Any reliable way to tell when an enemy is near?

[dereality]

Spoiler: Just played past that part where you have to hop on boxes and run from some underwater monster.

Before that though, I'd hear footsteps and things like that coming from obviously fake locations, like outside windows and things of that nature so I just ignore them. I thought growls might be a sign, but felt foolish hiding in a closest when nothing ever came. Hunted around and never saw anything. The few times I have encountered something it is out of the blue: open a door to a new area, and bam some guy is standing there doing nothing in the room. He walks off and I never see him again. The games fun and find myself diong lots of exploring, but it's kind of taking the fear from the game when despite hearing growls and footsteps emmanating from some room and thinking I should avoid it, I just walk in and 99% there is nothing.

I know this game is supposed to be about paranoia and all, but I'd at least like to pretend I'm being stealthy rather than just ducking behind some crates when I randomly come across something.

Also, what's with the pink gloop, it's basically the only thing that I regularly encounter that hurts me.

[Fwip]

Your sanity meter plays a factor in that it causes you to hallucinate images and noises, but the only telltale cues are monster growls, the sounds of clanking metal and screen blur (if you're looking directly at one in a pitch black room). You'll hear two distinct monster noises when playing, representing either Grunts or Brutes - use these indicators to turn off your lantern and check around for a freshly-spawned monster which immediately despawns after several seconds (omg2spooky).

[dereality]

Hm, I never use the lantern except to briefly illuminate dark areas for a quick look-see. Maybe that's why I never see anyone. And I pretty much perma-crouch.

[Fwip]

Half the time you don't even need to crouch. If you're in darkness, enemies won't even see you at all unless you walk up real close to them. Sprinting is an auto-detect, so it's not good to do unless you hear the "roaring cue" just before it begins to give chase. I didn't find the game particularly scary or difficult, but the few times I did get chased resulted in instant death since the monsters almost always move faster than you and kill in 1-2 hits at full HP while you fumble at opening/closing doors to block its path. You'll probably find this out in the Sewers map.

You can hold up large movable objects like barrels between you and the monster to break its line of sight. It gives up after a few seconds and sods off to despawn. Great game.

[Skatrunde]

If you are just behind the water part, you've only encountered 'teaser monsters', there will be more and they will appear in much worse places. You will realise when they are around because of the roars, but don't try to find a way to reliably tell if monsters are around. The game will be a lot less scary once you know the game mechanics.

[Cnamhan]

he'll kill you

[dereality]

Yeah, just dealt with a nasty one in the storage area. I saw him initially, but thought he'd disappeared after hiding a bit... NOPE. I'm running back to the black hall and he's right at the top of the steps (where you blow up the blocked path) whilst I'm running straight at him in a brightly lit room thinking no one would be there. He gave a loud shriek while I took off running back the way I came. Even busted down my closed door with barrels stacked behind it, but luckily didn't bother to come in and take a look.. Then he just went up and decided the jig was up and disappeared. Weirdo.

Still can't distinquish them from just plain ambience effects of growling and walking until I get a screen shaking scream out of them. Even the motion blur/static effect seems to be mostly due to low sanity than any nearby threats. Their indistinquishing effects are what caused the reckeless behavior in the first place. I'd be mre cautious and on edge if I felt they might be lurking around everywhere.

Personally, I don't find this game scary, I'm enjoying the puzzle solving, plot, and light/dark sanity mechanic much more than the horror aspect. The alone in the dark style snippets keep me wanting to know more and the game's just plain fun in an adventure sense. I find the monster aspect the least engaging since I spend most of the time hiding until enough arbitraty time passes for them to go away. Especially when most don't make it obvious that they're gone since you still here ambient walking and growling even though they have long disappeared. Worse still is when I get some v-sync or weird aliasing issues that con me into thinking something that isn't there is and hiding around in a closet for no reason while typing posts like this.

Welp, I just feel a more gothic mystery type atmosphere than the paranoid-scary one they seemed to be aiming for. Maybe the running away style will get more tense later on if the monsters didn't have extreme ADD, blindness, and hearing disorders. As is, you could sneak up on them and give them a wedgie if you see them first.

[Eceny]

If you have music on, listen to that, each monster has its own theme and if you think a grunt is near, just wait for the music to lessen.

[dereality]

Cool, I'll try to keep and ear out for those when I start up again.