Maid of Sker

I really should stop buying/playing these lower budget horror walking simulators. I guess I'm hoping to find another Soma-like gem somewhere: small chance of that ever happening. At least I didn't spend money on Maid of Sker specifically as it was on the same Humble Choice I bought for Deathloop.

(Not) Made of scare

What made me interested in Maid of Sker -- besides it looking at least somewhat competent -- was its punny name. With a name like that, I thought maybe the developers had the smarts for an interesting story. Now, when I looking up the game's article on Wikipedia, I have learned the title is not original: there is a Welsh ballad bearing the same name as well as a mostly unrelated 1872 novel by R.D. Blackmore. The game was inspired by both of those and given that developer studio's name is Wales Interactive, their sources were seemingly local folklore.

Maid of Sker's story didn't turn out to be anything special nor was it scary in any measure. You play as Thomas Evans who has received a letter from his, I guess love interest, Elisabeth Williams who urges him to come to Sker Hotel where she has been trapped. Elisabeth wants Thomas to compose a "counter-song" to a tune.

The hotel is occupied by a cult whose members are mostly blind. Thus you crouch-walk through the place, rarely being in any danger. There's not much to the game; it is quite short. Of course, on your first run it will take some time to figure stuff out. Completionists have to beat the game more than once due to exclusive achievements: I completed my third run in just an hour and a half. On harder difficulties, enemies appear earlier into the game and there are some differences to their composition, which I thought unusual.

Some shooter action too

Before playing this one, I had tried the demo of the studio's next game, Sker Ritual, during some Steam fest. I didn't think much of that one either: a co-op zombie shooter not to my liking. I reckon that while prototyping Sker Ritual, Wales Interactive decided to add some more meat to Maid of Sker, and thus in an update it got four challenge maps in which you start from the Sker Hotel's attic and make it through the now quite familiar building to escape it.

You have a selection of guns and few new enemy types. The gunplay is like in horror games typically: it's slow and clunky.

Unfortunately for completionists, the challenge maps come with their own achievements. Merely beating them is not enough either: you have to get an A* (a-star) rating on each. In the most difficult challenge, enemies are of the more difficult variety and have buffed health pools. There's some randomness involved in enemy compositions between runs too, which makes it more difficult to perfect a challenge. The final one took me several tries but I eventually finished a run with a top score: just 40 points over the required 100k.