That Which Gave Chase

pros: pet the doggies!!!!
cons: you have to shoot reindeers >...<
all you need to know about this game is that there's more than meets the pixelated eye. it's a journey into the surreal, where the atmosphere is as whimsical as it is perplexing, so be ready to rethink all things that has happened. and if you unable to find your way around as quickly as I, you should relax - getting lost in this eerie white desert is impossible, as the game is perfectly friendly and will always guide you where to go
truly, it was an extraordinary gaming experience, definitely.....I wasn't expecting to see body horror at all

It's good. I didn't get it but I still enjoyed myself. Time heals all wounds, but in a place without time, what will stop the bleeding?

Alright. That Which Gave Chase is done and dusted. This was a weird game, and what I'd refer to as horror adjacent rather than actually horror. Something I'm encountering a bit lately in gaming. It was a pretty cool if somewhat abstract experience.
The story as presented is that you, a Musher (dog sled pilot guy), is hired by a scientist to bring him to a remote research team deep in the Arctic. Very quickly, you realize that not all is well and nothing is quite what it seems. The story is where the abstract part of my description fully takes hold. It seems a research team found some hallucinogenics, possibly provided by a transdimensional entity. Or maybe by an Elder God. Or maybe none of the above, lol. And craziness ensued. IDK. This game leaves a lot open to interpretation. One thing is for sure. You and your dogs have to try to find a way out of this frozen wasteland. Will you be bringing this insanity back with you to society? Maaaaaybe. Your scientist companion is pretty creepy btw. There are parts where he looks back at you with a weird smile on his face that is somewhat unsettling.
The gameplay is broken up into sledding portions, some hunting portions, some exploration portions, and a little bit of looking around cabins reading notes. The sledding is actually pretty interesting inasmuch as the sled is sensitive to uneven ground and can easily tip over. Which does really factor into a chase sequence midway through the game. The hunting portions also change to a survival portion later on. Both feature you shooting stuff with a rifle. Exploration does happen on foot and on a sled depending on the part of the game. You have your trusty lantern with you of course.
That's kind of the game overall. You are in a winter wasteland which features blizzards and such. Your companion is a weirdo. But you can pet your huskies, so that's comforting. This game leans into surrealism a bit, and while the correct paths are mostly obvious, you will still definitely feel like you are lost and simply stumbling into events. Which I believe is an intentional gameplay decision by the dev.
The audio in this game is all world sounds, which are cool. All dialogue is conveyed via subtitles. The graphics have an almost PSX kind of vibe, but are a bit more modern, and the credits imply that all the assets are done by actual artists. It's a sparse world you will interact with, but a reasonably cool looking one.
I did not encounter any technical issues and played using k/m.
This game is currently $2.49 while the Steam Halloween sale in ongoing (at the time of this writing), and that is about the most I would want to pay for it. That price seems like the appropriate one IMO. The game is worth a look if you don't mind weird experimental experiences.
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I feel good about the medium of games when i can get two games on sale about the experience of dog sledding and one feels like a hallmark movie and the other feels like a david lynch film

Weird, creepy, and cool.
Great atmosphere, fun yet simplistic sled mechanics, a good time all around.

i'd play an extended game of riding around, dropping off arctic strangers, and uncovering a deeper mystery.

That Which Gave Chase is an artistic look at isolation, turning open spaces and a person to talk to into suffocating paranoia and claustrophobic loneliness. The game revels in not ever showing it's full hand, making you doubt everything. I went into playing completely blind (which I would suggest you do aswell) and I constantly kept making new theories about what was going on. Who is the stranger? Who am I? What am I?
The game is great albeit flawed. It has a perfect runtime and tells a narratively interesting story that clearly shows passion above all else. What I would have wanted to see is for the story to get more adventurous and obscure, there really are no limits to what you want to tell. Because even though the story is told beautifully it's predictable. Still the game is great and with such a short runtime there really exists no padding. All the silence helps immerse you and build up the tension in your head.
Also you can pet the dogs.