Cannibal Abduction is a short indie Retraux Survival Horror video game by Selewi (Tomás Esconjaureguy). The game has VHS/PS1 era inspired graphics, fixed third-person camera angles, and Tank Controls, in a similar style to his previous game, The Night Of The Scissors. It was released on Steam and Itch.io on January 13th, 2023. A playthrough should take just about under an hour.
Henry, a teenage Greaser Delinquent, is driving a sports car he stole from his deadbeat carpenter father when the engine breaks down in the middle of a remote rural highway. Fortunately, he is picked up by a passing farmer who also happens to be a mechanic, who brings Henry and his car back to his farm and offers to fix it in exchange for Henry repairing a broken wardrobe in his house. However, while Henry is busy repairing the wardrobe, the farmer locks him in the room. Escaping with some lockpicking ingenuity, Henry discovers that the farmer and his family are cannibals and he's being hunted through the house by Phillip, the farmer's son and the family butcher, while the rest of the family are out visiting town.
Cannibal Abduction contains examples of:
- Bear Trap: On hard mode, Phillip will dynamically leave bear traps around the house in an attempt to catch you.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Journals found throughout the house reveal the Tuckers used to be a normal family, until an alien signal broadcasting over the radio slowly altered their minds and turned them into murderous cannibals who are also feeding the source of the signal, a creature living in the sewers under their house.
- Cannibal Clan: The Tucker family have been abducting and butchering people to feed themselves and whatever creature is living in the sewers under their house.
- Earn Your Bad Ending: The normal ending where you escape the house is the easiest to achieve, as all you have to do is use the rope to get to the sewers, then escape via the ladder. Actually getting the hidden ending in which you encounter and get eaten by the creature requires you to solve the clock puzzle, get Phillip's key, and use it to open a door in the sewers and proceed deeper into the sewers into the creature's lair.
- The End... Or Is It?: If Henry escapes the sewers using the ladder, he'll walk down the highway and be picked up by a highway patrol officer who offers to take him to the nearest hospital. However, the officer turns on the radio to reveal the same alien signal that turned the Tuckers into cannibals, implying the possibility that the entire county has been affected and the officer may try to butcher Henry himself. The achievement for getting this ending is even called "Saved?" with a question mark.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Phillip operates similar to the Snipper from The Night Of The Scissors. He spawns in occasionally, chases you around, and will wander off and disappear if you manage to hide from him.
- Heal Thyself: You can find about 3 bandages around the house that you can use to heal yourself to full health. Henry otherwise dies after about 4 hits from Phillip's cleaver. There's a special achievement for managing to beat the game without using any bandages.
- Mighty Glacier: Phillip is a large man wearing a burlap sack mask and wielding a meat cleaver, but is a lot slower than the Snipper from The Night Of The Scissors and can be outrun by Henry. However Henry also has limited stamina, unlike Adam from Scissors. Phillip is also intelligent enough to board up hiding spots if you use them repeatedly, unlike the Snipper.
- Mister Muffykins: The family owns a small, long haired dog named Daisy. Notably, the journals suggest Daisy is the only member of the family not affected by the alien signal. However since Henry is a stranger, she'll still bark aggressively if he approaches her, summoning Phillip. Henry needs to find a way to placate her, since she's sitting on top of a key item.
- New Work, Recycled Graphics: The game uses the same engine and gameplay as The Night Of The Scissors, though it adds a basic inventory system as well as a save system.
- Stealth Sequel: There are hints that the game ties into The Night Of The Scissors, given that the Snipper was also chopping up humans into chunks of flesh. Though he seemed to be feeding the meat to the vending machines in his abandoned post office lair, rather than dumping it down into the sewers.
- Whole-Plot Reference: Is clearly one to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, though Phillip uses a meat cleaver instead of a chainsaw. There are also clear parallels to The Colour Out of Space and Stay Out of the House.
