Three things you should know about this game:

1> The sound design is fantastic and really acts to set the mood of this retro techno-thriller
2> There are multiple endings which adds replay value in what would otherwise be a very short game
3> Androids are creepy

Best when purchased on sale but if you do get around to playing Uncanny Valley - Enjoy!!

Runs very unstable, got quite a few glitches; savegames are deleted when closing and reopening the game... all in all it feels like a beta version - luckily the game isnt *that* long (in a single play-through).

When it comes to its story/gameplay; it remembers on the "old" survival-horror games (like the developer already said). Sometimes its a bit hard to figure out what to do next, because there are no hints/highlights, when, for example, figuring out what you can do with the fire extinguisher (dont want to spoiler anything :P).

Its "multiple endings" are great, especially if you are interested in them and trying arround random stuff.

Maybe its only me, but I hoped to get a longer story and more "horror" from this game. More scenes with enemies, more "puzzles", more choices.

All in all its a nice game with a huge potential... sadly a bit too short (even regarding all endings)... with a content update this will definatly go on my "must bang"-list!

Right off the bat, Uncanny Valley gets points for doing something very few horror games do. It's a game that purports to give you control over the story, letting you actions affect the outcome. If you played Home, it's the same thing that game tried to do and failed completely at. Uncanny Valley actually makes it work, and the result is an intense and engaging game that you REALLY have to meet halfway.

You're Tom, an unremarkable everyman with some remarkably terrible dreams. You take a job as the night watchman at some abandoned facility up in the mountains, trading off with some fat jerkoff named Buck on watching the empty offices and halls. Right away, the game makes good on its promise. After Buck gives you the 60-second tour, you're free to wander wherever and do whatever you want. There's the facility proper with 4 floors, a warehouse, and a secure sector to explore, there's the apartment complex and its 4 floors of rooms, and there are some smaller areas like the woods and generator building. Within these mysterious environs you will find keycards, cassette tapes, and PCs still logged into their company emails for some weird reason. There's not a huge amount of stuff to interact with, but there's a lot of ground to cover and some clever connections between all the pieces.

The catch is that you still have a job to do. You're supposed to show up to your shift on time, stay in the facility until it ends, and get back to bed before you pass out. That doesn't leave a whole lot of time to comb the whole place, so you really need to pay attention to the clues and follow up on them intelligently instead of turning the whole building upside-down. You certainly have the option of going rogue and doing whatever you want, but there are consequences for that. It's worth trying, too, because there's a surprising number of fates Tom can meet, depending on what you do.

That really turns out to be the heart of the game, how much you're willing to experiment and work to get the whole story. I bungled my first playthrough so badly that I got unceremoniously thrust right into the dark secret of the place, which I again failed to escape and got possibly the worst end I have ever seen for a protagonist. On my second attempt I managed to work out some pretty vague puzzles and escaped the whole security job portion of the game entirely, moving into a proper survival horror crawl with weapons and healing items and video tapes and more. There was an entirely different back half to the game I hadn't even seen the first time! And that's cool, very cool, but it's going to leave you cold on the game if you don't work to find that. I mean, imagine if you never found the second castle in Symphony of the Night.

The journey to uncover the game's secrets is a pretty harrowing one, as well. The creature designs and animations are on point, as are the sound cues and music. I think I got my biggest scare in recent memory from this game thanks to a particularly excellent encounter design. That care and detail unfortunately doesn't extend to the game's inventory system, which can be cumbersome to deal with, but also somewhat underused. There are numerous bugs with the interface as well, with menus and interactables not getting proper focus and having your character scoot around as you try to manipulate something else.

Polish gripes aside, the only thing you need to ask yourself before picking up Uncanny Valley is, how hard are you willing to work to enjoy it? If you only spend an hour on it running around the empty offices, you're bound to be disappointed. It's only when you dig in, make the connections, and commit the time and attention that its brilliance starts to show through. That means it's definitely not for everyone, but for my part it's worth the effort.

