Set in the dark, gruesome basement of a serial killer, ENKI is a horror title that is solely based around solving puzzles. You will have 30 minutes to figure out your escape route, and find all of the items that you need in order to do so. The game boasts a high replayability factor due to randomly generated item placement and multiple endings that depend on how much you've learned about your captor, his previous victims, and his occult interests.

The set up for Enki is fairly decent, the basement that you're locked in is creepy and has a very obvious Satanic vibe to it. There are books on demons, alchemy, and sorcery scattered throughout the area, along with cryptic symbols and notes. You have 30 minutes to gain your freedom, and to do so you must solve easy puzzles; most of them simply involve finding keys, but some require you to find other items such as sharp nails, fuses, and large circular tokens. If you happen to find the certain key that unlocks the cellar prior to the end of 30 minutes, you will have made your escape; if you fail, you will ultimately die. It's a simple concept with a simple execution, but the random item placement does make the experience different every time. Once you know what you're looking for and where it goes, the game gets a lot easier.

While the store page does talk about multiple endings, there are five, the only difference is the headline of the newspaper at the end; escaping with mild knowledge, all knowledge, no knowledge, and two deaths. There are fifteen total "collectibles", for lack of a better term, to find in order to piece together who the killer is; five drivers licenses for previous victims, five demonic books, and five pages about the murderer himself. This does add a bit more to the story, but not very much. More in-depth endings would've been welcomed.

The last time I reviewed ENKI, I completely crucified it for its abysmal optimization. Since then, the developers released an update that fixed that. I'm happy to say that on my 6700k/GTX 1080 rig, I ran at a flawless 60FPS with full graphic settings, at a 1080p resolution. I cannot say with certainty that this patch will help lower end systems, or AMD builds; my last rig was AMD and ran this game so poorly that I never got out of the 25 FPS zone, even on low settings, and my hardware was current at the time.

After a total re-evaluation, I'm happy to say that I can recommend ENKI now. Being able to actually see what you're doing in a fluid framerate really helps things, and the developer has even seemed to fix the random crashes that used to occur and totally ruin your run. The only real improvements here could be having the timer pause when you're reading documents or when the game is paused. Other than that, ENKI is a great little escape room title and escaping from the clutches of a serial killer in a timed environment does make for a rather intense gaming experience. It's sure to appeal to puzzle enthusiasts, as well as horror thrill-seekers.

The Horror Network Curator | Group Click for Gore

The developer offered to provide a free copy of this game for review through The Horror Network's Curation page. However, the title had already been purchased previously.

Set in the dark, gruesome basement of a serial killer, ENKI is a horror title that is solely based around solving puzzles. You will have 30 minutes to figure out your escape route, and find all of the items that you need in order to do so. The game boasts a high replayability factor due to randomly generated item placement and multiple endings that depend on how much you've learned about your captor, his previous victims, and his occult interests. The set up for Enki is fairly decent, the basement that you're locked in is creepy and has a very obvious Satanic vibe to it. There are books on demons, alchemy, and sorcery scattered throughout the area, along with cryptic symbols and notes. You have 30 minutes to gain your freedom, and to do so you must solve easy puzzles; most of them simply involve finding keys, but some require you to find other items such as sharp nails, fuses, and large circular tokens. If you happen to find the certain key that unlocks the cellar prior to the end of 30 minutes, you will have made your escape; if you fail, you will ultimately die. It's a simple concept with a simple execution, but the random item placement does make the experience different every time. Once you know what you're looking for and where it goes, the game gets a lot easier. While the store page does talk about multiple endings, there are five, the only difference is the headline of the newspaper at the end; escaping with mild knowledge, all knowledge, no knowledge, and two deaths. There are fifteen total "collectibles", for lack of a better term, to find in order to piece together who the killer is; five drivers licenses for previous victims, five demonic books, and five pages about the murderer himself. This does add a bit more to the story, but not very much. More in-depth endings would've been welcomed. The last time I reviewed ENKI, I completely crucified it for its abysmal optimization. Since then, the developers released an update that fixed that. I'm happy to say that on my 6700k/GTX 1080 rig, I ran at a flawless 60FPS with full graphic settings, at a 1080p resolution. I cannot say with certainty that this patch will help lower end systems, or AMD builds; my last rig was AMD and ran this game so poorly that I never got out of the 25 FPS zone, even on low settings, and my hardware was current at the time. After a total re-evaluation, I'm happy to say that I can recommend ENKI now. Being able to actually see what you're doing in a fluid framerate really helps things, and the developer has even seemed to fix the random crashes that used to occur and totally ruin your run. The only real improvements here could be having the timer pause when you're reading documents or when the game is paused. Other than that, ENKI is a great little escape room title and escaping from the clutches of a serial killer in a timed environment does make for a rather intense gaming experience. It's sure to appeal to puzzle enthusiasts, as well as horror thrill-seekers. [h1]Rating: [b]4.0/5.0[/b] - Excellent, highly worth playing.[/h1] The Horror Network [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/28221963/]Curator[/url] | [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/thehorrornetwork]Group[/url] Click for Gore [b]The developer offered to provide a free copy of this game for review through The Horror Network's Curation page. However, the title had already been purchased previously.[/b]