Stasis!

What made me happy today? Stasis!
Yesterday, my boyfriend and I went to visit some friends we hadn't seen in quite a while. Afterwards, when we were home, he turned on the computer, because there was something he wanted to show me.
That something turned out the be the 'Stasis' game's alpha demo. This is a playable demo for a new 2D isometric, point-and-click sci-fi horror adventure game.
The set-up? It's the distant future. Your character, John Maracheck, wakes up on the outside of a stasis pod. Breathing heavily (and creepy), dazed, confused, uncertain of where you are, you soon discover that you've been injured. Looking for help, all you see is malfunctioning equipment, smears of something on the walls and floors, dust and a lot of nothing. That's where the fun begins.
The game is played from an isometric fixed point of view. This gives you a great oversight of each level, but also obscures certain parts from view. And that adds to the anticipation. In horror games like this, where you can't always precisely see what's going on and can't swing the camera around to get a better view, it's the anticipation that'll get to you. Did something just move in that dark corner of the room? Did I just see something run by that open door? Throw in a creepy, dilapidated environment with static and eerie background noises (like a slightly cracking, slowed down tune from a music box) and green lights, you've got the right atmosphere.
The gameplay itself is pretty straight-forward, the graphics are nice and clean. I must add that the images sometimes appeared to be a bit halting, but the boyfriend didn't notice, so it might have been just me.
Fair warning, if you get scared easily, this is a demo you don't want to play alone in the dark right before you go to sleep. Leave some time for a Disney movie :-)
I do have to add that it turns out the boyfriend and I make a rather good adventure game team! *spoiler alert* He wasn't sure of how to proceed, so I put in my advice of having to cut of one dead guy's arm and put that on the scanner. Le viola.
Stasis is now on Kickstarter, so if you like the demo, back them! You've got 27 days :-)