HomeNewsRoman Sands RE:Build
Bright and breezy horror hotel thingy Roman Sands RE:Build gets an intoxicating demoParatopic developers head to the tropics
Paratopic developers head to the tropics
Image credit:Serenity Forge
Image credit:Serenity Forge
Paratopicwas a muddy, blood-filled VHS cassette of a game, a game of midnight highways, pinched, pixellated faces and acidic service station lighting. The next game from developer Arbitrary Metric,Roman Sands RE:Build, is… very different, at least on the surface.
Roman Sands RE:Build - Gameplay Reveal Trailer (feat. STPeach)Watch on YouTube
Roman Sands RE:Build - Gameplay Reveal Trailer (feat. STPeach)
The art direction is a hedonistic wash of powder-purples and sickly metallic shades, itsParadise Killer-esque concrete hung with naff blow-ups of the Mona Lisa and other canonical works that are mostly encountered nowadays on Getty Images. The guests - most of whom are absolutely begging to be smothered in their beds - look like dolls with pipecleaner limbs, but appear in dialogue as gnarly anime portraits floating against a sea of mercury. The music is constantly starting you up and slamming you to a halt, with tracks giving way to each other abruptly, and jingling trails of speed-up collectibles to sprint along.
The whole thing feels over-caffeinated and strung out, molten sugar leaking from its pores, in a way I haven’t experienced since bidding on xeno-hearts inSpace Warlord Organ Trading Simulator. A smaller flourish: the aiming reticule is composed of white specks that rotate around each other in opposite directions when you pan the view, which makes looking around feel like twisting a cog in some mechanism you can’t fully perceive. There’s a day-night cycle, too: moving between parts of the hotel advances the clock, and when the sun goes down you must abandon tasks-in-progress and return to the sea, where a gorgeous supergiant star awaits you.
Arbitrary Metric describe Roman Sands as, deep breath, an “ADVENTURE GACHA PUZZLE APOCALYPSE VISUAL NOVEL SIMULATION HORROR TRIP”. It’s perfectly ghastly, and quite the thing. Here’sthe demo link- I can’t wait to play more.
