“A Tale Of Two Games”, Or The REAL Reason Why Computer Games Should Have Demos

Well, I thought that I’d talk about the real reason why computer games should have demos today – as illustrated by some experiences I had before writing this article.

For those who don’t remember the 1990s or early-mid 2000s, a “demo” is a drastically shortened version of a game (typically just one or two levels) which is given away for free. Some indie developers still release them these days, but they are much less common amongst “AAA” games these days.

Whilst there were a lot of reasons why almost all games used to have demos – including everything from reciprocity to publicity to “We’re confident enough in our game that we’ll let you try it for free” to allowing poorer players to keep up on the latest games – I want to talk about the most important one today. As the name suggests, a demo is a “demonstration” of a game. A way of testing out the game. And, if you’re playing on PC, then I’d argue that demos should be a requirement because of this.

A demo allows you to test whether or not a game will run on your computer’s hardware before you buy it. Yes, if you’ve got the latest high-end gaming machine, then this might not be an issue. Yes, people might also say “Just read the system requirements!“… but I’ve lost count of the number of games I have got to run at a playable speed on hardware that is below those requirements (by adjusting graphics settings etc..). For context, I’m using a computer with Intel HD 2500 integrated graphics, a non-widescreen monitor (I think it’s a 3:4 one) and 8gb of RAM.

Not to mention that demo versions can also reveal other technical issues that might not be covered by the system requirements too. They’re a basic compatibility and functionality test – which should be either expected or mandatory for all PC games for precisely this reason. And, to illustrate my point, I want to tell the tale of two indie horror games that I looked at back in early March….

One was a really intriguing 1980s-inspired game, a blend of text adventure and stealth/puzzle-based gameplay, called “Suffer The Night” (2023). To my delight, the developers had actually released a free demo version and, since my machine was below the requirements, I was eager to test it out before deciding whether to buy it. So, I downloaded the demo.

It loaded up perfectly well, with the in-game animation in the background of the main menu running a bit slowly – but at what looked like a barely playable speed. However, the game defaulted to a widescreen resolution – and I don’t have a widescreen monitor. What this meant is that all of the menu options were clipped off of the side of the screen, and I couldn’t reach them (even when I tried running the game in windowed mode). Whilst I was disappointed by this, I still had a lot of respect for the developers because they were honest enough to let me test out the game for free 🙂

This is a screenshot from the demo version of “Suffer The Night” (2023) running on a non-widescreen monitor in early March this year. As you can see, all of the menu options are clipped off by the edge of the screen and the game cannot be started, which is a shame because it looks seriously cool. But, again, props to the developers for being honest enough to release a demo so that I could test the game for compatibility with my PC 🙂

The other game was a really cool-looking indie survival horror game called “Oxide Room 104” (2022). This game had no demo, but – to my delight and astonishment – my computer seemed to be within the system requirements for it. Since the game has been discounted to about twelve quid at the time, I decided to take a chance on it.

Then I tried loading it. Despite the system requirements saying that it only required DirectX 11, an error message popped up saying that my computer wasn’t compatible with DirectX 12 and mentioning some vague thing about “command line arguments”. The game defaulted to DirectX 12 mode! After a bit of searching online, I figured out how to force the game to run in DirectX 11 mode by editing part of the game’s shortcut (and learning that you have to leave a space before adding “-dx11” to it).

After a false start, the game loaded properly the second time. But then it defaulted to “high” graphics settings, making it run like a slideshow on my computer. When I eventually got into the settings menu and lowered both the settings and the resolution (to 1024 x 768), it ran a bit more quickly. There were at least a couple of freezes, but I worked out what was likely to cause them – namely opening the settings menu either during or immediately looking at an “item storage chest” – and thus avoided doing this.

