It's the second of four horror themed newsletters! Four horror games, each one can be finished in a couple of hours tops and each one is very, very easy to get running under emulation on pretty much anything you have in your house, should you wish to play along with these this Halloween. If you need any help or advice in getting these games running, hit me up on Twitter, slide into my DMs or just reply to this newsletter (which sends me an email, and I'll fire you a reply!) and I'll try and sort you out.

Twisted Firestarter.

It's not often you get to play a game that was so far ahead of the curve upon its original release that it feels like it must've been developed by a fucking time traveller. Jeff Tunnell, I'm onto you, mate. NINETEEN EIGHTY NINE. Six years before Resident Evil. Three years before Alone In The Dark. This is a full-on survival horror game in the way that we know them released so far in advance of those two key titles. We're going to break this down to the main things a game needs to be classed as survival horror and how Project Firestart approaches them but first, an overview.

You play as Agent Jon Hawking, who is tasked with investigating the research ship 'Prometheus' after contact with those aboard was lost. You need to retrieve proof of the scientific research that took place on the ship and then destroy the thing if it has been compromised. Needless to say, it has - the Prometheus has been overrun with monsters created by a genetic engineering program that was taking place onboard. Turns out, these were the product of a project to create a species capable of mining ore from asteroids in extreme conditions but some rogue scientist tweaked the DNA to create super soldiers. The experiment goes wrong and mindless killing machines capable of asexual reproduction slaughter everyone onboard, except for one of the rogue scientists and one other scientist - a woman called Mary - who are in cryosleep, making the whole operation even more complex. Find the VHS tape (!) containing the data, prime the self-destruct mechanism and get off the ship with any survivors.

I mean, you can replace a lot of that with things like "S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team", "Arklay Mansion", "Rogue Agent Albert Wesker" or "Zombies" and you've basically got a classic survival horror setup! Anyway, it isn't just the plot that hits a bunch of the tropes that went on to become well established within the genre but a whole load of other things that make up the DNA of all things survival horror. Here's a bunch of stuff that Project Firestart was doing three years before Alone in the bloody Dark.

FIXED CAMERAS

Okay, so there's only the two possible 'angles' but that's a whole one more than most other games from the time period! You either have an isometric viewpoint of a room that you can explore and interact with background elements or a completely side on horizontal view for when you're in the Prometheus' corridors. Within these two views, they manage to squeeze out quite a lot of cinematic variety - shots through external windows and a pretty impressive view from the bridge, for instance.

CUTSCENES

Another way that Project Firestart creates a cinematic vibe is through some primitive but really effective cutscenes. Close ups of the bodies scattered around the ship trigger in certain areas. Throughout the game, as key events unfold upon the ship, like characters waking up from cryosleep or the growth and evolution of the monsters, you get short sequences that keep the narrative moving along, no matter what it is you happen to be doing at the time.

ENVIRONMENTAL STORYTELLING & JOURNALS

Two staples of the survival horror formula, there's a few things like the aforementioned bodies scattered around, with one memorable early game moment even being the now super cliché "dying lad has written a message on the wall with blood". There's clear signs of a struggle and when you get to the area where the experiment was taking place you can see how the monsters escaped the holding pen. There's also rooms that are simply there to add a bit of life to the Prometheus - a kitchen, entertainment rooms, bedrooms etc - that serve no other real purpose other than to make the play environment seem more like a real place.

More importantly, however, are the various text logs you can access at terminals throughout the ship. As well as obvious stuff, like explanations of the experiments and diaries of the events that have taken place, there's some crucial stuff you need to find, including logs that outline ways to destroy the super mutant monster that appears during the game and can't be killed by conventional weaponry.

LIMITED RESOURCES

You can get a laser gun to fight back against the monsters but they take around eight shots to kill and you have very limited ammunition, which can be replenished at one of the two storage rooms on the ship. Keeping a well stocked magazine is crucial to survival, but the game is on a time limit, so you need to make clear calls as to when to head to a storage room to grab more laser charges. There's also a few medical kits attached to walls dotted around the Prometheus and are the only way to recover health, so keeping an eye on where they are and when to use them is an extremely important part of keeping old Jonny Hawkings alive.

RACE AGAINST TIME

Several key points during Project Firestart have an outcome dictated by time. When the rogue scientist wakes up from cryosleep he leaves the door open, meaning there's a certain amount of time you have to get to Mary, who is still asleep in her pod and get her to safety or she'll be killed by the monsters (in particularly gruesome fashion). Your ship is blown up shortly afterwards and the power to the Prometheus is cut by a saboteur after another amount of time, which needs to be resolved before you can use any alternative means of escape. There's also the monsters, who have an egg that is slowly hatching and eventually will release a sort-of super monster that is immune to your laser fire and you have to run from until you can figure out a way to get rid of it. Finally, the whole game is on a two hour hard timer before your bosses remotely detonate the Prometheus under the assumption the whole operation has been compromised.

THE UNSTOPPABLE FORCE

As mentioned above, at some point during the playthrough the monsters will hatch an egg and you'll be pursued by a new one that can't be killed by your weapons and is much, much faster. By reading the logs found on terminals you can read up on things that the scientists found that can kill the monsters when standard firepower fails. You can either lure it to the freezer in the kitchen and lock it inside, take it to a specific corridor where you can switch off the oxygen, trap it in a room where the Prometheus' laser field is contained and switch that on or you can take it to the reactor core and open the radiation shield then lock it in that room. You can also kite it into one of the two storage rooms and shoot the ammo, which will blow the thing to pieces but prevent you from being able to restock from there for the rest of the run.

HUMANS ARE THE REAL MENACE

The rogue scientist who wakes up from cryosleep in the first five minutes or so of play time is a thorn in your side, destroying your ship then cutting the power to the the Prometheus, plunging you into darkness and requiring you to find your way to the power room to switch it back on before you can escape. When you do escape, he tries to jump you as you fly away from the explosion and you can either press the fire button to knock him out and finish the game or if you just wait he'll shoot you and take control of the shuttle and escape. The first Wesker??

NON LINEAR EXPLORATION OF A LIMITED SIZE SPACE

All the best survival horror games have a unique place that at first seems like a labyrinth of room and corridors but by the end of it, you know it as if it was your own home. The Resident Evil mansion is obviously the best example of this, but its something that I feel is an important part of the genre because, as you slowly become more comfortable within the space, as you familiarise yourself with it, the designers can start pulling the rug out from underneath you. The Prometheus is a bit of a maze but you soon learn how to navigate your way around by corridor name and use of the map that came packaged with the game (which you'll need to find online, unless you fancy paying £500 for a copy, once again, shout out to piracy and preservation). When the power gets cut by the rogue scientist, you can no longer read the names of the corridors on their walls, so you best have been paying attention and remembering what leads where while the lights were still on!

MULTIPLE ENDINGS

Depending on your actions during the game, you can get many different endings. My first run through the game seemed like a success because I managed to find the VHS tape full of proof of the dodgy science taking place on the Prometheus and managed to turn the power back on, escape in a ship, blew the Prometheus to bits and stopped the rogue scientist from taking me out, only for me to run out of oxygen days later because I had no one to pick me up in deep space! I had also left poor Mary to the monsters. A perfect run involves you needing to get the evidence, getting to Mary within five minutes of the cryochamber room being opened, taking her to the garbage disposal and locking her in there, switching the power back on and defeating the Super Monster by whatever means, ejecting the garbage pod into space, radioing for someone to pick you up, setting the self destruct system then escaping within the time limit and taking out the rogue scientist. That way, both you and Mary will be picked up and taken to safety, the mission complete. Sounds easy, right? You can even just turn around at the start and walk straight back onto your ship and leave - again, something that you see in a lot of games where you can shape the narrative but for 1989 that is wild.

AN EXPLOSIVE FINALE

If you didn't set something to self destruct and escape while a timer ticks down, did you even play a survival horror game?

GORE!

You can't have a survival horror game without a fair amount of the red stuff and for a Commodore 64 game, Project Firestart is GRIM. There's bodies everywhere and when you get the occasional close up, they give you some impressively horrible detail considering the system's power. Check out what happens if you don't get to Mary in time!

As you can now see, Project Firestart is a real pioneer in bringing a cinematic horror experience to videogames, still plays real well in 2022 and has ideas that stand up remarkably well even alongside some modern games. It's a C64 exclusive and without a doubt, one of the finest games on that platform.

THANKS FOR READING.

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