apartment of the protagonist. This makes the everyday activities more cumbersome than they would be in real life, which is not what you would want to achieve in a game. Physics features can enrich the game experience, like they do in great games like Half Life 2 or Portal, but they don’t in Terpenie.
The pacing of the game is also totally off. The game might initially seem much longer than it actually is, since it can easily take 10-15 mins to figure out what the game actually wants you to do. A second playthrough on the other hand should take less than 5 mins, which is simply way too short. Regardless of that, the Horror appears far too late and is over too soon. The stealth and chase part of the game is certainly its biggest strength, but it is also over way too soon.
Before we talk about some of the other faults of the game, I want to give a little shoutout to the Killer in this game. He makes Usain Bolt look like a slow walker. It’s like you would be facing off with the Reverse-Flash. I don’t know if this was done on purpose, but it is pretty funny.
I have heard from some people that Terpenie is not greatly optimized and I have certainly heard my fans get louder than they should on this game, but on strong hardware the game performance itself is at least totally fine.
What really annoyed me was the ‘Continue Button Scam’ in the game. There is a Continue Button on the main menu, but it does absolutely nothing, since the game has no checkpoints. If you die at any point, than you have to replay from the start each time. This can be quite frustrating, since you have to suffer through the same lame activities each time and there is even a Glitch in the final chase, which will sometimes get you caught due to no fault of your own. It’s completely random. Most of the time it doesn’t, but sometimes the glitch will trigger and there is nothing you can do about it. There is also a visual effect that makes it look like there would be snow in the air inside the apartment. That’s just weird.
Terpenie has only 1 linear Ending and features no Steam Achievements.
Result:
The concept of Terpenie initially reminded me of ‘Rear Window’, but the game doesn’t really deserve the comparison. Most of the gameplay is more cumbersome than fun. The bad translations/objectives, the convoluted physics engine, the multiple Glitches, the frustrating lack of respawns and the bad pacing plus short length tear this game down. The only real positive is the concept of the setting and the actually quite scary chase, which is however over way too soon.
4/10
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