But then I ran into another problem, the UI for the storage chests didn’t seem to work properly in non-widescreen resolutions. Two menus would be overlaid over each other in a confusing way with no visible instructions on how to use them (later, I learnt that you can switch between them using the “1” and “2” keys). I initially thought that this rendered the game unplayable, but I decided to experiment with running it in 720p and, whilst it looked a bit “squashed” on my monitor, the storage chest menus worked properly (even including visible instructions, which had been covered up before) and I could FINALLY play the game properly!

This is a screenshot from “Oxide Room 104” (2022), a first-person perspective survival horror game – with puzzles, inventory management, combat etc… – that is set in a creepy motel. Whilst certainly not without it’s flaws – such as over-used voice-acting, non-rebindable keys, QTEs and a “rogue-lite” mechanic that also punishes you for dying too – it can actually be a reasonably decent and genuinely scary horror game whenever it wants to be. The general atmosphere of it is kind of like a mixture of an old PS2 “Silent Hill” game and something like “Outlast” (2013) too. And, yes, I seem to have a weird “love-hate” relationship with this game…

I got very lucky with this game! If I wasn’t at least very mildly geeky or if I didn’t have the sheer bloody-minded determination of “I spent twelve quid on this! I will get it to run, even if it takes me all night!“, then I’d have had to ditch the game entirely. Maybe I would have gone through the hassle of getting a refund, but that would have just added to the stress.

But, because there wasn’t a demo, I had to grapple with all of these problems after I bought the game. Not a very customer-friendly approach! Seriously, it was like what 1990s players notoriously had to go through whenever they installed a PC game (and probably why I usually asked my Dad to install games back then...).

So, yes, I’d argue that game demos are an essential thing because they are a compatibility and functionality test. Not just for whether you can play a game despite its system requirements, but also for a litany of other issues, such as: default resolutions, any accessibility features (eg: rebindable keys), other default settings, the general stability of the game etc….

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

The Best And Worst Designed Horror Game Demo I’ve Ever Played…

Well, for this article in my series about horror videogames, I thought that I’d talk about horror game demos again. This was something I ended up thinking about after playing what was simultaneously the best and the worst designed horror game demo I’ve ever encountered. I am, of course, talking about the PS2 demo version of a game called “Forbidden Siren 2” (2006), which appears on not one but two of the few game magazine demo discs that I still have left over from the 2000s.

Alas, second-hand PS2 copies of the full version of “Forbidden Siren 2” seem to be ridiculously rare and/or expensive these days. Still, despite my very mixed feelings about how the demo version was designed, I’m glad to have played any parts of this game because it looks like a seriously cool and creepy horror game.

But, let’s talk about how the demo version of this game has been designed. On the plus side, it shows off the atmosphere of the game perfectly. From pretty much the first moment after you select it on the demo disc menu, there is some brilliantly creepy sound design and eerily mysterious visuals during the introductory loading cinematic. The location of the first level of the demo is also an abandoned coastal area filled with concrete, rain and gloom too 🙂

Another cool thing is that you can switch to a first-person perspective to admire the exquisitely eerie scenery even more 🙂

Given that the combination of these three things really aren’t used often enough in horror games, it instantly creates a really distinctive atmosphere 🙂 Not to mention that, on a personal level, the dilapidated concrete buildings also evoked warm nostalgia for the much-missed Tricorn Centre that used to be in Portsmouth.

This tension between both appreciating the atmosphere and the sheer creepiness that it exudes is absolutely brilliant, something further helped by the way that – thanks to the use of darkness and stark concrete – the locations still look good, despite being designed for a console that is just over two decades old. It was the perfect location choice for a short preview of a horror game.

Interestingly, this element of the demo comes across a lot better when you switch to third-person perspective. Still, for a fully 3D console game of this vintage, it still looks reasonably good.

There’s also the mysterious minimalist story of the demo too. You play as a man called Mamoru Itsuki and, briefly, as a woman called Akiko Kiyota. Both characters get very little in the way of backstory, and instead suddenly find themselves awakening in a creepy location. This instantly adds intriguing mystery and the interactive parts of the story increase this even further.

