Misery is a look into a Stalker-inspired world filled with monsters, anomalies and sometimes the odd polkadot-clad dwarf, brought to you by Playtypus Entertainment. It really does put you into a miserable situation where you relive the emission event over and over slowly gathering materials to craft and scrape an existence together to try and not only survive but thrive.
First of all you are made to gather your things from your house as quickly as you can. Sixty seconds is all that remains between you and oblivion as you scramble to grab whatever you can to make your first steps that little bit more tolerable after the emission hits. Clothes were my priority as you can’t really hold much if you don’t have anything to put those items into.
Once the explosion is over and you’ve made it into your bunker you crawl back out to notice that your house is gone and you need to venture out to gather supplies in order to survive and try to last as long as you can — through whatever you can find.
This is a difficult game to get to grips with, its tutorial does a great job of explaining how to build things and survive but when you put it into practice it can take some time to find the materials that you need early on to start rolling… at least in terms of progression.
You can find all sorts of materials out in the world including guns, melee weapons, valuables and much more. These can all be used to assist you in waiting out your days underground or being sold at the market found just as you leave your little safe compound. You can also steal most furniture that you find out in the world to help decorate your bunker or use as storage so that you don’t just leave piles of junk all over your nice dusty floor.
Misery’s visuals are quite basic but definitely lend a hand to that soviet-era Stalker vibe it’s going for. Not every game needs to be graphically demanding to create a good atmosphere and Misery is proof of this, creating dramatic moments purely from its aesthetic.
Not everything is doom and gloom in its world though, as you can sometimes find semi-friendly people and creatures like wildlife and dwarves that you can feed vodka to. The dwarves can then be used to power your base if you keep them thoroughly stoked with bottles of vodka and can be quite an efficient power source if you need some extra juice for the generator.
For a deceptively simple looking game Misery features quite an in-depth building system with power supplies that need to be hooked together with cables, furniture and storage, various types of power and many different ways to build farms to create crops letting you use your space to the best of your ability.
Don’t be fooled by the plane that flies overhead from time to time. I feel like I’ve been conditioned to see a plane fly overhead and expect it to drop some sort of lot box or airdrop for me to pilfer but in reality this one is here for nothing other than to blow you to smithereens. The plane seems to carpet bomb in a straight line so as soon as you hear it fly overhead you’d better start running for cover because it’s not here to make friends.
If you somehow manage to scrape together enough rubles to buy something in the shop I would heavily recommend going for gear that protects against radiation. Even something as simple as the gas mask can be a real game changer when it comes to exploring some of Misery’s more active zones.
If gas masks are livesavers then sledgehammers are your best friend in Misery, letting you expand your very small base into something much bigger and better suited to an experienced survivor. Do try to get at least one early on to give yourself more space to work with, although the more space you have the darker it gets and the more power you’ll need to keep your larger bunker lit.
Misery was temporarily taken down from Steam after a minor dispute with the devs behind the Stalker series but after a few changes here and there the game is back to Steam and lively as ever.
Misery is definitely an experience best enjoyed with friends. Although it is a true survival game leaving you to fend for yourself it doesn’t currently feature any true goal to work towards leaving you to literally just build, survive, explore, repeat. I do think that if it had a bit of direction added then this game could be something very special, but even in its current state it’s still an experience worth your time.
You can find Misery on Steam.
