Cease to Breathe finds life on Steam

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Short, nonlinear MacVenture-styled horror adventure available now for Windows PC

Once upon a time, adventures used to be a full-fledged combination of text and graphics, like the old MacVenture series from ICOM Simulations, namely Shadowgate, Uninvited and the Déjà Vu series. Those days are largely gone now, but occasionally there's a throwback release to remind us of yesteryear, the latest being the newly released Cease to Breathe.

The game puts players in the first-person shoes of a traveler who wakes up from a car accident, stranded, bleeding and alone. To make matters worse, a storm looms as night approaches. Fortunately there's a house nearby, so hopefully you'll be able to find some help or at least some temporary refuge there. Or, "perhaps it's home to a festering evil." Our money's on the latter, but "either way, you're going to find out, first hand."

Created by solo developer Sam Thul, Cease to Breathe is described as "an homage to the golden age of adventuring." It's designed very much like the retro ICOM classics, with a simple slideshow-style pixel art play area taking up much of one side of the screen, accompanied by descriptive text. On the opposite side is your inventory and a collection of verbs for interacting with the environment. As you explore the "demon-infested old house" and its immediate surroundings, you'll find "hundreds of fully interactive objects to either help or hinder you along the way," and many "intelligent puzzles that rely on your skill rather than chance or blatant moon logic." The short, nonlinear story encourages you to "take everything and try anything," but beware, as the presence of bloody corpses clearly demonstrates what happens to those who do the wrong thing. Gruesome ends should only encourage experimentation, however, as the game's multiple different endings are "directly affected by the decisions you make."

For a little old-school adventuring like they used to make in the late 80s, you can download Cease to Breathe right now from Steam for Windows PC.

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