EDIT: Spoilers are now open

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Welcome to the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club. Our 20th game is Scorn. The target completion date is October 31, 2022.

We ask that until that date you use the forum software to mark any spoilers, either story based or mechanical, in the discussion below. Ideally the bulk of the discussion will occur after October 17, but if you want to comment before then you are welcome to so long as the spoilers are marked. We ask that if you leave a comment before that date you also come back to the thread after it to read other people’s comments and respond to them, though of course we cannot force you to do so.

All are welcome to participate regardless of whether you have stated a preference to or not and there is absolutely no commitment. You do not have to finish the game to participate but please let us know if you have not.

You can find out more about the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club or suggest future games for it here.

What is Scorn?

A 3D horror adventure game with combat. Lots of gory creepy visuals inspired by H.R. Giger.

How long is Scorn?

How long to beat lists it as 5 hours long.

Wow, 20th game already? This year has really flown by. Looking forward to playing this game, I’ll try to post some spoiler-free thoughts later this week.

I found this game to be so dreadfully boring. The combat also was awful but thankfully limited (just like the game itself -- again thankfully).

I liked the game for it's visuals and atmosphere. The rest of it, not so much. If I had paid 35€ for the game, I would maybe be disappointed, but now it was a cool, if at parts clumsy visual/audio trip, that I only paid 1€ for, so whatever.

The aesthetic and the atmosphere are definitely what kept me playing this game. The puzzles are decent if sometimes obscure. As others have mentioned, the combat is atrocious and just about got me to stop playing. Overall, I enjoyed the game, and for what it's worth, very few games have made me feel as immersed in a completely alien world.

Well, I said I would have some thoughts later last week, and then it turned out that my son was born prematurely last Monday night. In between NICU stays, I’ve managed to play the first 90ish minutes of the game. Let me tell you that playing a game with this aesthetic while caring for a new human that’s still learning how to do pretty fundamental things like “breathing on his own” and “drinking without a tube directly routed to his stomach” is one of the most surreal gaming experiences of my life. I think I’ll do a longer-form blog post about it if I end up finishing the game.

All that aside, I’m concerned about the combat (which I have yet to encounter personally). What I enjoy about the game so far makes me think that system will clash mightily with the vibe and puzzle-solving. Still keeping an open mind, but I’m certainly less gung-ho about this game than I was two weeks ago.

@allthedinos: The main thing you need to know about the combat is that it's mostly avoidable. Most enemies can be run or snuck past, and some will just crawl away. I hated the combat at first until I unlocked the first gun. Later the combat becomes more manageable and even fun.

Atmosphere is a big draw for me in games and this is why Scorn has really appealed to me so far. I guess I'm a gross duder but I really dig this gross game.

@allthedinos: Sorry to hear about your son, duder. I hope he's getting the best care possible. NICU care has really come along in recent years so hopefully everything will go perfectly and in 12-13 years he will be rolling his eyes at your taste in games and teensplaining why whatever the 2035 version of Fortnite or Minecraft is is better than the things you like.

@isomeri:Glad to see a positive perspective on the combat / stealth mechanics. It felt overwhelmingly negative before, so that makes me dread it somewhat less now.

@bigsocrates: Thank you. It's one of those things I logically know, but it feels so wrong to still be living in separate spaces. As for taste, there's no accounting for mine, so maybe he'll be right.

I really had a hard time figuring out where to go in this game, even early on. I don't know if I necessarily needed waypoint markers or anything but everything was so brown that it was difficult to find the direction I needed to head.

Really enjoyed this game up until the combat. The first "gun" is very weak, so I'm gonna try running past the bad things.

The tutorial area is about exploration and observation. Interact with everything that has a white marker at least once to get a feel for it, then continue on to the next interaction. You'll have to piece together the order of operations to make progress.

Unfortunately the tutorial is a wide area with roundabout tunnels and an elevator between two floors, which means the pacing is slow even when running. If you can get past the egg puzzle on the upper floor, then you'll be out of the tutorial in no time.

