Razors In The Snow: Yeti Hunter

Not content to announce a game at GDC, Super Crate Box creators Vlambeer decided to release one during the show. Yeti Hunter is the second most unnerving game I've played today. Hopefully I'll have written lots about the most unnerving tomorrow but for now, if you feel you have too many nerves, you'll have to make do with this tiny slice of freeware horror. There are yeti, see, but due to spelling quandaries I'm not sure if that's singular or plural. There could be loads of them. And there's blood in the snow. Whose is it? Am I a Yeti Hunter or is there a yeti wot likes to hunt stalking me? It's a game of grammatical confusion and trouser-fouling.

Here's the problem with hunting this bastard monster; it's the same colour as its surroundings, white on white, and with snow falling thick and fast, every flake and flurry starts to look like the fangs and fur of the thing bearing down. I've glimpsed it a few times, I'm sure of it, even fired off a shot in its direction once, but mostly I just climb trees, scout out the surroundings and look for pools of blood.

Red is the trail and dark is the night. When the sun goes down, my approach is to hide at the top of a tree and wait until morning. Visibility is bad enough in the day.

I doubt this will keep anyone entertained for very long but it's an effective, minimalist stress inducer and particular mention must go to Kozilek's wonderful music, which is the major contributor to the atmosphere of unease. A slight but effective oddity. Download it here.