Mamoru explores for a while, encounters a creepy zombie twice and rescues someone who is hiding in a shed. Akiko wakes up in the middle of a dirt road and drives an old truck to a creepy-looking house in search of a man called Soji Abe. These tiny story fragments are ominous, mysterious and instantly intriguing.

Not to mention that, due to both its length and the way that the “command” system is handled, the later parts of Mamoru’s level also seem to be a rare example of a non-frustrating “escort mission” in a horror game. Finally!

But, on the other hand, the demo version of this game also does almost everything it can to give the player a bad impression of the game. Most of these design decisions seem to be well-intentioned, but they serve as a masterclass in what not to do when designing a game demo.

Firstly, there are the incessant tutorials that break up the gameplay every 10-60 seconds or so. These consist of text prompts that literally pause the game and have to be manually skipped. Yes, it is good that the demo actually teaches the player how to play – but it constantly breaks up the flow and rhythm of the gameplay. Horror games are all about immersion, and having to stop everything at least once or twice every minute to read a prompt and press a button ruins this. Not only that, some of these tutorials are about the most patronising things you will ever see in a videogame:

“Watson, what do you observe?” Holmes turned towards me with a stern countenance. Without hesitation, I exclaimed: “An absence of excrement! A most notable absence indeed!“

For example, the tutorial tells you to find a weapon at one point. This is useful information. But it then tells you that the weapon is brighter than anything in the surrounding area. *Facepalm* The whole point of doing stuff like making useful items stand out visually is to quickly… and subtly… give the player information. It’s like the old writing adage of “Show, don’t tell”. The game doesn’t need to directly tell the player exactly what to look out for, since they will instinctively gravitate towards the brightly-lit stick which stands out against the gloomier wall behind it. This tutorial prompt seems both patronising and superfluous at the same time.

Talking of patronising, I should probably mention how this demo does almost everything in its power to stop the player exploring. First of all, the area in the demo is reasonably linear – which isn’t an inherently bad thing. It keeps the gameplay focused and prevents the player from getting lost. And, to the demo’s credit, there’s a small side-area that you can explore and even a very tiny amount of backtracking too – which helps to prevent the demo feeling like just a single “corridor”.

Yet, any limited exploration that the player can do is also hindered by both patronising prompts that tell the player when they are going the wrong way (seriously, the area is really small. The player won’t get too lost!) and by a ridiculously short hidden time limit that seems to be maybe ten minutes long at the very most.

Time limits are a really bad design choice for horror game demos. Yes, they give the impression that the player is getting to play a large game for a short time and – theoretically – they leave the player wanting more as well. But, in practice, players – especially if they can’t find or afford the full game – will just treat the time limit as a challenge. They will keep re-playing the demo, speed-running it to see how far they can get before the time limit runs out.

With most other genres, this doesn’t pose a problem. But horror is all about mystery and atmosphere – and this gets completely ruined if the player is unintentionally pushed to treat the demo as a thrilling timed challenge rather than the eerie slow-paced experience it is clearly meant to be.

Yes, if you really speed-run everything, you can get to the part of the second level that involves exploring a creepy house. I reached it on my fourth attempt. However, far from enjoying the creepy atmosphere, I found myself constantly racing ahead and wondering about the timer. Which is a shame, because this level seemed really atmospheric. Is a traditional un-timed 1-2 level demo really too much to ask?

Seriously, the main thing that separates a good horror game from any other type of horror game is slow pacing. Horror games thrive on slow pacing, on cautious methodical exploration that not only allows the player to soak in the creepy atmosphere but also gives the game time to do things like build suspense too. So, traditional non-timed demos that limit where the player can visit are an infinitely better choice for anything in the horror genre. If nothing else, they give the player a better impression of the full game’s pacing and gameplay.

