by Phoenix, HSM team writer

The Hat Man.

Some of us have had the misfortune of coming into contact with so-called “shadow people,” though you may not admit it. Seeing shadow people is something not often talked about, save for those social circles which believe in the paranormal— but as far as I’m concerned, they do exist. If you need to do some reading on Shadow People before we begin, please check out this link.

The very fact — or at least the somewhat compelling evidence — that they do exist is what makes this game so terrifying. There is no more frightening experience than the one where you feel rather than see something — someone — watching you, or standing very close to you when you are supposed to be alone. Shadow people, in particular, are believed to be inherently malevolent. You see a quick darting movement out the corner of your eye, you turn to face it, and it’s gone. There’s nothing and no one in the room but you — or is there?

The shadow people can and do make contact when they choose to. When I was growing up, I had occasion to see two in particular of these entities. One we called the Grey Man lived in one of my aunt’s houses. He was very tall and slender in stature. He too wore a hat, and bore the resemblance of a Civil War figure in uniform: wide-brimmed hat and squared shoulders, with little else discernible of his visage. The Grey Man could, more than was comfortable, appear from the shadows and linger along the walls and corners of a dimly-lit room. He would at first disappear as soon as you turned in his direction, having seen the quick movement in the corner of your peripheral vision.

But just as you began to believe there really was nothing there, he would appear again and move, just even with your line of vision, long enough to make you doubt your sanity and eyesight. Of the two shadow people I remember from my childhood and teen years, the Grey Man — the one that wore the hat — had the most unpleasant feeling to his appearance. Seeing him would leave you shaken for a time after. You would always have that feeling he was there, or he was just about to pop up any moment. Keeping your composure was impossible in that house — and forget sleeping, if you were unfortunate enough to be there all night. There was simply no peace from him.

I had all but forgotten about him until Game Mechanics came out with The Hat Man: Shadow Ward.

It is obvious I am not the only one to have encountered these beings. Game Mechanics’ Hat Man captures that uneasy feeling, that cold panic that settles in on you when you don’t know what it is or where it will show itself. Hat Man holds you hostage with the question of what it wants, where has it come from, and why has it appeared to you?

Hat Man is an indie game from Game Mechanics LLC. It’s a survival-horror suspense title, with a decent helping of events which echo real paranormal experiences for the gamers brave enough to want the answers to those ancient visitations. You’ll want to play it in a well-lit room, because you will be checking the corners once you start to play otherwise. You think you know what to expect with a horror game, but do you?

Graphically, The Hat Man is a somewhat mixed bag. Certain textures are clearly low-res, like something you would find on a mobile device rather than a PC. But, on the flipside, there’s some legitimately disturbing imagery which capitalizes on the minimalism: all the rooms tend to look alike, and it’s pretty much guaranteed that you’re going to get lost inside the titular Shadow Ward — which, when the rooms all look the same, actually helps to drive home that sense of claustrophobic panic (for a while, at least, until it gets tedious).

The plot itself is advanced by collecting journal pages, which is how you piece together the story. It’s fairly grim stuff, but a game like this isn’t exactly going to give you Pikachu, now is it? Still, it’s enough to keep you moving, particularly when the Hat Man himself appears and chases you, and your flashlight begins to flicker.

If there is a weakness with the game, it’s the Hat Man himself. The first time he appears, yeah, it’s frightening. But remember, the scariest predator is the one you don’t see. When your brain has time to process what it’s seeing, it moves from fight-or-flight to analysis, which completely undermines the fear factor. And, when viewed up close, the Hat Man frankly has too much detail; he’s supposed to be a nearly featureless shadow, which is far more terrifying than what is presented. Further, although the Hat Man becomes very aggressive towards the end of the game, the fact that he’s so easy to outmaneuver early on more or less ruins any suspenseful buildup. He’s basically the one enemy you have to really deal with, so rather than the all-abiding dread that’s in the back of your mind as you wonder when you’re going to see him for the first time, the game instead turns into a cat-and-mouse adventure.

In its present state, The Hat Man feels more like a proof-of-concept than a full-blown game; it has a lot of the right elements, but it feels unfinished, in the same way that a child is a human but is not yet “done,” if that makes sense. You keep waiting for something else to happen, and it never does. In particular, a game like this would really benefit from some robust sound design; some good tropes such as white noise from a radio are present, but a game like this frankly needs to be a study in fear through sound.

To be fair, though, this is the first full-blown game title from Game Mechanics, which — unless they’ve staffed up and not told anyone — is still a two-man show. And they’ve got a great base concept to build from; it’s catchy and doesn’t take a lot of explaining, which helps with the game’s accessibility.

The Hat Man: Shadow Ward is currently available on Steam for $14.99. Frankly, at that price, I’m not sure there’s enough gameplay to warrant buying it, unless the content is bulked up or the presentation is improved. But, if you wait for it to show up in one of Steam’s many sales, it’d probably be worth grabbing.

(Update: as the game is currently a Steam Early Access title, additional content is expected to be deployed into the game prior to its formal release.)

Seems like most of Home’s major developers have branched off into their own gaming projects these days: Lockwood’s working on Avakin, Heavy Water has Axis Game Factory, LOOT’s got Fluster Cluck and The Last Tinker, Juggernaut’s working on StarCrawlers, nDreams is betting big on VR with The Assembly…it’s interesting to see all the different directions everyone’s going, like newly-graduated high school students headed off into the wild blue future. Game Mechanics might be a small and scrappy underdog, but I will say this, though: with The Hat Man, they managed to reach into my childhood memories and pull something out that legitimately unsettles me. That’s a great start.

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One Response to “The Hat Man”

1. John C. Ardussi says:

   August 5, 2014 at 8:02 am

   The version you ran is an old Beta. There is a more up to date version on Steam. The game is in the Early Access area for currently unreleased games.

   We are less than a month from release and adding tons everyday. More rooms, more puzzles, more animations, voice-over and more.

   We appreciate the mention.

   Reply