At night, however, Gravoi provides the blueprint and backdrop for a nightmare.
Everyone is passing through for a different reason.
Paul is a photojournalist and orphan, who left the village as a child.
He hopes his return will add substance to the translucent memory of his late parents.
The split left a lasting emotional wound.
He has returned to the village for an emotional reckoning.
Each character has a secret they are trying to conceal or one they hope to expose.
Two obstacles stand in the way of the ensemble cast’s emotional objectives: the night and the creature.
The darkness is, in time, manageable.
The creature is not.
Capture does not mean death - not immediately, anyway.
Fail to do so and, one by one, the four protagonists will expire.
Memorising the village’s layout is only of limited use.
Despite its indie horror looks, the game draws clear inspiration from some blockbuster sources, however.
The fact that the game’s essential currencies are finite also exerts psychic pressure.
Even the most conscientious player will find their resources soon dwindle, naturally increasing the game’s difficulty.
In time this squeezed economy exerts a significant psychological burden.
In time, even the most straightforward of tasks becomes a mountain in the mind.
Saturnalia is a horrible little video game, but horrible in precisely all the ways its makers intended.
