🔵 Pros
+ Decent free-roaming, survival horror gameplay.
+ No hand holding: players need to figure out everything on their own.
+ Quests also being "mini-puzzles" based on how to use found items in solving problems.
+ Sufficient variety of equipment and enemies.

🔴 Cons
- A few but significant bugs that can lead to major gameplay disruption / force a reload.
- Autosave-only saving system at each area transition, no manual saves whatsoever, not even at fixed points.
- Sometimes certain quests can glitch, preventing progression.
- Hunger meter on higher difficulties is very unbalanced in comparison to how little food can be found, becoming an annoying, frustrating mechanic.

Kalaban is a small indie-level open world survival horror set in Finland, where a mysterious pandemic outbreak turned the majority of the population of a small city into bloodthirsty monsters of various shapes and sizes. As one of the few survivors, the protagonist Bob will have to make his way through a city literally turned into a living nightmare, and find a way to escape.

As gameplay concept, this title uses a completely free-roaming open-world, even if calling it "open-world" might be exaggerating it, since the entirety of Kalaban is composed of a dozen or so not very large areas, making up the entirety of this small Finnish town. However, the concept behind it remains valid and definitely interesting, allowing the player complete freedom of movement. Of course, some locations need to be unlocked by finding key items or completing quests first. Quests are given by various NPCs found in the world and will all lead to obtaining a Car Part, necessary for completing the main quest and escape.

The survival horror aspects are about fighting ever-respawning monsters in the various city areas, managing inventory space and consumable items such as batteries, ammo and medical ones, while also keeping an eye on the hunger meter, depleting at an insanely high rate, allowing passive health regeneration if it's above a certain threshold. On the two higher difficulties, Nightmare and Hell, having zero hunger meter value drains HP constantly, and makes these two difficulties extremely frustrating as this mechanic was not balanced very well.

Overall, one can't expect Kalaban to have the depth nor the scope of more popular similar games (such as Darkwood for example), but it remains a decent indie title to pass a few hours at a very low price. The duration should not exceed 2-4 hours depending on difficulty and possible bugs.

Liked this review, and want to see more of the same quality? Check out Tamaster's Review Archive to see all my Reviews in a single, convenient location.

🎮 Gameplay
The gameplay of Kalaban is divided onto Exploration, Quests, Management and Combat.

Exploration of the game world is completely free straight from the first minutes, it's definitely interesting to roam every area and accessible building to scavenge supplies, find more info about the epidemic, and aswell get quests from the other survivors. Not knowing what to expect in the next area or building keeps the gameplay fresh. Some areas will need specific tools or items to be accessible, some found laying around, while others rewarded by quests. At each area transition into another zone the game will be saved, this being the only way to save. A debatable choice that can lead to problems such as being killed instantly after transition by monsters, or saving while on low HP and starving could lead to a soft-lock.

Quests given by NPCs are all collected in an interface, roughly telling what has to be done. Generally, they are about fetching some item or finding a certain other NPCs to relay a message, they are never overly complex or structured, and give little choices most of the time, being instead linear.

Management, as in any survival horror, is an important part of gameplay, and is done via a square-based inventory panel. Each box can contain an item or item stack, depending on the type. Generally however, rarely at any time there will be enough stuff to be overburdened and having to leave something behind, as usage of items, especially food, is performed frequently.


📖 Story
Kalaban uses an indirect narrative style, meaning pieces of lore, transmissions and dialogues with other NPCs are the means to find what is going on, rather than a direct, narrated story. Overall the English writing is not of the best quality, but just average in complexity and also in the presented situations' complexity.

👊 Combat System
Combat in Kalaban is classic top-down 2D fighting, using the mouse to aim around while the buttons to attack. Hotkeys assigned to 1-9 change weapons and use items quickly as there is no pause in opening the inventory. Generally, most enemies are fairly weak as they can be stun-locked by the basic Axe melee attacks.

Ammo is not overly rare, an firearms, once found, back a big punch. Environmental items such as fuel tanks or barrels can be shot to cause great explosions and eliminate multiple enemies. Overall the combat in Kalaban is alright but does not stand out for any particularly exciting or noteworthy mechanic.


