Miasmata
| Miasmata | |
|---|---|
| [[File:]] | |
| Developer(s) | IonFX Studios |
| Designer(s) | Joe Johnson Bob Johnson |
| Engine | MILO |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows |
| Release | November 28, 2012 |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Miasmata is an independent video game designed by Joe and Bob Johnson. It was released on Steam on November 28, 2011 as part of their Steam Greenlight program. Players control Robert Hughes, a plague-stricken scientist, as he explores a seemingly uninhabited island, seeking out medicinal plants in an attempt to find a cure.
Gameplay
Miasmata is a first-person survival horror game in which you attempt to navigate your ailing protagonist across treacherous terrain and past an enigmatic, panther-like "creature" in pursuit of medicinal plants that may cure him. Controls are simple, but limited; you can walk, run, sneak, and jump to get around, and you can carry one object at a time for use as a weapon. However, your disease severely limits what you're capable of. Sprinting for more than a short time will leave you winded and staggering, jumping is little more than an awkward hop, and swimming more than a very short distance is almost certainly lethal. On top of that, your disease rapidly dehydrates you if you don't drink water regularly, and while you do carry a small canteen with you, this is not enough for long trips inland or when stuck in the wilderness at night. Other threats include falling down steep cliffs and being stalked by the island's territorial creature, both of which cause damage which is presented in the form of "fever." As you become more feverish, your vision blurs and your movement deteriorates, making it significantly more difficult to find your way around.
You can ameliorate the effects of your disease by taking medication you concoct at research stations. Simple medicines can reduce your fever, tonics can temporarily boost your strength and perception, and some difficult-to-prepare concoctions can permanently enhance your capabilities, making island exploration much less intimidating. Medicines can be produced by finding plants (each of which only grow on certain parts of the island), taking them back to a research camp, spending some time analyzing them, and then processing them at a chemical synthesis station. Not all camps have both research and synthesis stations, and taking damage causes you to drop any items you were carrying (potentially down cliffs or into inaccessible bodies of water), so recovering rare plants from isolated regions of the island can be extremely difficult.
Beyond that, the game also features a novel and fairly realistic cartography system. Unlike most games, which simply map out your surroundings as you travel, your character can only map out an area once he's used triangulation to determine exactly where he is relative to everything else. While looking at the map, you can fill in everything within your line of sight by noting the relative locations of at least two other man-made objects. Although it's possible to simply navigate the island from memory, spending some time fleshing out your map can prove life-saving when lost in the woods.