Sleep is a wonderful thing, but when you’re lacking it, you’ll settle for any opportunity for a bit of shut-eye, especially when you’re on the job. Hi, I’m Troy McClure, and I’ve just settled back into England after a 14-hour flight from Japan. Instead of sleeping off the jet lag, I’m catching up with a wealth of games I played on holiday, the first being Dead Stop – No Vacancy from numerous desert ships, a.k.a. Camel 101 (Beneath and Those Who Remain).
My associate, Nancy, an investigative reporter, is also seeking the sack and, after a near miss with an emergency vehicle, deems it appropriate to stop off at the next available stop, in this case, Paradise Motel. Already, we know that it’ll be far from paradise, but what can you do when the Sandman is on your tail?
As an ignorant Brit whose American education is TV, movies and video games, Paradise Motel represents what I believe all motels look like in the US. They’re populated by Mickey and Mallory, amateur OF wannabees, social outcasts that believe 7-Eleven is the hub of culture, or shall we say, a community of particular folk? Dead Stop – No Vacancy is the latter, and the interaction with the clerk should have forced Nancy to grit their teeth and drive a little bit closer to civilisation.
Regardless, sleep wins, and she secures an exclusive spot in room 3. This isn’t about the sights, so after attempting to ventilate the room of stale farts, weed and miscellaneous fluids, starts to nod off only to be awoken by a stonking headache, borderline delusion, and a sinister arrangement between the guests and motel staff that we can rightly assume is non-consensual. Nancy needs to forget about any sleep and stay awake if she’s likely to survive the ordeal.
Dead Stop – No Vacancy is the first in a series of episodic horrors from the devs that take inspiration from 80s slashers. One of the standouts of the press gumpf was ‘Short and complete. No filler, no padding’. No need to draft up that email referring to the Trade Descriptions Act: this delivers on every account, and though inspired by the schlock VHS tapes it recreates, it excels in the pacing and doesn’t have any unnecessary filler. It’s all content. It also delivers on the short aspect, too.
Dodgy fumes, shady silhouettes and ominous spider sizes insinuate there’ll be an aspect of danger here, and there is, but only for the second half of the hour or so of play. The first part is ‘escaping’ the motel, which reveals a new area. Without giving anything away (though, to be fair, the premise is exposed within the first couple of minutes so you’ll have an idea where it’s heading very early on), the second part of the game is more about switch puzzles, memory, and avoidance.
There’s no combat, nor are there silly hiding-in-a-closet mechanics. The enemies you encounter in the game can insta-kill you, forcing a respawn at the last checkpoint, though their visibility is poor, as is the collision, as sometimes you’ll get stuck between scenery or too close/far from something that can kill you.
Challenge in Dead Stop – No Vacancy stems from the puzzles, and for the most part these are self-explanatory. I encountered only two issues with puzzles. The first was a chain puzzle, and little did I know that playing in bed while the missus was sleeping (I had the sound muted) was a sound-based puzzle, easily rectified with headphones. The second was a very frustrating bridge/tile puzzle that would reset each time you died, as would the hints that have to be found while avoiding enemies. Once you understand this bit, however, it’s very straightforward.
As mentioned, the game doesn’t have any bloat, per se, and aside from a couple of those puzzles and visibility issues which relate to the lo-fi polygons, it’s a quick playthrough without any missable achievements. I felt that the first half of Dead Stop – No Vacancy was the stronger part of the tale and admittedly became a bit reserved with the story following that. Both the visuals, in the context of the low-poly aesthetic, and sound production were very good. It has slight vibes of Paratopic and a Chilla’s Art game without the VHS filters. It will be interesting to see where the next episodes take us.
Right: some more reviews and some sleep as a reward…
