2015's Best Horror Game Returns: Sylvio Remastered

I love Sylvio [official site]. It's a psychological horror game about exploring a sprawling abandoned park, searching for EVP recordings, and it scared me so much that I couldn't play it at night with my headphones on. Manipulating audio files - here presented as tapes that you can play backwards and forwards at various speeds - focuses your attention on every scratch and pop. You're effectively staring into the static, waiting for recognisable words to emerge. And when they do, they bring warnings, threats and tragedies.

We already knew a sequel was in the works but now news reaches us of a remastered version of the original game. That'll be out May 2nd.

Free to owners of the original, it'll be delivered through an update. If you haven't bought Sylvio already, signing up as a $2 patron at the developer's Patreon page before the end of April will get you a copy of the remastered edition when it launches. Stick around as a patron for 12 months and you'll get a copy of Sylvio 2 when it's ready as well. That'll be late 2017 or early 2018 though. I am impatient and want it right now.

I might be getting it sooner if the Kickstarter campaign had succeeded. As it is, development of the sequel is on hold for now, but hopefully the Remastered edition and the power of Patreon will help Stroboskop to fund development.

The remastered edition of Sylvio is as much excuse as I need to replay the game though. It's been rebuilt in Unity 5 which should take away some of the visual jankiness. Not too much though, I hope. Sylvio wasn't a particularly attractive game but it was murky and lo-fi in a way that suited its setting and the red-tinged fog that shrouded the park. I wouldn't want to watch The Evil Dead or Texas Chainsaw Massacre in HD and I don't want my Sylvio looking too tasty.

That said, the original release was just downright unattractive in places and the screenshots for the enhanced edition look lovely.

As well as fancier graphics, there's full controller support and "a number of changes based on requests by players".