In general, I’m not a huge fan of multiplayer games. Maybe it’s the fact that I spent way too much time with single player games growing up well before the internet took hold, or perhaps it’s because I’m entirely too antisocial for my own good, but I’ve always preferred the more solitary aspects of gaming.

However, how could I resist the temptation of a game like Damned? The idea of dropping four human players and one monster into what is ostensibly a horror movie set in a hellish version of hide-and-go-seek is what fans have pined for since Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre hit the 2600 back in the early 80s.

The team at 9Heads calls Damned a ‘randomized horror game,’ but it’s really an asymmetrical multiplayer game with some randomized elements. Personally, I think the idea is wholly underserved within the community.

The concept — which pits uneven numbers of gamers against one another in a competitive scenarios — is absolutely pitch perfect for a horror game, and this game in particular offers up an interesting take on it. Despite some pretty obvious limitations, Damned makes interesting use of its multiplayer component, though the lack of variety threatens to derail its somewhat novel concept.

In Damned, five players — four humans and one monster — are dropped into a haunted house or hospital or something similar, and while the survivors hunt down keys in order to find keys that will set them free, a single monster stalks the hallways in an effort to indiscriminately murder them. Only one human need to effectively outwit the monster in order for the human side to be considered victorious.

Think Evolve by way of Grave Encounters. There aren’t a slew of features or upgradeable elements for either the survivors or monsters — it is basically a featureless game — but the random nature of the encounters provides players with enough options to keep players sated for a while.

Other than flashlights used to illuminate their paths, the survivors are largely powerless. The game encourages cooperation and strategy by way of an in-game chat system; however, since there is no map, triangulating various locations is nearly impossible, so the discussions regarding locations mostly amount to declarations of a player’s current whereabouts.

The most alluring aspect of Damned is the ever-present sense of unpredictability. You never quite know when you’re going to whip around a corner and come face-to-face with an opposing force. That goes for both the humans and the monsters. Nothing is quite as fun as lurking along in the dark and happening upon the opponent, just when it is least expected.

So far as I can tell, the four human characters aren’t divided up by anything substantive, which doesn’t really matter, because let’s be honest: Playing as the monster is clearly the big draw here. Nothing compares to the joy of sneaking up behind an unsuspecting survivor and deleting him or her from the proceedings.

In fact, the three monster types — Lurker, Mary, and Phantom — are where some variety of playstyle enters into the experience. Each monster possesses its own strengths and weaknesses. Mary, for example, is slow-moving, but she can teleport and go into berserker mode whenever she is close enough to humans. The Lurker trucks along at a speedy clip but is blind to the beams of flashlights, and the Phantom strikes a unique balance between the two.

You’ll have to play through several times to get a sense of which one feels right, and, like me, you may be initially confused about how the powers actually work — instructions? Tutorials? Ha! — but eventually you’ll settle into a favorite. (For me, Mary’s walking speed is agonizing, but the Lurker is just right.) By contrast, the only real strategy for playing as a human is “don’t die.”

Beyond that, Damned has some issues that dampen what could have been a fantastically interesting, purely multiplayer experience. The assortment of levels keeps the game from becoming dull too quickly, but a more diverse set of gameplay types might have further enhanced the game’s replayability. As it stands, the fact that the goal is reached through idly searching for keys casts a long shadow. Monsters can lay ‘traps’ and the keys are randomized for humans, but after several hours the game needs something to keep players hooked.

Problematic, too, is the fact that the game possesses some mechanical problems. Though the movement feels right, especially as the monster, attacking people is not satisfying whatsoever. There is a lack of weight or resistance that makes taking down adversaries imprecise and clunky. Mainly, I just rapidly clicked left-mouse and hoped for the best. For a game with so few mechanics, it would seem that this one would be absolutely perfect, but it is not.

Finally, the game’s public servers can be a hassle. Unless enough of your friends own Damned to put together a game, settling into a public room for an extended session is a constant challenge. Because people either drop out or fill the few existing servers, there usually aren’t enough quality public games to go around.

I had plenty of experiences in which people dropped mid-game or just after a game, so I’d have to go and hunt another server in order to be able to keep playing. It’s not something I would characterize as major, but it is nevertheless a consistent fact of playing this particular game.

Like with most multiplayer-only games, it’s difficult to recommend Damned unequivocally. Some of the issues above are minor — the mechanics — and some are less minor — player dropout in public servers — but most concerning is how the monotony of the experience will affect the longevity of this game. If you’re reading this review just after publication, there’s a great chance you’ll find a full game. If this may be true in a month or half a year from now remains to be seen.

The Final Word: The problems with gameplay and servers notwithstanding, Damned is a neat concept and well worth playing. It has enough to keep horror fans interested for several hours on end.