Still, despite all of these design flaws, this game’s demo still serves its purpose. It shows off the game and intrigues the player. It’s an atmospheric slice of a fascinating horror game… which unfortunately has now become an expensive and/or rare second-hand PS2 relic. And, for all of my criticisms, it is at least a proper old-school “free” demo (albeit one that required buying a magazine) rather than many modern games, which require the player to pay full price for an “early access” demo…

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

Did The Era Of Classic Survival Horror Games Continue Until 2007?

Well, for this article in my series about horror videogames, I thought that I’d talk about a classic survival horror game – or the demo version of it at least – from 2007.

As fans of the genre will probably know, that date is at least two years after the genre is widely considered to have “died”. When “Resident Evil 4” was released in 2005, it ushered in a regrettable era of action-focused AAA “horror” games that used over-the-shoulder cameras and had a much heavier emphasis on combat. One of the last well-known games to include traditional style survival horror gameplay was “Silent Hill 4: The Room” (2004) which included fixed camera angles, puzzles etc…

Yet, whilst looking through the few remaining PS2 demo discs I still had left from back in the day (whilst waiting for a couple I found online to arrive), I stumbled across the demo of a game called “ObsCure II” (2007).

This is OPS2M demo disc #89, from September 2007. It includes the demo versions of both “Obscure II” (2007) and “Forbidden Siren 2” (2006).

Given how much nostalgia I have for playing the demo of the first “ObsCure” game (from 2004), and given how expensive and/or rare the full PS2 versions of both games can be these days (I’ve been avoiding the less expensive PC DVD versions, since apparently at least one of them contains DRM) – this demo seemed like one of the closest things I could experience to a game in this series. So, I played it.

And it’s a classic-style survival horror game 🙂 A mediocre one, but still a classic-style survival horror game… that was released in 2007.

This is a screenshot from the “ObsCure II” (2007) demo. Apologies about the poor quality of the screenshots in this article. This demo wouldn’t run on an emulator, so I had to do the old-fashioned “point a camera at the TV screen” thing whilst playing it on my PS2 to get screenshots.

Inspired by corny teen horror movies like “The Faculty” (1998), the demo of “Obscure II” focuses on two students called Amy and Corey who are exploring several rooms of a monster-filled hospital. There are a few monsters to fight and a few basic puzzles to solve – with the demo being limited by both a hidden timer (which suddenly displays a warning message two minutes before it ends) and the fact that one of the two keycards required for a door seems to be difficult to find. [Edit: I’ve just checked a walkthrough. How on earth is anyone supposed to work that out… in a mid-game demo without the early-game tutorials that the full game probably has?!]

Yes, this demo isn’t very scary – mostly just focusing on monster horror, a mild jump scare, gory background details and some sci-fi horror. Yes, it uses “objective” controls (eg: “down” always moves the character towards the bottom of the screen etc…) instead of tank controls and it also seems to include an auto-aim system too. But it still just about fits into the classic survival horror genre. The camera is at least semi-fixed, the combat system requires the player to manually raise their weapon and there’s an emphasis on exploration and puzzle-solving.

The “ObsCure II” demo also contains some brilliantly creepy red lighting during a few moments. However, this wonderfully atmospheric lighting is ruined somewhat by the ultra-bright glare of not one but two high-powered torches.

It also takes inspiration from at least two earlier games in the genre – with a “character swapping” system that is reminiscent of “Resident Evil Zero” (2002), but more intuitive and with additional co-op play too. Plus, the hospital and the numerous locked doors that the player can find are also heavily reminiscent of parts of “Silent Hill 2” (2001) too 🙂

Although its nowhere near as atmospheric as “Silent Hill 2”, it is at least more fun than “Resident Evil Zero” (2002) and it seems to be a game that takes inspiration from the classics whilst also having a distinctive personality of it’s own at the same time – albeit mostly one consisting of endearingly corny “teen horror movie” type dialogue, a H.P.Lovecraft/ “Re-Animator” (1985) reference and some very mid-2000s character designs. It’s a fun nostalgia-fest if nothing else.

