Gripping, well-woven story and characters
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 positive reviews
“I've never played a game before where you never meet most of the characters, yet care about what happened to them.”
Steam review · 20.9 h played ↗
The Painscreek Killings
Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.
Very Positive · 91%Very Positive · 91%EQ Studios2017Investigation · Mystery · Detective
$19.99
Open on Steam ↗US Steam price, checked 2 h ago
The verdict
A slow, atmospheric ghost-town detective walking sim with a gripping story and no hand-holding. Skip it if you want real deduction, hate key-hunting and backtracking, or dislike horror chase finales.
Great for
Patient players who like pen-and-paper notes, reading diaries and slow atmospheric mysteries without hand-holding
Main risk
It's a key-and-lock scavenger hunt with heavy backtracking, and the ending just tells you the answers via a chase
What players love
No hand-holding, real investigation feel
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 positive reviews
“What I love most is that the game trusts you to investigate on your own. There are no objective markers or constant hints telling you what to do next.”
Steam review · 24.4 h played ↗
Note-taking and camera make it engaging
Mentioned in ~1 in 5 positive reviews
“I have filled 8 pages with notes, mindmaps and all sorts of brain-mumbo-jumbo.”
Steam review · 10.3 h played ↗
Eerie abandoned-town atmosphere
Mentioned in ~1 in 6 positive reviews
“The atmosphere in this abandoned town is perfectly creepy and mysterious.”
Steam review · 20.1 h played ↗
What players complain about
Key-and-lock scavenger hunt, not deduction
Mentioned in ~1 in 3 negative reviews
“This is a glorified scavenger hunt.”
Steam review · 10 h played ↗
Heavy backtracking and slow movement
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews
“You will be walking back and forth across the map dozens if not hundreds of times.”
Steam review · 9.4 h played ↗
Game spoon-feeds the answers
Mentioned in ~1 in 6 negative reviews
“The game just tells you halfway through how it happens.”
Steam review · 3.1 h played ↗
Ending shifts to a jarring chase
Mentioned in ~1 in 7 negative reviews
“Then the last 3 minutes of the game totally soured it for me by attempting to be a totally different game.”
Steam review · 9.4 h played ↗
Pixel hunting and clunky controls
Mentioned in ~1 in 8 negative reviews
“This game has a problem that a lot of adventure games have: pixel hunting.”
Steam review · 4.8 h played ↗
Unmarked horror elements and jump scares
Mentioned in ~1 in 19 negative reviews
“WARNING: This game has unmarked horror/supernatural elements, including at least one jumpscare.”
Steam review · 3.2 h played ↗
System requirements
From the Steam store page
Steam Deck: PlayableController support11 GB
Minimum
OSWindows 7/8/10 64-bit
Processori3-2120 @3.3GHz
Memory8 GB RAM
GraphicsNVIDIA GTX 745 (or AMD equivalent)
Storage11 GB available space
Recommended
OSWindows 7/8/10 64-bit
Processori5-2500 @3.3GHz
Memory8 GB RAM
GraphicsNVIDIA GTX 770 (or AMD equivalent)
Storage11 GB available space
OSWindows 7/8/10 64-bit
Processori3-2120 @3.3GHz
Memory8 GB RAM
GraphicsNVIDIA GTX 745 (or AMD equivalent)
Storage11 GB available space
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