Welcome to Windy Oaks National Park.
Shiver is an indie Point-and-Click Horror game released on October 27th, 2017 by Kowai Sugoi Studios. It is said by the developers to be a Spiritual Successor to Cozy.
It follows a Featureless Protagonist in The '90s on their way to visit their father in a retirement home, only to be caught up in the mystery of Windy Oaks National Park.
You can play it here
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Shiver contains examples of:
- The '90s: The game is set in the early 1990s, which, according to the Steam page, is to prevent you from using a mobile phone or the Internet.
- Alcohol Is Gasoline: Zig-zagged. You are unable to use the vodka to fuel the generator, but you have to fill the lantern with vodka to light it and progress.
- Alien Geometries: In the mine's maze, some of the passages loop right back to the start of the maze even if they realistically shouldn't.
- Ambiguous Situation: It isn't revealed if the monster is acting alone or not, but some parts of the game, such as the room seemingly made of flesh, indicate that the situation is far beyond the scope of the monster.
- Bad Vibrations: After you discover the corpse of the park ranger and take their card, the room begins to shake.
- Book Ends: The game begins and ends with a car crash.
- Cacophony Cover Up: The protagonist tries to get away from the monster by distracting it with fireworks.
- Casual Danger Dialogue: After being attacked by a monster and almost hit with a car:Al: Holy... uh. Are you alright son?Protagonist: Absolutely not.
- Chekhov's Gun: The ventilation system. It's introduced at the beginning of the game but is only put to use when the elevator breaks and you have to find a way out of the maze.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: The protagonist smokes one at the beginning to "calm their nerves". The option to smoke a cigarette is present for most of the game.
- Creepy Cave: The mine is full of secrets, from the thinly veiled threats from Mort the Mole to the monster that is lurking down there. Oh, and you can't forget the room made of flesh and eyes with half a corpse hanging out of the wall.
- Evil Is Visceral: The room in the mine seemingly made of human flesh and covered in blood and eyes.
- Featureless Protagonist: As is customary for Interactive Fiction games, nearly nothing is revealed about the protagonist. They are implied to be male at the end, due to Al calling them "son".
- Foreshadowing:
- You can get a sense of what the monster looks like before The Reveal from your interactions with it through the game.
- The elevator is creaky going down, and when you get down to the bottom of the mine, the button on the elevator is visibly scratched out, rendering it useless immediately.
- Gut Punch: The room covered in eyes where you discover the corpse of a park ranger is one of the most blatantly horrific moments of the game. All the protagonist can say is "I need to leave."
- Half the Man He Used to Be: The corpse you get the key card from is severed in two at the waist. Weirdly, there isn't any blood.
- Hand Wave: The protagonist's broken arm is largely unmentioned after the beginning and doesn't affect gameplay that much, other than a few mentions here or there. It's likely just there to raise the stakes. You may even forget it happened.
- Hope Spot: After lighting the flare and signaling for help, it seems like you might win. Then the monster finds you.
- Hypocrite: The protagonist avoids the microwave in the break room because they heard "it can give you cancer", but are implied to regularly smoke.
- It's Quiet… Too Quiet: After you shoot the flare, it's quiet for a second... then the monster pokes its head up from the ledge below you.
- Jump Scare:
- The opening, when the monster drives you off the road.
- One where a hand reaches out for you in the cave.
- When you shine your flashlight on the monster, who's outside of the door.
- Monstrous Humanoid: The monster is that of a pale, humanoid creature with hands (?) protruding from the mouth.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The protagonist alerts help to themself by lighting the flare, but they also attract the monster to their location.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Not exactly good, but it can be explained as self-defense: In the Epilogue, a newspaper says the suspect (the protagonist) is convicted of breaking and entering, tampering with evidence, property damage, illegal use of fireworks, littering...
- No "Police" Option: Your motive for the game is to call for help from one of the nearby radio stations. Though, calling 911 may not be possible, seeing as how there aren't any phones around.
- NPC Roadblock: Played for Horror. At the end of the game, the protagonist is unable to alert for help because the monster is sitting in the middle of the road.
- Playable Epilogue: One where the protagonist is with their dad and has renounced smoking.
- Plot Parallel: There's a B-plot told through letters implied to be about the monster attacking an employee and two visitors.
- Robbing the Dead: You take a card from the corpse of one of the rangers. Justified, as you have to use it to save yourself.
- Scrapbook Story: The B-plot, which is told mostly through invoices and letters.
- Surprise Car Crash:
- The opening ends with a car crash that knocks you out until morning and hints at the monster in the park.
- The game ends with a car coming from behind the monster and crashing into you both.
- The Walls Have Eyes: The room seemingly made of flesh and storing the corpse of a park ranger has eyes covering the walls.
I need to leave.
