Macabre

I enjoy the gameplay loop of hiding from the crawler, collecting items to earn money while completing objectives, and then escaping to finish the mission. In contrast, the looming threat of losing all your items and objective progress if the mission fails makes it a bit stressful, but it becomes rewarding if you succeed. However, it becomes dull due to the AI's behaviour, which depends on the difficulty level.
Difficulty from the starting point of Scary to Extra Scary is easy in terms of dangers, unless you're goofing around, from my experiences with the crawler being rarely seen and shy to say the least.
Still, it does become more demanding when you reach the terrifying difficulty, which is the middle ground of Macabre's difficulty curve, before moving on to Nightmare and above.
Terrifying+ dfficulty, that's when the crawler starts acting like a real threat, with it beginning to creep just out of the player's sightline, much more aggressive in locating the player while also being more intelligent with its behaviour, such as pathfinding quickly, checking hiding spots and near-instant death if found instead of the very forgiving 2-3 hits before death from lower difficulties.
Note that the so-called 'Smart' monster feature, which is supposed to adapt to repeated tricks, traps, or strategies from the player, has not shown much change in AI behaviour besides increasing aggression or trying to flank the player, based on my experiences.
In terms of the environments of Macabre, the first subraft, which is the first map, features a well-developed outbreak forest with its distinctive sounds, visuals, and overall atmosphere. However, it does cause a slight drop in frame rate. I haven't yet unlocked the second subraft, nor do I know if I can unlock it at the moment, since I'm still progressing through the game's Banjo tasks and overall progression, which feels a bit lacking so far.
Overall, I like Macabre's current experience and build, but keep in mind that it feels incomplete due to its limited features, as it is an early access title. I'm really interested in seeing where Macabre will go further down its development path.
Edit 27/9/25: Explained more about the crawler's behaviour with difficulties and the adaptation feature about it.

The Team and I played this and I gotta say its actually really fun to play when you have a group with you, especially when you get to lead the monster to each other or throw the sonic plunger thingy at each others faces. The Time of my play looks short only because I played 2 hours on the playtest before this Early access release today, so I actually have about 3 hours into the game.

My friend and I have now been playing for the past few hours and truly is a creepy, and terrifying game. So far we have worked out how to use majority of the items, but we have both found it somewhat difficult figuring out how the seeker tools actually work. There is no tutorial, no video's, generally not much information to go on, on how to use them. I do hope we can work it out, but would be great to have the information within the game.
I can really see a lot of potential for this game, and I do hope the Devs don't give up on it like other creators have with their game. It's a lot of fun especially with friends. I hope we get new maps soon.

Somebody shit in my pants while I was hiding under a bed from this wendigo looking thing. 11/10, get this if you like horror movies where the monster has the upperhand and want to experience it yourself.

Once unlocking the nightmare and macabre difficulty, the game actually gets pretty scary and nerve-racking because one mistake can end your expedition.

Pretty hyped when they drop new content and other updates.

I've been waiting 2 years to play this since I first saw the trailer, and finally being able to play the early access I love it- For such a new game its a lot of fun, a lot of silly Aussie references, I'm incredibly keen to see where this game goes! <3

this is a well made indie horror extraction game, its currently in early access so it has the jank associated with it but with development time and funding i believe this could be a real gem in the future, hats off to the team and i hope they continue to improve this game