Cold And Afraid is a PS1-style murder mystery aiming to be "Law & Order by Squaresoft in 1999"

rockpapershotgun.com:

Indie developers love making retro-styled games that look like PlayStation games you rented from Blockbuster and blitzed through in a feverish winter weekend. I'm glad, so here's another. Cold And Afraid is a murder mystery that aims to channel the 1990s with chunky characters and lots of lovely dithering. You play a detective out to stop a serial killer with a grisly pattern who's preying on the young women of an unnamed US city. On top of the obligatory tank controls, it aims to have "consequential dialogue choices" and a "Time Event system where you must meet certain people at specific times to forward different story threads". Ah, forgive me, you're here to see the chunky limbs. Here's a recent trailer that shows 'em.

"The retro style indie game trend has gone crazy," says solo developer Sunamii. "But I want this to be the greatest one you've ever played.

"In a genre where visuals are given priority over substance, Cold and Afraid places consequential dialogue choices, and the relationships you develop with characters at the heart of the experience."

Its cinematic slant reminds me a bit of Indigo Prophecy (that's Fahrenheit for you US folk), which was technically a PS2 game but let's not split hairs. Cold And Afraid has been in development for a bit, but we've not reported on it yet, probably because nobody here loves the warping textures and jagged vectors of Sony's glorious grey box as much as I do. "I'm working hard on getting a demo ready," says the developer. Take your time, my friend. I encourage cookery, as the youth say.

Cold And Afraid is not the developer's only PS1-styled project. They've also listed dungeon explorer Twilight Bastion on Steam. It started as a homage to PlayStation game Vagrant Story but shifted a little in feeling as the creator worked on it.

"As development progressed," they say in a xeet, "it has become more of a mix between Demon's Souls x Symphony of the Night."

Those are some tough acts to follow. As a solo dev, Sunamii seems