Seriously, these characters are about as “mid-2000s” as you can get. This demo is so nostalgic 🙂

And, although I’ve only played a demo of it, it still amazed me to see a classic-style survival horror game from a mid-size studio appearing as late as 2007. Interestingly, it isn’t the only game in this genre to turn up in that year – since “Silent Hill: Origins” was released on the PSP in 2007 and even received a PS2 port in 2008 too 🙂 Alas, due to cost and rarity, I haven’t played that game – but, from all of the footage I’ve seen online, it also seems to be a classic-style survival horror game too.

Yes, pretty much every review I’ve seen says that it isn’t quite as good as the first four “Silent Hill” games from 1999-2004 – not to mention that it also wasn’t made by Team Silent either. Instead, it was farmed out to a studio called Climax Studios which – to my astonishment – is based in Portsmouth. Literally the closest city to me. Which makes it even more annoying that this locally-produced survival horror game is an expensive second-hand rarity these days. Still, I’m genuinely amazed that a “Silent Hill” game was made this locally 🙂 This studio also produced “Silent Hill: Shattered Memories” in 2009 – although this appears to be slightly more of a “run and hide” type of survival horror game (with an “over the shoulder” camera too).

Classic-style survival horror games from 2007 like “ObsCure II” and “Silent Hill: Origins” didn’t really get the same recognition or fanfare as games in this genre from 1996-2004 did. They also seem to have been produced by small-medium size studios, rather than large “AAA” studios (who had moved on to “over the shoulder” horror-themed shooter games by then). Yet, new games in this genre were still just about being released in 2007 and possibly even in the year or so after this too.

It’s very easy to see the end of classic survival horror as a sudden dramatic thing. A sharp, abrupt death at the blood-spattered hands of “Resident Evil 4” in 2005. Yet, perhaps the truth is more tragic. Far from having a swift and glorious end, it instead slowly spiralled and declined over the course of a couple of years, barely kept on life-support by less well-resourced and/or less experienced mid-size studios who did the best that they could with what they had.

Still, it is very fitting that these games were also still released on the PS2 in the last years of its supported lifespan. Although classic survival horror was first popularised on the original Playstation, the genre only truly hit the absolute height of its popularity during the PS2 era in the 2000s. So, yes, a dying genre on a fading console. How incredibly gothic and poetic….

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

The Joy Of… Game Demos

Well, I thought that I’d talk about game demos and the games industry today. For my younger readers, I should probably explain what a game demo is. This was where, as both a promotional tool and/or for compatibility testing purposes, game companies would release short playable excerpts from their upcoming games either for free or as part of compilation discs included with physical magazines.

This practice was popularised by Apogee Software, who would often give up to a third of their games away as “shareware” in the early-mid 1990s and openly encourage people to copy and share these shortened demo versions in order to cheaply promote the full versions of their games. In contrast to the “shareware” versions, the full versions would usually carry a prominent warning telling people NOT to copy them. Given how slow and limited the internet was at the time and how the demo versions were often small enough to fit onto 1-3 floppy disks, it was also a clever way to get players to do most of the distribution work too (by making copies for their friends, flogging copies at dodgy car boot sales etc..).

Likewise, the one-episode “shareware” version of ID Software’s classic 1993 computer game “Doom” was apparently offered freely to any company who wanted to sell it – without royalties – in order to drum up publicity for the full game. Although the demo was also given away for free on the more limited internet of the time, this royalty-free physical distribution method (with all profits going to the game shops) helped a then-tiny US game company to get their game noticed at a time when gaming was nowhere near as mainstream as it is today.

Anyway, I ended up thinking about this topic because – in early December – I finally finished playing the demo of a modern WW1-themed indie survival horror game called “Conscript”. To my delight, this was an actual proper old-school demo with about 1-3 hours of gameplay that was released for free before the game itself was released. This was notable – and awesome – because it is a relatively rare thing these days. Most games either don’t release demo versions at all or only give them to people who pre-order the game (which kind of defeats the point of a demo).

