Four player co-op horror games with proximity chat seem to be the newest phenomenon. It makes sense: these games tend to lead to hilarious chaotic situations. It doesn’t hurt that genuine scares help heighten the hilarity.
Terrorbytes is definitely following the first person four player co-op trend. And developer Treetop has seemed to run with the 80’s theme that has been so popular lately. In fact, even the Terrorbytes logo invokes a Stranger Things feel. Ironically, however, it’s pretty far from Stranger Things thematically. For one, Terrorbytes takes place in an arcade game. And you’re the “bad guys.”
If you told me one day I’d be playing a game where we were the ghosts in a Pac-Man like game, I don’t think I’d really be surprised. It was a matter of time before someone took the maze chase and went full circle. After all, Terrorbytes is the latest in a very long list of such games that has you both chase and be chased in mazes. I mean, Maze Chase was an entire genre back in the day. But Pac-Man didn’t have proximity chat shenanigans.
Ever since I saw the video of someone in DayZ playing Tiny Tim over their proximity chat I realized how genius this feature was. Why should all video game communication be done through meta applications like Discord when routing your voice through your game’s character can lead to some funny–and some interestingly emergent situations?
That’s what Terrorbytes is banking on.
I was able to play it with some friends. And while we didn’t get very far, fun was had as we were attempting to avoid Ms. Croak Man. And it turns out, there are a bunch of other horrible things that run around in Terrorbytes’ mazes that can kill you with the push of a button.
Ironically, as the ghosts, your job is to pick up pellets. Pellets are shared among the group– and doing actions like sprinting, buying items, or even closing the door to the exit room costs pellets.
Nothing counts unless you can carry it out. Items like cherries or blueprints slow your character down, making them vulnerable to attacks, but net you points or give you access to valuable items. As we played, we noticed that it helps to have someone looking over the maze. This player assumes the role of the sort of “man in the chair” position that games like Lethal Company employ, and helps you make your way back to the safe room before you meet a terrible fate.
Terrorbytes stands out. But at this point it’s more about what your flavor of funny will be, instead of games creating a framework of interesting and challenging gameplay. Maybe I just don’t get it. Get off my lawn.