I am a Security Guard who works the night shift in a creepy old warehouse building, playing a video game about a Security Guard working the Night Shift in a creepy old warehouse building.


F*ck my life.

This is a game of choices you don't realize you're making. Where you walk, what you do, and who you interact with all help decide where you'll end up by the game's conclusion, dictating which one of several endings you'll receive. That ending may or may not make sense to you when it arrives, either, as this is also a game of acquiring information.
Confusion and misdirection abound in Uncanny Valley, and the only way you'll clear the muddied waters is through multiple playthroughs and careful maneuvering against the unseen, unknown forces that want to bring an end to your life.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=435726535 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=439166680
Unlocked all achievements!

Uncanny Valley, the debut title from Cowardly Creations is a mix of horror, adventure, and consequence-based gameplay. Drawing inspiration from Human's old Clock Tower games, Silent Hill, Twin Peaks, and perhaps the game mechanic from CoC: Dark Corners of The Earth as well, it's an interesting if flawed experience.

In Uncanny Valley, You're playing as Tom who accepts a job as night watchman at the abandoned facility way out in the middle of nowhere. Besides that building and the apartment complex that used to house its staff, there's nothing else for miles. The only people you can talk to is either Buck, the day guard or Eve, the maid at your apartment building. Neither of them has a whole lot to say, so you're left to your own devices, patrolling the corridors of the main building overnight, with the working shifts lasting around seven minutes, to make sure nobody is messing with it and then going home to go to sleep after your shift. Day in, day out. Except there's all these computers lying around. And tapes. And videos. I mean, it's not like you have much else to do during your shift, so you may as well play around with them, right?

Well as much as I like to explore the facility and try to solve the mystery behind it, the selling point for this game is undoubtedly its branching story, which ultimately leads to one of several possible endings, like a Choose Your Own Adventure tale, and this is where the problem lies.

It seems to me that the developers were far more interested in making consequences to your failures rather than add in deaths that would require multiple playthroughs of the same area. For example, when enemies show up, this just means that you get beaten down and the available suite of endings changes. Enemies will also just give you game-changing injuries, such as chest wounds which cut down run time, a broken arm that makes weapon use impossible, or a broken leg that removes your ability to run.All of these things might make the game needlessly confusing and unfair, except that the game is very short. An hour or two is often all you need to play through it. So when you know what you're doing, the first half of the game where you work your night watch job becomes really redundant, but you still have to play through it each time to get to the game's more challenging second half. This can waste up to a half hour of your time on stuff you've already done, and it gets old real quick. This might not be a big issue on its own, but when enemies show up in the second half, things get worse. A simple screw-up can put you on the road to the exact same ending you got last time, and now you'll have to replay the whole game again for another attempt. You can try reloading an old save to make another attempt, but the autosave system often makes that impossible, and even goes so far as to delete your save when you get an ending. So, something that was meant to remove the annoying repetition of death in games actually has consequences that make you repeat the ENTIRE GAME instead, which is a whole lot worse than just repeating a small section. With the large consequences for failure and the lack of manual saves for me to make another attempt when I wanted to, it just wastes too much of my time on needless multiple playthroughs at the moment.

Overall, I love this game and would really like to explore it more, but I can't justify playing through another hour of it only to get the same ending again, even when following a guide. There’s a chance you will play the game a second, third, or maybe fourth time in order to experience the different endings, but if you, like me, felt satisfied after the first playthrough, the desire to replay it just plummets. Uncanny Valley is an interesting game with many great ideas, but without some saves to pull from, I just can't bring myself to keep trying for the other endings and recommend the game to other people, even for ten bucks.

Pros:

* Some clever puzzles
* Creepy atmosphere
* Androids draped in human flesh & blood
* Getting chased by a flaming Flesh-Droid

Cons:

* Controls a tad bit clunky
* Not enough sprint (Christ, is this guy a smoker in his past life or something?)
* Guns won't save you here
* Buck

All in all, this is a real solid side scoll horror game that's got a good amount of replability going and if you're a fan of pixelated horror, give this a go.

