The Quarry
Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2025 11:30 pm
Got this one in a Humble bundle several months ago. Started it once with my horror fan daughter watching, but it felt like a slog. LOTS of dialogue and cut scenes. Stopping playing and set it aside.
Well, it's October and I was looking for something horror, so I jumped back in. Starting out, I hated the controls. My inner Cake was coming out. They really turned me off. I was playing with a gamepad, which seemed to be the recommended way. Then I dumped that and went keyboard and mouse. MUCH better. All the mechanics come off as a bit daunting at first, but they're really simple.
I also adjusted my expectations. This is not a normal game. This is an interactive horror movie. Point being, you're going to watch a LOT. The story is also very deliberately paced. You get a sniff of what's coming in the prologue/tutorial. Once you hit the main chapters there's a lot of character development as things start to unfold.
How it's a game is through different ways of interacting:
-Quick time events: Very easy, but if you miss one, it can get someone killed. Or...maybe you intentionally miss it because sometimes that leads to a better outcome.
-Decisions: These come in two flavors, well, three. There's the two choices (left or right on your keyboard), timed two choices on your keyboard, and timed decisions that just require you to click the mouse or do nothing.
-Exploration: There's "evidence" laying around various places (don't worry, it's very obviously pointed out) that can fill you in on bits of the story and might alter some things? Not sure on that. I do know there are also tarot cards you find that are not as obvious as they will only appear when you explore in the right area. They appear in the foreground and you must click your mouse to "find" it. These play a role for someone I'll discuss in a bit.
Your choices matter. Play the game however you want. Want the pretty girl to be a bitch? You can do that. Most of your decisions will be based on how you see the characters behaving, logic, and your knowledge of the lore. Some of your choices don't have an effect until later, some right away. For example: There's a choice I had to make with someone at a point in the game, let's say late-ish. I made my choice based what I had learned, and then out of curiosity, looked it up. Had I made the other choice that character was dead. What's cool is that I had made a wrong choice earlier even though it was based on what I knew and assumed about the story. I was able to recover, but it punished me for making a choice based on being the player and not appropriately responding as someone in the story. Well done.
There's no real combat, but there are a couple of action sequences that are about quick time events. Ok, there is "combat", but it's VERY quick each time. This isn't a spoiler, but you there are a couple of guns and it's a timed sequence of shoot or don't, and making sure you line it up right. The aiming is pretty easy, it's the decisions that are tougher.
They claim there are 186 possible endings, but that's a bit of hyperbole. Most endings would be the same except X died or lived.
I haven't even gotten to the cast yet, which is pretty solid and all the characters look like their actor. Here's the IMDB page and there's a lot of familiar names there. They all do a great job, although I would argue the bigger names had far less of an impact, and I appreciated that. Two of those names are much bigger than the others and could have overshadowed the whole thing so their roles are smaller. A couple of the characters I really came to like, which is a testament to the actors and writers.
The story is about counselors at a summer camp. It's the end of summer, the kids have left, and the counselors are getting ready to leave. That's where the story starts. Ok, it actually starts in the prologue, but the less said about the that, the better your experience. I will say that the story isn't what you will expect going in, and while it has the usual horror flaws, it doesn't disappoint. It's good. Not great, but good.
Oh, the tarot cards are used as kind of hints by the narrator. A mysterious woman who tells you what they mean and then offers to show you a small glimpse of what could be happening in your playthrough. She speaks to you, the player, which is a bit odd, but separates the chapters. I think she hurts the immersion a bit, but I understand she was important to help with the pacing and story telling.
The graphics are pretty great throughout too. Sometimes the characters look almost photorealistic, although you notice quirks that remind you they're just animations of the real actors. For me, it was the left side of the mouth. No idea why, but for more than one character, it was a pretty obvious flaw in certain scenes.
This is currently $60 on Steam, so yay Humble as I got it and 6 other games for $12. I don't really recommend games at that price. However, I would at half that. This was a very fun and immersive experience. I felt like I was in a horror movie. At least as close to one as current technology allows.
