Silly Polly Beast is a stylish, spooky survival horror game where you're packing some serious firepower

GamesHorrorSilly Polly Beast is a stylish, spooky survival horror game where you’re packing some serious firepowerWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Anji)

Polly shooting shadows

While Steam Next Fest is over (for now), there are a whole heap of demos staying out after curfew, including the unusualSilly Polly Beast. This story-driven shooter is an intriguing mix of psychological and supernatural horror, teenage angst, stylish neon horror-punk aesthetics and aggressive twin-stick shooter combat.

Polly isn’t having a good day. She’s a nervous, non-verbal kid on the run from the cops after torching her orphanage for reasons unknown. She’s searching for her sister, who planned the arson with her, but seems to have fallen into the netherworld along the way. Polly’s also agreed to a contract with some kind of tormented spirit (and its weird boggle-eyed dog), and been tasked with hunting monsters in the shadows. Things somehow only get worse from here.

Despite all that firepower, the combat still has a bit of survival horror tension to it, with enemies moving aggressively (especially the surprisingly skittery big shadow-people), and healing often taking multiple precious items to get you back into the fight. While this may change in the full game, I’m hopeful it’ll continue to maintain this balance: not quite Silent Hill or Signalis, but not a full arcade shooter either.

The demo mixes the formula up in some interesting ways too, including some side-scrolling sections that control quite differently to the regular overhead combat, and a couple segments where you need to use a ritual spell to fly across gaps, but without the ability to control your wings—Polly has to spend bullets carefully to navigate using her revolver’s recoil. A smart little mechanic, and one I hope to see built on.

If there’s one thing that I’m a little wary of after playing the demo, it’s the script. While fine for the most part (and the story definitely has its hooks into me), there’s a few oddly-phrased sentences, or lines that are just a little too prosaic to be coming from a scared teenager. Nothing dealbreaking, but a conspicuous flaw in an otherwise excellent demo.If you’re after something with Halloweeny vibes that hit a little different, I recommend you give it a shot. TheSilly Polly Beast demois live now on Steam, with the full game coming soon.

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