Every time I get off an elevator I accelerate strenuous, just in case the elevator falls without warning and slices me in half, leaving the front and, all things considered, the lower half of my body swaying in place for a second before collapsing in a cloud of severed bones and organs. Don’t laugh: I know you do it too. Kletka doesn’t aid: created by w404is a horror-themed item-hunting game reminiscent of Lethal Company and Golden Light, in which you laboriously delve into the layers of an “infinite” post-Soviet gigastructure, gathering fuel, parts, and food for the elevator that wants to eat you.
The roof of the elevator is a creaking, lipless mouth with a lantern hanging beneath it like a drop of spittle. It opens and closes ever so gently as you run around with your shoulders hunched, fueling the generator and patching up the machinery. You can almost feel its breath in your hair. Needless to say, you’ll want to stuff it with edible items stolen from the world around it. I spent my 15 minutes in Steam Demo with his eyes glued to the screen displaying the creature’s hunger level and the cursor hovering over the brake lever.
The rooms and hallways of Gigastructure aren’t much safer than the elevator. They’re as murky as the inside of a dog and full of traps like landmines and pools of electrified water. The game’s rusty, lichen-covered PS1-era visuals make spotting resources and items a piece of cake, and your all-important flashlight needs to be turned off and charged regularly. Worst of all, you’ll have to deal with Samosbor. I’m not sure what Samosbor is, but you can’t kill him. If you see a lot of red delicate, run, run, run, like you would from a Balrog with a pig.
The Kletka demo includes multiplayer for up to four players—it won’t allow cross-platform play with the full version, due out later this year. You can watch games online and join in when the host finds the vending machine in the Gigastructure, like when you rescue Survivors from the closets in Left 4 Dead. Similar to Left 4 Dead , though for different reasons, it’s worth having co-op partners around, even if they suck at the game. Teamwork makes the dream come true, yes, but Kletka’s Steam description offers a good counterargument that “friends are good fuel.”