The more I played Uncanny Valley the more I realized that pixel graphics are just as capable of scaring me as any FPS horror. However Uncanny Valley brings in some really fresh ideas and ways of dealing with monsters, story decisions, and death.
The story is front and center here first and foremost. Albeit the way that it is told is through observation. You read what became of the former employees of the company you now work for. You listen to audio recordings and eventually even see video logs. This all changes in the second act of the game. You become front and center and every decision you make can lead to an ending. Speaking of endings. Uncanny Valley has quite a few of them. You are free to do what you want and go where you want just about. The developer does a nice job of making sure that scenarios the player can come up with are handled. Never is this more present then in the second act. Where if you make a mistake and get caught. Its all over. Start over and do better. This is a great and bad thing. While the game does instill fear in you and makes you think and be careful. One who doesn't know what their doing is doomed to repeat the first act of the game over and over until they read a walkthrough or figure out the puzzles. The game only features one game save file and that's it.
The game features a unique combat/heath system. Where you tend to wounds and reload your gun. While the game is a Survival horror it almost plays like a point and click adventure game. Criss-crossing between these genres seamlessly and without letting you know.
Uncanny Valley has some really good ideas and executes them effectively for the most part. There is a few blemishes in the replayability and weird wonky bugs. However these are all minute and don't detract from gameplay. In all I can't wait to see what Cowardly Creations cooks up next.

I made a video review to show off some of the features and gameplay of this game!
https://youtu.be/cathIteVgnw
I hope you enjoy!
Martyr

Full disclosure: review copy provided by developer/publisher!


It's the end of my first week at this place. I - heh - I was excited for the quiet, for the isolation. I've learned this past week that I would kill, ♥♥♥♥ING KILL for the din of a busy restaurant, for a socially inept slacktivist with a petition to invade my personal space, even for a shouting match with my brother.


It's funny when you think about it.


What I would give to see another... lost my train of thought. It's hard to stay coherent when you're bleeding to death.


Is a nightmare still a nightmare if you can't wake up?


You know what's the worst thing about this?


They will NEVER find me. Three Laws my ♥♥♥.


Uncanny Valley isn't that place where children eat vegetables smothered in ranch dressing and it isn't exclusive to sex sequences in David Cage games. The uncanny valley is a theory that suggests robots and CGI too lifelike (but still "off" or unrealistic in that uniquely robot/CGI way) is SUPER, SUPER CREEPS.

I subscribe to this theory, personally.

Uncanny Valley is a story as old as time: Tom, our hero, managed to score a security job at a facility tucked away in the mountains where The Shining was filmed. Over the course of the two hour game you'll explore the facility, shoot the ♥♥♥♥ with your coworker Buck, and unearth horrible secrets you should probably not have unearthed. It's classic survival horror down to a T, and Uncanny Valley nails the mechanics and atmosphere admirably.

Uncanny Valley revolves around the night guard job. Tom's shift lasts seven fleeting minutes, which at first seems a little punishing. Muster enough motivation, however, and you can cover a lot of ground during your rounds, checking emails and exploring offices, labs, and warehouses. During Tom's rounds he'll pick up video recordings, audio recordings, and plot progression tools. With each passing night scripted events will occur which, depending on the player's actions, will alter the events resulting in a variety of endings and fail states. I haven't seen a game with such subtle variety since Silent Hill 2 (the thematic opposite of later series entry Silent Hill 5: Back 2 tha Hood).

But is it scary?

If you watch my video you may determine that no, it is not. Which is what I thought initially! And I'm pretty easy to frighten. But you'd be wrong to think such naive thoughts. While it isn't overtly terrifying, it is... creepy. Unsettling. Sinister. It plays a lot like a Japanese horror game where you can't quite shake the feeling that you're being watched by something bigger and badder than you that's just biding its time, watching you squirm while it finishes its taxes. And I'll be honest with you: I'm a pretty jaded guy. But there were some moments in this game where I was revolted, and that's not a sensation I can say many games have made me experience.