💰 Content & Pricing
Priced at 3.99€ base tag, and offering about 2-4 hours of content based on difficulty level, skill, and time taken to find everything, this is probably worth it to buy this game even at full price as the cost is very reduced, while the content it delivers is of decent quality for this price range. Survival horror fans may find in it a good little game to pass some time in a slightly different setting than usual.

🔗 Balance & Challenge
The two highest difficulty levels are exceedingly frustrating because of how unbalanced the hunger mechanic is, removing Health when at zero hunger in these modes. Simply put, there is not nearly enough food for how fast the meter depletes, leading to death just for this reason rather than monsters. Loot balance is generally alright giving the player enough to survive but never so much to make him overpowered. On Hard the game offers a decent challenge without the unbalance of the life-draining hunger, which definitely needs to be reworked.




🎥 Graphics
An unusual hand-drawn style is used for Kalaban's visual aspect. To be honest, the quality of this style is not consistent: some artwork, animations and effect look pretty good and are acceptable, while some other elements of the scenario look like drawn with MS Paint and of terrible quality, like they have been taken from another game entirely.

🔊 Sound
Sound effects and music are average without any particular standout point.

🔩 Performance & Stability
The game runs flawless in 4K. [GTX1080, i7 4820K, 16GB RAM]

💻 Artificial Intelligence
Enemies use a follow and attack pattern without any particular AI complexity behind it.

🏠 Quality of Life
The fact saving is only at each area transition can lead to problems, even soft locks because a player dies right after the transition, for example, and definitely some fixed save points would be better. Inventory and interface are generally alright even if putting items in the hotbar can be clunky and difficult sometimes.

🐛 Bugs & Issues
In a certain area, a bug rendered the character uncontrollable 90% of the time this area was loaded, effectively breaking the game. Bugs of this severity do not always happen, however.


Kalaban is a nice small Indie project with decent gameplay concept and overall sufficient quality. For this budget price range, it is definitely a solid title for the top-down survival horror genre.

This product was reviewed using a free key provided by the Developers.

