Having recently covered Suffer the Night, I was excited to get the opportunity to cover another of Tainted Pact’s titles. Taking a new approach their retrotastic flair, Terror at Oakheart is an entirely different game. While Suffer the Night offered us both a text adventure game for those all-important nostalgic vibes, with modern-day FPS stages; this later addition to the indie studio’s small yet impressive catalog takes us back to those simpler times by offering an experience that is far more reminiscent of that golden era with a side-scrolling adventure title.

Filed neatly into several chapters, Terror at Oakvale delivers the iconic movie experience of the slasher movies of yesteryear. The era is perfectly encapsulated in every little detail and intricacy, transporting the player back to the times when games – and movies alike – were better in their simplicity.

Terror at Oakheart and its Familiar Story

With all of the efforts put in by the team at Tainted Pact to give the game an air of authenticity, it would have been a crying shame if they let the influence of today’s gamers sway them into centering the game around a more contemporary premise. Thankfully, the team – for their evident love of the nineties and early-noughties – put their heads together and came up with a storyline that works wonders through the almost cookie-cutter storyline that the 1990’s horror scene loved so much.

Opening with a short prologue in which we step into the oversized clown shoes of the killer himself, the fearsomely named “Teddy”. Having locked a Lovecraftian blob-like monster in a room in his house, our tormented killer still can’t get rid of his new master’s control. Falling back on a little telepathy, the creature convinces Teddy to find his saw and free him from his prison. In case you haven’t guessed where this is going. Teddy is commanded to bring the telepathic terror more food (which, of course, means more people).

With no other option, Teddy leaves his gothic home to wreck havoc on the neighborhood of Oakheart. Starting with a young couple, you control his numerous victims as the bloody story unfolds, Teddy’s body-count rises and the demanding demon’s apatite still remains unsated.

Please, Tainted Pact, More of the Same

It’s only recently that Tainted Pact have come to my attention but I hold great interest for the retro ethos that they are bringing to the gaming scene. Yes, we have a million and one different retro-inspired pixel art games to choose from, but few encapsulate those bygone days quite like the ladies and gentlemen at the American-based software house.

With so many developers jumping onto the retro bandwagon, it can be difficult to sort out the proverbial wheat from the chaff. However, going forward I know that there’s one indie outfit that get what things were like in those days of yore and inspire to bring the scene back to life rather than treating it like a faddish cash cow. I, for one, will be keeping an eye on the socials to discover any upcoming projects they have in the pipeline. Tainted Pact, I applaud thee.

Specifications

Minimum

• OS *: Microsoft Windows 7
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8GHz / AMD Athlon X2 64 2.4GHz
• Memory: 4 MB RAM
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 760
• Storage: 2 GB available space

Recommended

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10
• Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-9600K CPU @ 3.70GHz
• Memory: 6 MB RAM
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070
• Storage: 4 GB available space

Summary

Terror at Oakheart is one of those games that truly rekindle the fires of an iconic era. It’s clear that, like myself, Tainted Pact have fond memories of yesteryear. Everything is nail-on-the-head in terms of authenticity and minute details all work together to form the perfect package to bring back those “olden days” (as my children would say) while providing some real fun.