But it isn't all starshine and puppy farts, unfortunately. Besides some weirdly written dialogue, wonky voice acting, and typos here and there there are some bugs. Manipulable objects can sometimes be pushed out of frame, and Tom will occasionally load into an area and plop down as if he were hovering. Worse still I encountered a bug where Tom's shift would end before it began which led to some Kafkaesque shenanigans where I couldn't make him sleep and he just passed out where he stood after some time (at one point I couldn't even get Buck to leave the office). I'm not sure how frequent this is, and if some of the "bugs" I encountered were just the game being spOoOoky. If you have any trepidation just wait to see what bugs are encountered at launch and hopefully the devs will patch any serious offenders.

All that aside I think Uncanny Valley is an atmospheric, enthralling horror game. Classic survival horror enthusiasts will have fun pursuing the different endings, solving puzzles, and getting out of sticky situations.

...

Anyway, your shift starts soon... oh, you don't look so good. Close your eyes for a bit, I'll keep watch.

Promise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrfRFqE2EV8&index=4&list=LLwz4a4TyKTfxyz819pv3q3w

The cancellation of Silent Hills, and the subsequent removal of P.T. from PSN remains the single biggest blow to Triple-A horror fans in quite some time, if not ever. While Konami continues to burn every bridge that linked them to console games, disappointed horror fans can at least take solace that new and exciting horror games continue to manifest in various places courtesy of Indie devs. There is also the possibility that Hideo Kojima and Guillermo Del Toro will take their abandoned ideas for Silent Hills and kickstart their own horror project free from Konami’s incompetence, but until then we must stop dreaming about the future and partake in the nightmares of the present day horror scene.
Uncanny Valley, the debut title from Cowardly Creations, is a game that very much borrows elements from Silent Hill, Twin Peaks, and other surreal stories of insanity. Players assume the role of Tom, who starts things off fleeing for his life from shadowy pursuers, then waking up from the apparent nightmare to begin his new job as a security guard at a mysterious facility. His only companions at his new job and residence are the overweight and overly cynical Buck and the soft-spoken yet friendly Eve, respectively. Other characters of various classes and corporeal existence come and go throughout the day, but the primary goal is to work each shift and shuffle on home to bed.
The first unique feature of Uncanny Valley is the most noticeable: the visuals. While 2D pixel art is becoming more and more common, particularly with Indie games, it’s still a welcome sight to see the age-old medium used to tell a mature story, such as last year’s Gods Will Be Watching or the 2012 cult hit Lone Survivor. What Uncanny Valley lacks in facial detail, it makes up for with expertly crafted animations that convey what Tom is feeling at all times, whether it be pain, fatigue or fear.
The second unique feature is what the game is missing, and that is the ability to fail in the traditional sense; there are no Game Overs or respawns, even when players fail to evade an inhuman pursuer. The days progress regardless of what action the player takes; whether Tom is completing his job as a security guard or lounging about in his apartment, once his internal clock ticks he’ll cease consciousness and drop to sleep regardless of where he is. Naturally, this results in multiple outcomes as well as multiple endings, which in turn results in multiple playthroughs where players can experiment as much as they want to see where their actions take them throughout the story. Or they could just look up an online guide and follow that instead.
Regardless of how players approach it, Uncanny Valley is an interesting idea that is mostly marred by its technical oversights. Small examples include being forced to turn on the flashlight every time players switch screens, a pitifully short stamina meter for sprinting that takes ages to recharge, and dialogue text that tends to be obscured or cut short due to scripted events. There are also numerous puzzles and situations where the solution is not always clear, and since time progresses regardless of whether or not you succeed, it can prove annoying having to start the game from the beginning because of one botched event.
In the end, Uncanny Valley brings an interesting premise and gameplay features that are plagued by arbitrary mechanics and technical limitations. With a bit more polish, Cowardly Creations’ next game may be the one to put the Indie studio on the map. Until then, give their first experiment a try once curiosity (or a Steam sale) puts you in the mood.