Saturnalia, a spooky survival-horror game set in a fictional Italian village, is visually striking. The characters are rendered in a sketchy style and move at 12 fps, giving them a rotoscoped look that’s an eerie mismatch for their smoother surroundings, which run at 60. That environment is full of odd angles and dead ends like a real old-country village, making the procedurally generated roguelike horror all the scarier since you can never quite memorize the map.
The night unfolds after villagers have mysteriously gone missing. You play as four characters–some newcomers and some natives–all of which can alert the monster in your midst. The exact conditions that alert the monster may change from run to run, and losing one of your characters will cycle you to another, who can potentially save them. But it won’t be easy. As far as we’ve seen, there is no fighting this creature. There’s only escape–or failure.
Saturnalia is coming in 2020, with platforms to be announced. It’s one of several intriguing indie games we got some hands-on time with during PAX East 2020.
