Ryan S Rogers

When you boot up a game from David Szymanski, you expect a few things. A low fidelity style with a retro aesthetic, a great companion soundtrack, and some fun lore. Most of all, however, you expect a foreboding and suffocating atmosphere. While Butcher's Creek delivers on all of those expectations, it really shines in the build up of creeping dread as you explore the dark environments. The sound design and level lighting go a long way to helping make that feeling work.

I wish I could say the same about the core combat of the game. Especially in the beginning when you are typically only focused on one enemy at a time, it felt fairly flat. Of course you could make it more interesting, finding fun combinations of weapons and level layouts to use your kick with, but I very rarely felt like I needed to. It was easy enough to just get a weapon I liked, use it until it was about to break, then grab another - usually between encounters, minimizing the pressure. The combat did get more interesting when you were put into a situation without a lot of weapon durability and several torturers coming at you all at once, but there just wasn't enough of those moments for my taste.

Luckily for me, the overall aesthetics and tone were plenty good enough to keep me intrigued for the perfectly short runtime of about 2 hours. I think anything over that may have run the risk of overstaying its welcome. To even get to the two hour mark, however, there was quite a bit of backtracking needed. You start at point A with a locked door, go to point B to get the key, and then come back the same way to point A. If the level remained static and you just had to hoof it back, I would call it tedious. But, once you get the key and begin the journey back, the game will strategically spawn in more enemies along your path, making for new and varied encounters, which lets me call it clever game design.

Also helping to make the game feel interesting were the notes that you would find, both along the main game path, and hidden in the nooks and crannies of the level. In universe, the torturers aren't allowed to speak to each other, so there is actually a lore reason for finding exposition on notes throughout the game, which is a fun touch.

The notes are also well written, funny, and expertly paced for revealing the deeper story that's unfolding.

Spoilers Below

The reveal of your character not just being another victim of the torture cult, but a prophesized coming of the Tooth Sower, here to wreck shit, was a fun reveal and actually helped to sell me on the lower feeling difficulty of the game. This was emphasized by the finding of the Pickaxe, an infinite durability weapon that deals the most damage in the game. The moment you pick it up, the music switches from dark and creepy to heavy, fast, and hard. The vibe switches too, from careful combat to fast paced action as you mow down cultists to get to the final reveal.

The Watcher, as a concept, is interesting, as well as the cult surrounding it. It doesn't really make a ton of sense if you try to think about it too hard, but it makes juuuust enough to not take you out of the mood. I think that precise balance of goofy and creepy let me be genuinely spooked at the last few moments of the game, but then also lets me laugh at the last few moments of the game in hindsight. That's a rare feat, I think, and one I appreciate.

Spoilers Ended

Butcher's Creek is another extremely solid entry in the developer's ludography, alongside Squirrel Stapler, Chop Goblins, and Iron Lung. It doesn't quite reach the heights of Dusk, but I don't think that it's trying to. It's trying to deliver a brief but solid experience, and it very much succeeds in that.