Amanda the Adventurer: Embark on a Thrilling Journey

 

    First-person horror game Amanda the Adventurer is produced by Dread XP, which is well known for publishing other horror games and the Dread X Collection series. This time, a new developer headquartered in Ontario, Canada, called MANGLEDmaw Games, took care of the development work. The narrative of the game centers on Riley, who receives a mystery letter from her deceased aunt and is instructed to go to her attic. Upon arrival, Riley discovers a number of VHS tapes of a program called Amanda the Adventurer and begins to study the recordings as they try to solve the riddle of Aunt Kate's disappearance and other strange things they keep observing.

    The VHS tapes you must watch as part of the main gameplay make up the majority of the analog horror aspects in the game, and it's actually a really great way to accomplish it. I talked about how easy it is to misuse analog aspects in my recent in-depth look into analog horror indie games, especially if they're being used in a way that doesn't make sense in-universe and is likely to make the player feel disenchanted. The gameplay is based on watching actual VHS tapes, which enables the game to make use of all the spooky VHS effects and glitches it desires while still making sense because you are actually watching real VHS tapes. Amazing work.

    Your controls in Amanda the Adventurer are relatively basic aside from watching tapes. The only controls are WASD for movement, clicking on objects to interact with them or pick them up (depending on the item), and clicking Left Ctrl to crouch. Using these straightforward controls, you investigate Aunt Kate's relatively small attic, watching tapes for clues as to what has occurred and rummaging through the clutter to discover what happened to your Aunt, what is going on with the creepy stuff in the attic, and what is wrong with the young girl who serves as the main focus of the show.

    In order to interact with objects, you essentially try to mix them together. You basically play the game by following a series of straightforward instructions during your initial playthrough. You view a VHS video before using a hint to interact with an object that has been placed on the table behind you by an unknown force. Usually, this will produce another VHS tape for you to watch. It shouldn't take you more than 30 minutes to complete the game if you continue in this manner; however, only a moron would actually stop there.