Pizzamakesgames delivers a thoroughly unsettling and surreal text adventure in The Third Kind, where a nightmare of a cliff and a void shocks you awake in the middle of the night, but your house isn't as you remember it. Played as if via an old glitching monitor, you read the s-l-o-w-l-y scrolling text, then click the action buttons at the bottom of the screen to try looking around, taking things, and so forth. People behaving ways that they shouldn't, familiar surroundings suddenly made unfamiliar, these things can be profoundly creepy in a way beyond more in-your face horror, and through the use of flickering imagery and light sound, The Third Kind reels you in. Sadly, there's no way to speed up that crawling text speed, and for some, any atmospheric shine that puts on the proverbial apple may dull quickly once you realize how long it takes to get anywhere or do anything. Its plodding presentation almost seems to discourage experimentation and repeated plays from all but the most patient, since you'll need to repeat a lot of actions and potentially entire sections of the game to get to the end... though it's actually on the short side. It was originally created in one month for the Write a Game Challenge, and for fans of creepy, experimental storytelling, The Third Kind is worth a look, even if it may leave you hungry for more.

Play The Third Kind