Yet, go back as late as the mid-2000s and game demos were almost everywhere. I have more than a few fond memories of playing demo discs for the Playstation 2 that were included with a monthly magazine about the console (albeit as what possibly seemed to be an unfair “only this official magazine can give away playable demos” thing. All of the other magazines I saw at the time only had DVDs of game footage). Thankfully the PC was a bit more of an “open” format, with multiple magazines carrying demo discs – especially in the mid-late 1990s.

And, yes, I have a lot of nostalgia about playing the demos of some games – which, due to a number of factors such as cost and availability – I only got round to playing the full versions of almost two decades later (eg: “Blood II: The Chosen“, “Shogo: Mobile Armor Division” and “SiN” spring to mind). And it wasn’t just magazines, I’ve still got a copy of a stand-alone demo CD for the original “Quake” (1996) that I really enjoyed playing when I was a lot younger. Somehow, I didn’t really get round to playing the full version of the game for the first time until about 2005.

This is one of the many great things about game demos – they give players direct experience of the game itself, which is a lot more memorable than mere trailers or reviews could ever be. Even if it is a long time until a player gets the full version, the associations of playing a demo can evoke a lot of nostalgia and lead to rediscovering full games years later. It’s very much a “long tail” form of game promotion, but it certainly works.

Not only that, it is also a surprising democratic and open thing too. I have a lot of childhood memories of playing demos of PC and Playstation 2 games – even though I often only had the funds to buy second-hand games or budget re-releases of older games at the time. Yet, these demos allowed me to participate in the gaming culture of the time and get some actual experience of what sort of games other gamers actually enjoyed (for only the cost of a £3-5 magazine). As a tool for “opening up” gaming, demos really shouldn’t be overlooked – even if it goes against the greedy ethos of many modern “AAA” games companies.

Whilst demos don’t have a “100% success rate” in terms of sales, they are one of the most honest and open forms of game promotion – because they actually give the player a chance to actually play the game before making a decision. In addition to being a useful way to check whether, for example, your computer actually meets the system requirements for a game before you spend money on it, it also allows the player to assess the general quality of a game too. And, yes, in this era of unfinished “AAA” games being released to meet marketing deadlines and gigantic “day one patches”, this possibly explains why demos aren’t really a thing for large-budget games. Likewise, in an era of *ahem* “embellished” game trailers, demos seem like a refreshingly honest form of advertising too.

But more than all of this, game demos are something of an art form too. They are like tiny self-contained games that could last anywhere from 20 minutes to three hours. They also had to be fascinating enough to grab the player’s interest and self-contained enough to give a compelling feeling of progression, whilst also being mysterious enough to intrigue the player about the full game too. There’s just something fascinating about game demos – since they exist in a weird twilight zone between being a “proper game” and not being a proper game.

Yes, sometimes game demos didn’t quite get things right – but even then, this often added to the intrigue. For example, the demo of the PC port of the 1996 light gun game “The House Of The Dead” had something like a 1-2 minute time limit for each session. My younger self actually saw this as an interesting challenge and often tried to get as far as possible within this ridiculously short time limit, sort of like “speedrunning” these days. Plus, it meant that when I eventually played the full version after finally finding a budget CD copy sometime in the 2000s, I was a lot better at it than I would have otherwise been.

But, most of all, demos are amazing because they come from a time when the games industry was fairer and less greedy. Not only was this a genuinely honest form of game advertising, but it was also a relatively fair way to allow players with less money to experience current gaming culture (albeit in a more limited form). Not only that, the popularity of demos also meant that game companies had more of a reason to actually finish their games on a mechanical/programming level before releasing them too. I don’t know, proper game demos are just a symbol of a time when gaming was better.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