Au Sable is a freeware Survival Horror game by Amon26 released in March of 2009.The game puts the player in the role of strange red-headed girl who is looking for a girl named Harmonia who went missing in an abandoned town surrounded by a sinister forest. But something very evil is living in these woods, and our heroine soon finds herself up against a dangerous cult and demonic entities. You can download the fixed version here.See also All Of Our Friends Are Dead and Gyossait, surreal action-platformers by the same creator. Also see The Hunt, a First-Person Shooter prequel to Au Sable.
BFG: You get a short-ranged shotgun in the beginning. Later, you get a long-ranged bazooka.
Body Horror: During the final boss, Harmonia loses her face. And as you pick off the "angels," the Eldritch Abomination in the background slowly decays.
Bottomless Magazines: particularly flagrant in the case of the rocket launcher, which shoots at the speed of an AK-47 in addition to never needing to be reloaded. The fact that this weapon can fire more projectiles than its own volume within one second and never run out of ammo is the best indicator that strange magic is afoot in the area.
Collapsing Lair: After shooting the tree that grows hearts, the area suddenly begins to shake apart.
Demonic Possession: Harmonia appears to be under the spell of the Eldritch AbominationBig Bad. Disturbingly, if you kill Harmonia instead of the "angels" during the final boss battle, the bad ending that ensues implies that your protagonist has fallen prey to the same spell, and that this has happened multiple times already.
Eldritch Lord:Pretty little girls... one by one you come... butchering each other... to be my only one...
Dual Boss: the final boss is a fight against the possessed Harmonia and the Eldritch Lord, who fights by proxy of three "angels" (so four enemies in all). The angels are easy to kill, but unless you collect the eyes they leave behind, they won't stay dead.
Eldritch Abomination: Quite a few of the enemies in the latter half of the game, but special mention goes to recurring strange black beings with bright white eyes.
Eldritch Location: An abandoned town that keeps repeating, getting uglier and uglier each time.
Evil Redhead: The final boss who is actually Harmonia, and possibly your sister.
Game-Breaking Bug: Older versions of the game made getting the good ending impossible.
Improbable Weapon User: Toward the end of the game, the eyes must be used to destroy certain enemies. A good example is the tall Mook Maker which turns into red smoke when shot. You have to touch the eyes to the smoke afterward or else it will regenerate. They can also be used against the final boss.
Interface Screw: Word Of God said in the README file that he left the gun's cursor out on purpose to show that the heroine was unfamiliar with using it. If you want it back, just hit Backspace.
Jump Scare: This game features a lot of sudden events that cut away just as suddenly, as well as characters that appear and then immediately disappear.
Meat Moss: In the second half of the game, blood vessel vines are everywhere. You also have to shoot a tree that sprouts hearts.
Mook Maker: The tall demon carrying a chain generates smaller demons. Also, the fireballs of the final boss chase you and can be destroyed, making them essentially mooks in the guise of projectiles.
Multiple Endings: To get the good ending, you cannot kill Harmonia. You must only kill the "angels," using your eyes to absorb them when they turn into eyes. Note that a bug in older versions of the game prevents you from doing this. In the good ending, the demon lord is defeated and Harmonia is presumably freed from his influence. In the bad ending, Harmonia dies and the demon lord possesses the protagonist. Unlike in Gyossait, another game by the same developer, you don't have to play through the whole game to get the two endings - you can simply load the final boss battle again.
Nightmare Face: The thing that gave the protagonist its eyes which might be her mother?. There's also the hydra which has nightmare faces.
No Name Given: the Big Bad is never named, though the sentence about a "Father" who will "set the world clean" probably refers to him. The protagonist seems to be named Au Sable, assuming that the quote "Oh, Au Sable. One of you had to burn," refers to her.
.See also All Of Our Friends Are Dead and Gyossait, surreal action-platformers by the same creator. Also see The Hunt, a First-Person Shooter prequel to Au Sable.
0 reviews