Well, it's October and I was looking for something horror, so I jumped back in. Starting out, I hated the controls. My inner Cake was coming out. They really turned me off. I was playing with a gamepad, which seemed to be the recommended way. Then I dumped that and went keyboard and mouse. MUCH better. All the mechanics come off as a bit daunting at first, but they're really simple.
I also adjusted my expectations. This is not a normal game. This is an interactive horror movie. Point being, you're going to watch a LOT. The story is also very deliberately paced. You get a sniff of what's coming in the prologue/tutorial. Once you hit the main chapters there's a lot of character development as things start to unfold.
How it's a game is through different ways of interacting:
-Quick time events: Very easy, but if you miss one, it can get someone killed. Or...maybe you intentionally miss it because sometimes that leads to a better outcome.
-Decisions: These come in two flavors, well, three. There's the two choices (left or right on your keyboard), timed two choices on your keyboard, and timed decisions that just require you to click the mouse or do nothing.
-Exploration: There's "evidence" laying around various places (don't worry, it's very obviously pointed out) that can fill you in on bits of the story and might alter some things? Not sure on that. I do know there are also tarot cards you find that are not as obvious as they will only appear when you explore in the right area. They appear in the foreground and you must click your mouse to "find" it. These play a role for someone I'll discuss in a bit.
Your choices matter. Play the game however you want. Want the pretty girl to be a bitch? You can do that. Most of your decisions will be based on how you see the characters behaving, logic, and your knowledge of the lore. Some of your choices don't have an effect until later, some right away. For example: There's a choice I had to make with someone at a point in the game, let's say late-ish. I made my choice based what I had learned, and then out of curiosity, looked it up. Had I made the other choice that character was dead. What's cool is that I had made a wrong choice earlier even though it was based on what I knew and assumed about the story. I was able to recover, but it punished me for making a choice based on being the player and not appropriately responding as someone in the story. Well done.
There's no real combat, but there are a couple of action sequences that are about quick time events. Ok, there is "combat", but it's VERY quick each time. This isn't a spoiler, but you there are a couple of guns and it's a timed sequence of shoot or don't, and making sure you line it up right. The aiming is pretty easy, it's the decisions that are tougher.
They claim there are 186 possible endings, but that's a bit of hyperbole. Most endings would be the same except X died or lived.
I haven't even gotten to the cast yet, which is pretty solid and all the characters look like their actor. Here's the IMDB page and there's a lot of familiar names there. They all do a great job, although I would argue the bigger names had far less of an impact, and I appreciated that. Two of those names are much bigger than the others and could have overshadowed the whole thing so their roles are smaller. A couple of the characters I really came to like, which is a testament to the actors and writers.
The story is about counselors at a summer camp. It's the end of summer, the kids have left, and the counselors are getting ready to leave. That's where the story starts. Ok, it actually starts in the prologue, but the less said about the that, the better your experience. I will say that the story isn't what you will expect going in, and while it has the usual horror flaws, it doesn't disappoint. It's good. Not great, but good.
Oh, the tarot cards are used as kind of hints by the narrator. A mysterious woman who tells you what they mean and then offers to show you a small glimpse of what could be happening in your playthrough. She speaks to you, the player, which is a bit odd, but separates the chapters. I think she hurts the immersion a bit, but I understand she was important to help with the pacing and story telling.
The graphics are pretty great throughout too. Sometimes the characters look almost photorealistic, although you notice quirks that remind you they're just animations of the real actors. For me, it was the left side of the mouth. No idea why, but for more than one character, it was a pretty obvious flaw in certain scenes.
This is currently $60 on Steam, so yay Humble as I got it and 6 other games for $12. I don't really recommend games at that price. However, I would at half that. This was a very fun and immersive experience. I felt like I was in a horror movie. At least as close to one as current technology allows.