[h1] In A Nutshell [/h1] 🔵 [b] Pros [/b] + Decent free-roaming, survival horror gameplay. + No hand holding: players need to figure out everything on their own. + Quests also being "mini-puzzles" based on how to use found items in solving problems. + Sufficient variety of equipment and enemies. 🔴 [b] Cons [/b] - A few but significant bugs that can lead to major gameplay disruption / force a reload. - Autosave-only saving system at each area transition, no manual saves whatsoever, not even at fixed points. - Sometimes certain quests can glitch, preventing progression. - Hunger meter on higher difficulties is very unbalanced in comparison to how little food can be found, becoming an annoying, frustrating mechanic. Kalaban is a small indie-level open world survival horror set in Finland, where a mysterious pandemic outbreak turned the majority of the population of a small city into bloodthirsty monsters of various shapes and sizes. As one of the few survivors, the protagonist Bob will have to make his way through a city literally turned into a living nightmare, and find a way to escape. As gameplay concept, this title uses a completely free-roaming open-world, even if calling it "open-world" might be exaggerating it, since the entirety of Kalaban is composed of a dozen or so not very large areas, making up the entirety of this small Finnish town. However, the concept behind it remains valid and definitely interesting, allowing the player complete freedom of movement. Of course, some locations need to be unlocked by finding key items or completing quests first. Quests are given by various NPCs found in the world and will all lead to obtaining a Car Part, necessary for completing the main quest and escape. The survival horror aspects are about fighting ever-respawning monsters in the various city areas, managing inventory space and consumable items such as batteries, ammo and medical ones, while also keeping an eye on the hunger meter, depleting at an insanely high rate, allowing passive health regeneration if it's above a certain threshold. On the two higher difficulties, Nightmare and Hell, having zero hunger meter value drains HP constantly, and makes these two difficulties extremely frustrating as this mechanic was not balanced very well. Overall, one can't expect Kalaban to have the depth nor the scope of more popular similar games (such as Darkwood for example), but it remains a decent indie title to pass a few hours at a very low price. The duration should not exceed 2-4 hours depending on difficulty and possible bugs. [quote]Liked this review, and want to see more of the same quality? Check out [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/39323490]Tamaster's Review Archive[/url] to see all my Reviews in a single, convenient location.[/quote] [h1] In-depth Feature Analysis [/h1] 🎮 [b] Gameplay [/b] The gameplay of Kalaban is divided onto Exploration, Quests, Management and Combat. Exploration of the game world is completely free straight from the first minutes, it's definitely interesting to roam every area and accessible building to scavenge supplies, find more info about the epidemic, and aswell get quests from the other survivors. Not knowing what to expect in the next area or building keeps the gameplay fresh. Some areas will need specific tools or items to be accessible, some found laying around, while others rewarded by quests. At each area transition into another zone the game will be saved, this being the only way to save. A debatable choice that can lead to problems such as being killed instantly after transition by monsters, or saving while on low HP and starving could lead to a soft-lock. Quests given by NPCs are all collected in an interface, roughly telling what has to be done. Generally, they are about fetching some item or finding a certain other NPCs to relay a message, they are never overly complex or structured, and give little choices most of the time, being instead linear. Management, as in any survival horror, is an important part of gameplay, and is done via a square-based inventory panel. Each box can contain an item or item stack, depending on the type. Generally however, rarely at any time there will be enough stuff to be overburdened and having to leave something behind, as usage of items, especially food, is performed frequently. 📖 [b] Story [/b] Kalaban uses an indirect narrative style, meaning pieces of lore, transmissions and dialogues with other NPCs are the means to find what is going on, rather than a direct, narrated story. Overall the English writing is not of the best quality, but just average in complexity and also in the presented situations' complexity. 👊 [b] Combat System [/b] Combat in Kalaban is classic top-down 2D fighting, using the mouse to aim around while the buttons to attack. Hotkeys assigned to 1-9 change weapons and use items quickly as there is no pause in opening the inventory. Generally, most enemies are fairly weak as they can be stun-locked by the basic Axe melee attacks. Ammo is not overly rare, an firearms, once found, back a big punch. Environmental items such as fuel tanks or barrels can be shot to cause great explosions and eliminate multiple enemies. Overall the combat in Kalaban is alright but does not stand out for any particularly exciting or noteworthy mechanic. 💰 [b] Content & Pricing [/b] Priced at 3.99€ base tag, and offering about 2-4 hours of content based on difficulty level, skill, and time taken to find everything, this is probably worth it to buy this game even at full price as the cost is very reduced, while the content it delivers is of decent quality for this price range. Survival horror fans may find in it a good little game to pass some time in a slightly different setting than usual. 🔗 [b] Balance & Challenge [/b] The two highest difficulty levels are exceedingly frustrating because of how unbalanced the hunger mechanic is, removing Health when at zero hunger in these modes. Simply put, there is not nearly enough food for how fast the meter depletes, leading to death just for this reason rather than monsters. Loot balance is generally alright giving the player enough to survive but never so much to make him overpowered. On Hard the game offers a decent challenge without the unbalance of the life-draining hunger, which definitely needs to be reworked. [h1] Technical Analysis [/h1] 🎥 [b] Graphics [/b] An unusual hand-drawn style is used for Kalaban's visual aspect. To be honest, the quality of this style is not consistent: some artwork, animations and effect look pretty good and are acceptable, while some other elements of the scenario look like drawn with MS Paint and of terrible quality, like they have been taken from another game entirely. 🔊 [b] Sound [/b] Sound effects and music are average without any particular standout point. 🔩 [b] Performance & Stability [/b] The game runs flawless in 4K. [GTX1080, i7 4820K, 16GB RAM] 💻 [b] Artificial Intelligence [/b] Enemies use a follow and attack pattern without any particular AI complexity behind it. 🏠 [b] Quality of Life [/b] The fact saving is only at each area transition can lead to problems, even soft locks because a player dies right after the transition, for example, and definitely some fixed save points would be better. Inventory and interface are generally alright even if putting items in the hotbar can be clunky and difficult sometimes. 🐛 [b] Bugs & Issues [/b] In a certain area, a bug rendered the character uncontrollable 90% of the time this area was loaded, effectively breaking the game. Bugs of this severity do not always happen, however. [h1] Conclusion [/h1] Kalaban is a nice small Indie project with decent gameplay concept and overall sufficient quality. For this budget price range, it is definitely a solid title for the top-down survival horror genre. This product was reviewed using a free key provided by the Developers.