96 Mill
Ethereal
Darkness Interactive
“At 96 Mill Street, Woonsocket,
Rhode Island, sits the Edmont Worsted Industrial Complex -- a derelict,
condemned building with a checkered past of unexplained events since its
construction in 1820. You are an employee of Hamilton Demolition
Company, tasked with assisting demolitions expert Frank Galvani in
“rigging the building for implosion”.
I couldn’t have summarised it
better myself so I didn’t. This is straight from the EDI website.
As you go about your business,
moving through the factory and rigging the charges, the checkered past
starts to intrude. Notes and files speak of not so good goings-on, and
then the apparitions start to appear. A glimpse here, a peek there; the
sooner the factory comes down the better.
96 Mill utilises a
photorealistic first person slide show perspective, and is totally point
and click. The grainy black and white scenes suit the abandoned factory,
but are static and lifeless. Nothing moves, and you don’t explore the
scene in any usual mouse driven way. What you see is what you get, with
an array of directional arrows superimposed on the image, with possibly
some smaller images top left of screen. The arrows let you know there is
somewhere else you can go, and if you have been there before they will
tell you what that place is. If you haven’t, it will say ????. Go there
to find out.
Assuming you can. That way may
in fact be barred, which is where the top left images come in. There
might be an image of a locked gate, or a barricaded door. Click on that
and a little message might pop up saying the door is locked. So no going
that way, unless of course you have the key/crowbar/axe/insert-relevant-
implement-here/ in your inventory. In which case, open the inventory,
click on the item to make it active, and then click on the image, and if
the key fits, voila!
Some of the images aren’t of
doors, but are of drawers/cupboards/dumpsters/other stuff. Clicking on
them might open a window that reveals items (a brick/welding
machine/drill/memo) that may or may not be useful. Click the item if you
want it, then click an empty spot in your inventory to take it with you,
and move on.
There are limited inventory
spots, so in that regards it resembles an RPG. But apart from an item or
two, the inventory management was a concept rather than a reality.
In terms of gameplay, what I
have described is largely it. You move through the factory, plant your
explosives, open areas and move on. Frank will speak to you fairly
frequently via the radio, and you will find some audio recordings, but
that is it in terms of dialogue. You listen, you don’t chat with anyone.
There are some additional plot
threads related to past events which you can discover for yourself. The
audio logs are an important part, and they can all be reviewed at any
time, along with documents and radio messages, through the inventory
icon. The inventory has separate tabs for items, tasks and memos, and
once I worked it out it was all rather efficient.
The factory is big, and there
are a lot of rooms, and you will need to find your way back to previous
places to move on. A map that is accessible top right of screen will
help, allowing you to fast travel to any room you have been to before.
Assuming you know which room you want, click and there you are.
Scene loads are fairly
prevalent, but short, and the game autosaves as you go. Ambient sound is
limited, but perfectly adequate, and there isn’t a soundtrack although
some “music” punctuates events, usually at a jump scare. I didn’t think
it was scary, not even occasionally nervy, but perhaps that was me.
There are eight endings. I have
experienced three, two of which resulted in the demolition of the
buildings. I will likely go back and try and trigger a few more.
96 Mill didn’t reach any great
heights, and its stark and almost sterile nature was both a plus and a
minus, but I had a fairly enjoyable few hours digging into what went
down, and getting ready to blow things up.
I
played on:
OS: Windows 10, 64 Bit
Processor: Intel i7-6700 4GHz
RAM: 32GB GDDR5
Video card: AMD Radeon
RX 470 8192MB
GameBoomers Review Guidelines
November 2016
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