Snipe Hunt

Been following work on this for a while, and I've submitted a few bug reports and they are usually trounced quickly, and I'm excited to see what will be added next!
Atmosphere; 5/5.
Snipe Hunt has an amazing blend of visual and audio cues, allowing you to get immersed quickly as you go into the maze. There's no on-purpose jumpscares or anything too out of the blue unless you're not paying attention. And getting lost is quite easy if you're not used to mazes - Each one is generated randomly, so you'll find plenty of twists and turns that you've not discovered before. I spend a good chunk of my mission being afraid, but knowing I must press on.
Setting; 4/5.
Not to mention you're in a newer setting to the field; You're not in modern times. You're in the 18th-19th century. Your tools are rudimentary, yet have magical properties. I love seeing the old newspaper clippings, the simple cabin you start in, and the fact that your first hunt is going to be in a corn maze rather than some random house? I love it. A few more maps and you'll have an amazing variety.
Gameplay; 3.5/5. (Currently)
Although you lack a designated tracker like in other games, you know just enough through sound and visual cues as to what you need to worry about. Otherwise, it's a simple loop of find hints, potentially lay trap, hope it works or else, well, you can guess.
All in all;
Definitely bring friends if you can, as you'll all be terrified, and will enjoy the chaos of losing your pals one by one as you huddle in fear. Not to mention the game has a reasonable price, especially with it being on sale currently! 4 copies will run you about $20, making it a pretty great game for multiplayer.
Edit; A good chunk of updates have been added! Bugfixes and a new map make it nicer than before!

Very well made game! It scared me a couple through the corn patches and dark pathways. 100% recommend giving it a try, especially since the developer is still adding, upgrading, and fixing content!!

GENTLEMEN, BEHOLD! CORN! Would recommend, developer is putting a tutorial level to help out if you don't know what to do so please give it time. But it's worth a look with friends for a scare.

Played two games of Snipe Hunt and here is my review from a non horror game players perspective
Atmosphere: 5/5
A corn maze is familiar and a perfect spooky atmosphere for a game I hgavent seen before. It adds a nice uniqueness to it from the other modern horror games. The crows and birds did give me a good scare and seeing the creature just graze me made me jump a few times
Gameplay: 3/5
Simple and effective, However an issue when I was playing was with figuring out which footprints or bone piles i tested. This was not a negative aspect but it did cause me to question what i had and had not found. The other issue is a proper "how to use" prompt for things like the goggles. I was hoping to have a sort of UI that had some prompts such as "Press c to bring up sheet" just as a reminder.
Visuals: 4/5
I love the simple look of everything. Most games like these give you tools that make you the next ghostbuster. Here, you get an oil magic lamp and a bag of runes. I like that it actively feels like you need to adapt to this degrade of technology and makes you think more crafty than just plopping a tool on the ground and running. the lighting however does need some work with the lobby being too bright and sometimes the lantern being too dim
Overall:
A great game for friends for a good time and it definitely is a good early access game that shows promise. Some edits do need to be made for future content and improvements. I give it a solid 3.8/5
I recommend this to anyone if you want a spooky game! I cant imagine what its like to play at 12am with the lights out

Snipe Hunt is a paid VR game. It worked on my HTC Vive system, looked ok, played ok, sounded ok. Has a tutorial mission. Has 3 other missions of varying difficulty. You can also play this with monitor, keyboard and mouse. It made me queasy after awhile. Says it is designed to play seated. VR movement mode is only smooth moves and turning with touchpad.
CONS:
- The text in the game was hard to see or read.
- The instructions in the lobby was vague and sparse.
- The UI is clunky.
- Warning: can cause motion sickness.
Maybe buy on sale, if you like first-person atmospheric horror games.
I got a free key for this from the Steam Curator program.
ViVE VR curator group

Why is it not called Maize Maze?
While a mechanically simple game, it has a strong atmosphere, especially on the audio front. It creates a great sense of unease while exploring the maze for evidence and makes you urgently feel the need to leave, something which can be made more difficult by random nature of the mazes and the space warping mechanic found when traversing the corn. The game also features a co-op, which my or may not ease some of the tension.
Visually some elements are lacking, the night time skybox and the lighting of the maze maps is great, though some of the assets look a bit rough and the lighting feels a bit off inside of the lobby house. I was able to escape the bounds of some of the maps but this required effort on my part. I have no comment to make on the VR as I do not own a VR headset, though I can only imagine it enhances the already strong atmosphere.

Experienced on the Meta Quest 2
You can view my initial impressions review & gameplay here:
I'm not sure I would recommend the VR experience. It's very rough. However, this game is budget-priced and it does seem to have nice potential, so I am going to give it a neutral recommendaiton.
The biggest problem with this game currently in VR is the poor performance. Game is running on the Unity Engine and on my RTX 3080, I was getting frame rate drops consistently, despite choosing different graphical options, including turning off volumetrics. However, even worse than the frame rate issues, was the pop-in. There was nothing I could do to stop the severe pop-in that seemingly got worse, the longer you played the game.
The other big issue is the lack of a tutorial. I had no idea what I was doing, but I think I was able to figure most of it out, except for the runes. I still have no idea where they are or what they look like or what you're supposed to do if you see one. This game is basically a corn maze where you find clues to figure out the dark entity. You check out bones, you check out for footprints, & you look out for runes. You then test them out and I thought I had figured that out, but apparently not. Again, there is no tutorial anywhere for VR.
You have full locomotion, along with smooth or snap turning. You can choose degree of snap turn or speed of smooth turn. You play seated. Interactions are mostly point & click or carry the item. Very basic stuff.
If I had paid more than $5 USD (release sale less than $5), then I would have given this game a negative review. Due to the budget price & the potential, I am deciding to be generous and give it a neutral recommendation. I would say, but only to support VR development. Maybe in the future this will be a pleasant VR experience. Or maybe not.
Rate 5/10.
If you enjoyed my review, please consider joining my Steam Curator Group. You can join here: