Game EXP: The Old Flesh of Nuraga (PC)

[Disclaimer:  I received a review key for The Old Flesh of Nuraga from the developer, Studio Ortica.  The game key was given without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that it be played and content be created.  Unless otherwise noted, all content in the following article is from my own playthrough of this game.]

The Old Flesh of Nuraga
Release Date: August 26, 2026
Systems: Windows, SteamOS, Linux
Publisher: Studio Ortica
Developer: Studio Ortica
Time Spent: 3 Hours
First Play Series on YouTube

I really enjoyed The Old Flesh of Nuraga, although it took a couple of attempts to get the game working.

I first started playing the game on the Steam Deck, and then the game froze on the first loading screen after telling me, "Load Complete."  I exited the game, and it seemed like the Steam Deck restarted, running the randomized startup movie.  I assumed that there might be a compatibility issue since the store page only lists Windows 11 as a compatible operating system. I put it in compatibility mode and ran it with Proton Hot Fix.  Then, at around 7 minutes, it looked like the game restarted.  I played for about 45 minutes on the Steam Deck before calling it quits for the night.

The next time I started the game up on my laptop, I decided to start a new game from the beginning.  That was when I noticed a visual distortion that had also happened when I played it on the Steam Deck. During the game, something we'll get to shortly, there are places you can place artifacts you uncover, and these places are represented by shadowy and globular objects in the shape of the artifact.  These objects had a glowing blackness with a glowing white outline to them and would be visible from the moment you were in line of sight of the object.  I tried a couple of combinations, turning on/off various toggles in the graphics settings, and what I found that worked best for me was the following:

• Glow: Disabled
  
• Anti-Aliasing: Disabled
• V-Sync: Adaptive

I'm not sure if other graphical settings would have an effect, but this worked for me on my laptop.

Now that we've got the game to work in a way that was enjoyable, let's get to it.

The Old Flesh of Nuraga is a game about mythology, stories told to us by past generations, families, religion, archeology, and a healthy dose of cosmic horror.  The story follows Cinera and her Grandfather, who are on their way to the Big Boar Fair.  While crossing the desert alone and not part of a caravan, their bull Addu dies, and they're forced to camp out at some sand-covered ruins to await the arrival of a caravan that they could then travel with.  While waiting, the Grandfather sends Cinera out to look for food, and thus starts what becomes the fundamental gameplay loop for the remainder of the game.  Cinera uses her Grandfather's divining bell, just like a divining rod, collects what is under the sand, chips off rock and dirt from the object, then uses a brush to clean the object, then returns to Grandpa with the object, and finally performs an action with the object.

The act of chipping off bits of rock and debris, followed by brushing off additional dirt and dust from the object, is a very satisfying mechanic.  The majority of the objects, about 88%, I uncovered during the course of my first play were story-related, so discovering an object helped forward the story most of the time.  Only two instances did I find a piece of broken non-descript pottery that the game deemed worthless, although I'm sure that Dellanos would have felt otherwise.  What I really like about this mechanic is that it doesn't particularly add much to the game apart from the player briefly wondering what it is that they dug up and that brief serotonin burst upon discovering that what you have is a unique item.  The developers just as easily could have simplified the excavation mechanic to only include locating the object with the divining bell, then pulling the artifact out of the ground without any of the additional actions to clean it.  But it's this simple mechanic that solidified the game in my mind when I first played the demo last June.

As the player uncovers more objects and presents them to Grandpa, he offers to tell Cinera fairy and folk stories about the Nuri, the people who inhabit the island where the game takes place.  From these conversations, you are given the option to skip by telling Grandpa that he's already told you them before, or you can lie and say that you've never heard them before; I usually went with lying because it seemed mean-spirited to say otherwise and I wanted to experience more world-building.  These stories involved not only the Nuri who populated the island of Nuraga, but their chief god Tor, the demi-god sorcerer Sadur, his aging sister Jana, and a celestial creation myth.  By the end of the game, I felt that there was both so much information and so much that was only hinted at that this game/story could be a springboard into a larger exploration of this world.

I can't really get too much into the story of the game. If I were to go into what happens in the second half of the game that really excited me, I would need to tell you a lot of the story points from the first half because stories build on stories build on stories.  Just like in real life.  Pretty early on, you find out that there is something going on with the actions you're performing at Grandpa's behest, but the game doesn't really give you the option to not perform the actions.  You could not perform the action of putting the Tor idol on the pedestal, but then the game wouldn't register it to move the story along, and you wouldn't be able to pick up another unearthed item because you can only dig up and hold one item at a time.

The one downside to this otherwise nearly flawless and tight storytelling narrative is that, for me, regardless of where I dug up items, I always dug up the same items in the same order.  I always dug up a desert potato, followed by the flute, followed by the Tor idol, followed up by the corpse torso.  I have read on the Steam discussion pages of people who have only been able to dig up broken pottery, but those instances were all glitches that occurred under specific circumstances.  There is some variation in dialogue choices that looks like it leads to different achievements, but I can't say if the story ends differently in any significant way.  There is at least one definite branching path late in the game, possibly one earlier, but after you finish chapters, you're able to replay them at the expense of there only being one save file.

I really, really enjoyed The Old Flesh of Nuraga, and apart from a couple of bugs and glitches (none were actually game-breaking), I honestly cannot recommend this game enough.  I know I have the disclaimer at the top, and that might potentially corrupt such a glowing recommendation, but I felt the same after playing the demo.  One of the saddest things for me about accepting Studio Ortica's early release game key was that my positive review on Steam wouldn't mean anything, so I did purchase the Supporter Pack DLC that adds some silly additional content to the game that I have yet to get into.  For the cost of less of box of Wheaties, or possibly 20lbs of potatoes, The Old Flesh of Nuraga is a short and fun experience if you're at all into games that deal with families, archeology, mythology, and cosmic horror.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
J'ai revu mes ancêtres, qui m'avient montré le chemin

MIDI Week Singles: "Episode 1, Page 2-2" - Comix Zone (GBA)

 

"Episode 1, Page 2-2" from Comix Zone on the Game Boy Advance (2005)
Composer: Howard Drossin
Arranged By: Manfred Linzner
Album: No Official Soundtrack Released
Publisher: SEGA Europe Ltd.
Developer: Sega Technical Institute

"Episode 1, Page 2-2" is an arranged version of "Episode 2, Page 1-1" from the original version of Comix Zone, released on the SEGA Mega Drive.  The ported version on the Game Boy Advance, which we're specifically pulling today's MIDI Week Single from, was ported in 2005 by Sega Technical Institute for only the French and German Game Boy Advance markets.  The song was originally composed by Howard Drossin and arranged for the Game Boy Advance sound chip by Manfred Linzner, who had been adapting music for the GBA since 2001.

What's great about this song, and a lot of the music from Comix Zone on the Game Boy Advance, is that the sound quality of the sound chip, often adding a lower quality and static sound to the background, works well with how the music meshes with the 80s action hero aesthetic of the game.  Sounding a little garbled and tinny at the same time, I find that this song manages to capture a nostalgic sound that was just starting to exist when the song was first written for the 1995 release on the SEGA Mega Drive.

The only bad thing I will say about this song is how it actually sounds when you're playing the game.  Once Sketch Turner swings down to the panel below and the second part of Page 2 starts, this new music starts, without any kind of transition.  In the first panel, the music sounds fine, but once Sketch swings down to the next panel and begins fighting the face-hugger-type aliens, the various sound effects kind of take over the forefront of the in-game sound, and something is lost in the music.  I get it, though.  The sound chip on the Game Boy Advance is one of the most criticized aspects of that system that I've read, so combining drum and guitar-heavy music along with kicking/punching sound effects along with creature noises and grunts from Sketch, there are going to be some casualties.

But that's why we love to feature music on its own here, to be heard and shared outside of the game, because it's just that good.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Drawn in by a Lost Memory

MIDI Week Singles: "No Waiting (Old Ruins)" - NightSky (PC)

 

"No Waiting (Old Ruins)" from NightSky on Windows, macOS, iOS, Linux, Nintendo 3DS (2011)
Composer: Chris Schlarb
Album: NightSky Soundtrack
Label: Humble Bundle, Bandcamp
Publisher: Nicalis, Inc.
Developer: Nicalis, Inc.

"No Waiting (Old Ruins)" is one of many songs from NightSky that is minimalist in its delivery but is still very fitting for the game, especially when coupled with the environmental background sounds in the Old Ruins.  There really isn't a whole lot I can say about this particular song apart from how I feel when I hear it and how it fits within the context of the world.  The sound of wind is a great accompaniment to the glass-like plink of the ball and the textures of the guitar, and it just maintains that calm and cosy atmosphere that NightSky exudes.  Granted, some of the levels and the methods of moving right to left, or maybe right to left to right to left to right to right, can be rather aggravating, but for the most part, it's a cozy physics game with relaxing atmospheres and music to match.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

 One Day It's Far Too Late

Game EXP: Picross for a Cause (PC)

Picross for a Cause
Systems: Windows
Release Date: September 6, 2020
Publisher: Porter Zach
Developer: Porter Zach
Time Spent: 53 Hours 48 Minutes

Picross for a Cause started out as a game released in September 2020, with all proceeds being donated by the developer/publisher to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.  As of July 1, 2022, the game became free to own, so the title lost a bit of its meaning, as owning, playing, or beating the game will not result in the benefit of any nonprofit organizations.  BUT, if you were so inclined, you could still donate the original asking price of $4.99 to the NAACP via their donation page.

The game!

Picross for a Cause is a no-frills picross/nonogram logic puzzle game where you place markers on a grid based on the numbers that run along the left and top of the grid.  Grids run anywhere from 10x10 to 30x30, and also include oblong shapes like 25x35, 40x10, and 15x50.  Most of the puzzles are monochrome, with two collections of puzzles using between two and six colors.  What's interesting about puzzles that use colors is that the strategy and technique is a bit different since with monochrome puzzles (black and white), you can't have, for example, you have to have a blank square (or an X) between two numbers, i.e., 5,4.  So you know that on a row of ten, it will look like ■■■■■x■■■■, but with puzzles that use colors, with 5,4, without further information, your row of 10 looks like _🟥🟥🟥🟥_ ■■■_.

With over 500 puzzles spread out between six themes and a larger puzzle that opens up pieces after you complete a puzzle, there is a lot of content here.  What I liked too was that because this isn't a monetized mobile game or a game with a timer, there's no nonogram boss in the wings who will penalize you if you make a mistake or make you start a puzzle over if you make more than three mistakes and don't have any diamonds to buy additional lives.  At the same time, because there was no indication when you made a mistake, it might be 20 minutes into solving a massive 30x10 puzzle before you realize that there's a big mistake somewhere and the only thing to do is start over from the beginning.

The only real downside to this game is that there is no save function, so if you start a puzzle, you have to finish it in that single sitting.  For a lot of the easier and medium difficulty puzzles, this wasn't really an issue, but for a lot of the harder puzzles from the last three themes, where puzzle sizes were not square, it was either a decision to screenshot the work on the puzzle to come back to later, or just start over from the beginning.  Not ideal, but it was something I had to come to terms with.

There were several puzzles that I needed help with because I found them to be too difficult, especially on the final selection of puzzles, such as the last 30x30.  Oftentimes I would look at the picture and select one of the borders or a row/column that was giving me trouble and then continue on my own until I got stuck.  For a lot of the harder puzzles, you would often only be able to fill in a single square or X off a box or two, feeling like you weren't making much progress, and I admit that at times it felt a little demoralizing.  But I still received immense satisfaction finishing all of the puzzles, even with assistance, because it wasn't as if I were copying the answers for the entire puzzle, just getting a little needed boost.  While I do love picross/nonogram puzzles, I admit that at times I do need a little help.  And that's okay too.  And I would gladly spend another 53 hours completing another 500+ puzzles.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
So You Do It Once Again to Ease Your Sorrow

P.S.  And if you're feeling comfortably generous, you can donate to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund even if Porter Zach ended the campaign four years ago.  There's still plenty of need for the LDF.

Game EXP Trilogy Part III: Gratuitous Space Battles, Hammerfight, & NightSky (PC)

 

Part III of our Game EXP Trilogy series continues with these next three games I received as part of Humble Indie Bundles 3, 4, and V.  There's no real through line with these three games, although they do share some commonalities between them.  Both Hammerfight and NightSky are physics-based games, although one's a combat game, and the other is a rolling platformer.  Gratuitous Space Battles is its own beast that I'll get to below, so we might as well just jump right in.

Gratuitous Space Battles

Systems: Linux, macOS, Windows

Release Date: November 17, 2009

Publisher: Positech Games

Developer: Positech Games

Time Spent: 42 Minutes

Gameplay Videos on YouTube

I kind of get Gratuitous Space Battles, and I appreciate the boiled-down experience of what science fiction adventure games were in the early 2000s. Games full of various types of simulation coupled with planning out and executing intricate space battles against an overwhelming foe.  Here, you just have the battles, and they're not even battles you micromanage.  Instead, you select which ships you want to place using a point-buy system, place them on the top-down 2D battlefield, then click the proverbial "Play" button and see what happens.  You're able to see the general size and comparable class of ships you're going up against, so there really aren't any surprises, just your knowledge of which ships are more effective against each other, kind of like a game of intergalactic roshamboe.

But for all of the autobattler aside, there is still a lot you have to micromanage, which is where I ended up falling off of Gratuitous Space Battles.  Each class of ship has different parts to it, such as laser cannons, shields, power generators, and engines that offer different elements and affect the speed and power of that class of ship.  Managing what each class of ship is equipped with can be key to eking out a victory or losing an eight-minute battle, then having to go back and make micro adjustments to figure out where you went wrong.  Or maybe you did have the best combination of equipment on your ship, but you just didn't have the right combination of ships deployed.  Or maybe you had enough heavy cruisers, but your light fighters weren't fast enough, and you deployed two too few.

So after 40 minutes, one tutorial level, and three beginning levels, I felt that Gratuitous Space Battles would be a game that I wasn't going to be able to finish because I couldn't commit to the amount of micromanaging needed in this game where one of the key features was a hands-off approach to space battles.

Hammerfight
Systems: Windows, macOS, Steam OS, Linux
Release Date: September 19, 2009
Publisher: Kranx Productions
Developer: Konstantin Koshutin
Time Spent: 32 Minutes

I had previously played Hammerfight sometime after first getting the Humble Indie Bundle 3 back in 2011, but it didn't click with me then after only 12 minutes, and so I thought I would give it a second chance.  Hammerfight is a unique physics game where you pilot a strange steampunk-propeller-propelled-cockpit-type ship with a hammer/club/weapon attached, and you swing said hammer by spinning your mouse around in circles.  The physics is kind of twofold.  First, the game measures the speed at which your mouse moves, asking you to move your mouse in circles as fast as you can.  It's important to remember that this game was released in 2009 when a standard optical mouse had between 200-1,000 DPI (Dots Per Inch), depending on the quality, but since a standard flat screen monitor was about 1024x768, you didn't really need a mouse with a high DPI.  Jump ahead 17 years, and the mouse I use has a base DPI of 1,000 and goes up to 4,800 if I want; I'm pretty comfortable at 1,600 for what it's worth.  In the game settings, you can change how the game registers your mouse movement from a default DPI of 100 up to 2,000, and since this game is all about mouse movements, that's also how you navigate the menus, by moving your mouse left and right.  In order to play the game at all, I have to have the in-game mouse settings down to 100 and my mouse set to 1,000 DPI; otherwise the cursor is all over the screen, and I can't manage to click on anything.

The second physics aspect of the game is how your ship moves while swinging your hammer around at your enemies.  You need to spin the hammer around your ship with enough force to do damage to your enemies; otherwise the hammer will just bounce off of them, causing no damage and leaving yourself open to an attack.  If you're proficient enough, you can use your hammer to deflect the attacks of your enemies, but that took more coordination than I was capable of, and any defense skills on my part were purely accidental.

On top of all of that, Hammerfight is really hard.  I was only able to make it to Chapter 1: Part III-II, where you're supposed to escort an unarmed zeppelin full of refugees from the kingdom you're a part of.  You have to fly around a large screen that isn't fully visible on your single screen, taking out both enemy ships and their projectiles.  If your ship or the refugee ships take too much damage, you die, and the level starts over.  Granted, I only put in 32 minutes this time around, and probably about half of that was spent on the previous level, Chapter 1: Part III-I, which was spent taking out enemy ships and projectiles in a vertical stage where even hitting the cliff face that took up the left quarter of the screen meant taking damage, but it just didn't feel fun with all of the combined mouse and control-related physics issues I was having.

NightSky

Systems: Windows, macOS, iOS, Linux, Nintendo 3DS

Release Date: March 1, 2011

Publisher: Nicalis, Inc.

Developer: Nicalis, Inc.

Time Spent: 7.8 Hours*

I saved NightSky for last because I didn't want to have only games that I didn't like in this article, and I wanted to end on a high note.

Before I came back to NightSky, I had figured that I only played a bit, but I had just over four hours, which means I either had already beaten the game or gotten close.  This time around, I didn't "technically" beat the game, but like Crayon Physics Deluxe, I beat all of the primary levels, and all that I have left are the "optional" bonus levels in the form of the "Slightly Nonsense" levels.  These levels you unlock by collecting stars that are often very well hidden and in out-of-the-way areas in a couple of levels in each world.  Anyway!

NightSky is another physics-based platformer where you play as a glass ball rolling across three screens.  But to get across those three screens involves modifying your roll by speeding up or using a slow "sticky" roll, triggering objects to access paths, using contraptions that are affected by how you roll, or sometimes by doing nothing extra at all and just rolling across the screen.  The visual aesthetic is very reminiscent of LIMBO, with colorful backgrounds and oftentimes matte black foreground and interactable objects.  There were some levels in each world/stage that I found challenging, but nothing so difficult that it would have induced rage quitting.  

What definitely helped the game maintain that sense of calm was the sound design.  In the Beach, there's the sound of crashing waves; in the Harara Mountains, there's the sound of wind and rain; in the Rana Caverns, there's the sound of wind and grinding stone.  There's also sparse music that plays, but it functions more as an accompaniment to the environmental ambiance and the sound of the glass ball plinking against various surfaces.  Sometimes you'll come across a level where all you do is move left to right, maybe jump a gap, all the while there's a little tinkle on piano keys with the sound of wind and rustling leaves or rain pouring in the background, and it just feels amazing.  It was a game to play to help me unwind.

Until I hit a level that utterly confused me as to its solution, or if I could see where a star was likely hidden, but for the life of me, couldn't figure out how to get there.  And then it's just embarrassingly frustrating, but those felt few and far between.    Although I don't think I'll go back and collect all of the stars, that's just extra.

Another three games down!  I have another Game EXP Trilogy article tentatively planned for September, but I may have to put that one on hold until October if the three games take me longer to finish, or if I don't decide that I'm done with them.  With luck, that will close out the games from Humble Indie Bundles 3 and 4, so we'll see.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Instrumental

MIDI Week Singles: "Action Boss" - Hammerfight (PC)

 

"Action Boss" from Hammerfight on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux (2009)
Composer: Kranx Productions, qMattp
Album: Hammerfight
Label: Humble Bundle
Publisher: Kranx Productions
Developer: Konstantin Koshutin

Now, I don't think I've actually heard this song in-game because I was unable to make it to the first boss at the end of Chapter I (see Friday's article for that explanation).  I chose this particular piece because I love some good boss battle music, and "Action Boss" captures that feeling of going up against a foe more formidable than you've faced up to this point.  The snare drums also add that militaristic feeling, while the long-winded horns in the bottom act like drones, creating a fuller sound all the while helping to build that ominous feeling throughout the song.

Unfortunately, I can't tell if the song stopping abruptly is just the composer's choice or if it's supposed to loop back to the beginning or repeat slightly later in the song.  That's where the audio file stopped, so I kept it in rather than trying to figure out where it might repeat to.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

So Say Goodbye to the World

Comic Review: Event Horizon: Dark Descent

Event Horizon: Dark Descent
Platforms: Hardback, Paperback, eBook
Writer: Christian Ward
Artist: Tristan Jones
Pages: 128
Publisher: IDW Publishing

I just finished reading the new collection of prequel comics to the 1997 gothic cosmic sci-fi horror film Event Horizon.  The comic was first published in five issues between August 20th, 2025, and February 4th, 2026.  I didn't know about the comic's existence until mid-March, when I saw a listing for this collection, so I'm coming to all of these stories without prior knowledge.  All I knew before going into these issues was that this was a prequel to the film, showing what happened to the crew of the Event Horizon during their seven-year absence after their first test of humanity's first gravity drive.

While reading and rereading the comic in its entirety, I realized that there were things that I liked, really liked, didn't like, and really didn't like.  Unfortunately, there is a bit of crossover between those four feelings, and none of them are really consistent.  So in this brief article, you're not going to find any "I didn't like the artwork, but the font choice was on point," or "I only really liked the designs of the monsters and the redesign of the ship took away meaning from the themes set in the movie."

From this point on, there are going to be spoilers from the comic, because it would be nearly impossible to talk about the giant red figure on the cover without going into the character itself, and I have a few thoughts.  Also, trigger warning for those who are affected or disturbed by body horror.

Let's start off with the things that I took issue with, most importantly, the giant red figure on the cover, but first, we have to cover Issue #1, which is the lead-up to Earth's first gravity drive ship, the Event Horizon, making its inaugural warp flight just beyond the planet Neptune.  Upon engaging the gravity drive, the ship travels to a space reminiscent of the insides of a shoggoth if you included more eyes and teeth.  Towards the end of Issue #2, we are with the ship's main engineer who's checking on the status of the gravity drive, and an eyeless figure climbs out of the void in the center of the drive, declaring itself to be "...the King of your Hell", and that "...someone on this ship calls me Paimon."  So not only are we given a physical manifestation of the "ruler" of this realm, but a name given by a member of the crew (revealed in Issue #4).  To me, this is something different from a cosmic horror like Nyarlathotep or Cthulhu.  Maybe it was my misinterpretation of the original film, but having this creature of Paimon be the BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy) for the rest of the series creates a bad guy that the reader is capable of understanding, something that I felt that the "Hell" (titled the Chaos Realm in the story) the crew of the Event Horizon travelled to in the movie tried to avoid.  Yes, there was Dr. Weir, who by the end of the movie was a physical manifestation of "Hell," but it was a being born out of an existing character, not a physical entity straight off the bat.  For me, it took away a lot of the mystique of where the Event Horizon actually travelled to.

There were a couple of aspects to Paimon that didn't quite bring me around to liking the character fully, but more to liking the look and design of the character, and a few panels that felt especially cinematic.  In Issue #4, we see a flashback to Captain Kilpack's life, studying Latin and reading excerpts from Le Dictionnaire Infernal with a drawing of Paimon riding a horse, and in the next panel, the character is that of the same Paimon we see on board the ship.  In the back of the book, there is a series of alternate covers and concept art, and among them is a series of head drawings with the text, "Crown of Broken Skull" and "Hollow," with an arrow pointing to the back of Paimon's head.  Had Paimon been created out of one of the crew members, seeing them cave in the back of their own skull and rip the shattered bones forward to create the crown, I think I would have liked Paimon's manifestation rather than them emerging fully formed from the center of the gravity drive.  For me, there was less horror in seeing this brand new villain, rather than seeing someone whom we already knew, become a manifestation of the villain.  I know it would have been nearly identical to what happened to Dr. Weir in the movie, but it worked then; that being said, put a pin in that thought.

In Issue #3, we see Paimon pull a mass of flesh out of it's torso, throw it on the ground, and watches as it grows a tangled mass of arms and a mouth, then skitters off into the dark.  Two pages later, maybe 15 minutes at most in-comic we see the creature has now grown into a spherical creature about four feet in diameter with arms reaching out, easily, an additioal five feet in each direction.  It's face, because of course it would have a distinguishable face, looks like that of a lion, with two forward facing eyes, a nose that looks like a mix between a pitbull and a lion, and a humanoid mouth filled with fangs of various lengths.  The creature slightly resembles Buer, again from Le Dictionnaire Infernal.  Apart from the physical presence of this creature being intimidating, what's really horrifying about it is when we see it grab two crew members and smash their faces together like Playdough, then ads them to its own body, gibbering the last phrases they said in life amongst their screams.  The point of this creature is to eat or absorb the bodies of crew members, and while that's horrifying in and of itself, I feel like it doesn't really fit within the source material as there were only 18-21 crew members.  If you take into account all of the body parts and viscera on the ship when the Event Horizon is discovered by the crew of the Lewis and Clark, the creature could not have consumed as many as it seems to have in the comic.

One of the things I love about movies like Alien, In the Mouth of Madness, the original Dead Space, and Event Horizon, is the slow burn and watching the characters slowly coming face to face with their respective horrors.  In Alien, it was watching Kane and Dallas explore the ship, following by the mystery around Kane's exposure to the face hugger, followed by the few scenes of normality after the face hugger detaches itself.  In Dead Space, Issac Clarke is thrust into a ship overrun with Necromorphs, but it's the collection of journals and audio logs from the members of the USG Ishimura that are documenting the outbreak caused by The Red Marker that draw the player into more than just another monster-blasting game.  In Issues #2, crew members of the Event Horizon begin having flashback-related hallucinations with their own guilt being made into physical manifestations.  There's little time for the crew to breathe and not a lot of pages are spent on the crew trying to figure out where they are.  The justification for this is that they are in The Chaos Realm, or Hell as Paimon and Captain Kilpack also name it.  It would be like the dose that the crew of the Lewis and Clark receive from The Chaos Realm would be comperale to that of being cut with a knife, versus that of the wood chipper that the crew of the Event Horizen experience.

My final criticism is how this story ends in Issue #5.  Most of the issue I really enjoyed.  It follow Quantum Physicist Jennifer Kwon, introduced in Issue #1 in the Dr. Weir roll of explaning the function of the gravity drive, but little else until this point.  Like the rest of the crew, she also has flashback hallucinations, but hers come across as more of a divine origin, and not from the Chaos Realm or Paimon.  Just like Miller in the film, explosives are lined along the "neck" of the Event Horizon, to turn the bridge into a life boat.  Through a great encounter with Paimon in the gravity drive chamber, Dr. Kwon manages to succeed in detonating, destorying the neck and separating the bridge from the rest of the ship.  Just like in the movie.  But then Paimon pulls its own kind of Deus ex Machina and reforms the ship, nullifying everything Dr. Kwon had done, except her own personal journey of receiving forgiveness.  I kind of get that the point of this is to show the power of Paimon, especially when it's in the Chaos Realm, but it just kind of felt like a rehash of the film when the finale of this story should have been something more coinciding with the beginning of the film.  Maybe something about Dr. Kwon only tyring to blow up the gravity drive and that explosion is what reactivates it and sends it back to our universe, near Neptune.

Now here's the kicker.

Despite everything that I've written here, I did enjoy the comic.  I felt that there was enough her for me to latch onto and engage with.  I liked almost everything in the first two issues leading up to Paimon's reveal.  I liked the scenes leading up to the launch of the gravity drive and the confusion immediately after.  I liked the look of the Chaos Realm and the hallucinations it created for the crew members, pulling from each of their own respective traumas and the guilt they brought with them.  In Issue #4, I liked that Paimon seemed to have the ability to alter time and cause events to repeat over and over again, because that's what Hell is, repetition.  I liked it enough to preorder followup to Event Horizon Dark Descent, Even Horizon Inferno.  I am intrigued with how the events in this prequel comic and the events in the movie will influence the events in Inferno, 200 years later.  And I'll just have to wait until March 2027 to find out (although the individual issues have now all been released), and then the following year to read the conclusion to this now 30 year old cult film.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Somehow I Never Wondered Why

P.S.  As much as I don't like Screenrant for all of its clickbaitiness, they did do an interview with Event Horizon: Dark Descent writer Christian Ward that's worth reading.

P.P.S.  And as far as what is now going to be a trilogy of comics, Dread Central did an interview with Christian Ward during San Diego Comic Con about parts II and III, Inferno and Pandemonium repectively.