Scanner Sombre beckons you on through a pitch-black cave, one that you can only see the walls and floors of by shooting coloured dots onto them. There is no one to dehumanise as it's a mostly solitary affair, and it doesn't have you mastering complex systems it has you exploring. Your window into its world involves no bird's eye views or computer interfaces only a digital spray can. They're laser-focused, open-ended strategy sims which have you dehumanising other people by taking control of them, their possessions, or their fate through synthetic systems.
#Scanner sombre controls software
Introversion Software are known for their highly formal simulators like DEFCON, Uplink, and Prison Architect. Soon I was drifting down a tranquil river to some prog rock, and I barely saw another one of those monsters again. It was going to be one of those disempowerment horrors where I'd grip my controller, sweaty-palmed, dodging and dashing my way around ghouls. At that moment, I thought I knew what kind of game Scanner Sombre was going to be. Once I got within seeing-distance of it, it came hurtling towards me and killed me in seconds. I found the source of the noise in the corner of the chamber: it was some coloured mist in the shape of a human. Note: This article contains major spoilers for Scanner Sombre.Ī little way into Scanner Sombre, I swam out into a chest-high pool, and my splashing caused something in the cave to respond with a banshee-like wail.