The next few sections are more linear, so things pick up from there.

Okay I haven't finished this one yet because I found the tutorial puzzle so tedious I just put it off and I was going to blaze through it yesterday but then some friends wanted to go out for brunch, which turned into me walking one of them home because he was drunk off his butt and then he wanted to watch a movie and then his friend came over and they wanted to watch Netflix and...anyway. I am going to try to finish it tonight (Halloween) but before then please start the spoilery discussion and I'll jump in!

That all still sounds more fun than Scorn.

I finished the game about a week ago. Played through it in two sessions. I could have done without the combat which, in my opinion, detracted from the overall experience. What surprised me most was how comparatively easy it was for me to nagivate the levels, especially after hearing how many people had problems with that. It's not that I never got lost, but more that I never felt lost the way I do in most other games. And that comes from someone who just played through the RE 8 DLC and checked the map literally a few dozen times despite having finished the main game thrice.

All that being said I'm really glad to have played Scorn. The visuals are among the most striking I've seen in any game in a long time and the puzzles had that special kind of quality to them where they seem obtuse at first but once you start exploring and interacting with the various objects in the world everything just clicks into place.

The game may have its flaws but the last few minutes continue to be stuck in my head. Good stuff.

Kind of torn on Scorn.

The visuals are undeniably lavishly gross, and sometimes the fully serviceable, if not terribly interesting puzzles feel like they line up with the Giger-flavored horniness very directly, but I'm not sure how much there is past the admittedly impressive somber tapestries to ponder and try to look like you get it.

The combat mechanics I feel somewhat worse about than the puzzling, like most everyone seems to. Not enough moving parts to make any non-boss encounter anything but repeating a largely unchanging process of backing away and periodically popping the gross meat critters trailing you in their bulbous meat domes. The tight corridors and leaden movement mostly don't feel like they allow for many alternate approaches.

But the gross eXistenZ meat guns do look and sound mighty gross and meaty and squelchy. Pretty into that, even if I didn't get all that much out of the structure they're in service of. So thanks for bringing the gross eXistenZ meat gun back for Scorny Two, Scorny One.

Speaking of, that jizz tree leakage incident really did a number on Scorny One. What's the deal with that? And I'm pretty unclear on what parts if any of the meat nightmare factory were geared toward the whole brain web process Scorny Two goes through with. I know the big giraffe Scorny that gets crushed by the maze game elevator and the many bulbous puking children frolicking around just seem like an infestation of some kind. Another jizz tree explosion style industrial accident? Or several? Did this place ever go a day without a catastrophic bodily fluid accident?

I really thought the ending was going in an "Our love can destroy this whole fucking world" kind of direction, but it really swerved somewhere else and I don't know what to think of where. Their love can stand there like a lemon made of meat I guess. Not as uplifting and wholesome as the message of Tetsuo's at least equally troubled and troubling and writhing central relationship. That's where my mind went anyway, but maybe it's not a terribly useful point of comparison for this. At any rate, that ending does feel scornful if nothing else.

Are the scornies a new jizz tree sapling now? What does jizz tree mean in the language of flowers? Are they gonna grow up and jizz into the big roiling void in the sky? Should I be concerned about that? Is that bad? Is that good? Should I feel some kind of way about it besides puzzled and possibly weirdly horny if that's what I'm into? All I really have are scattered questions and I'm pretty sure they're all the wrong ones. And if there are any right ones they're probably even wronger ones. That sense has to be worth something.

But despite all the questions I don't know how much of all that ickiness is sticking with me. Almost feels more like a music video I saw than an entire game I played. A pretty wild one though.

I have not seen anyone mention that the character you play as in the first act is the very same entity that possesses you in the second. I believe that the fact that this parasite character is the thing that stops you from achieving enlightenment/transcendence is what the game's title is referring to - the mutated Scorny has extreme resentment for you and won't allow you to go forward without him.

I did not have any problem with the combat (I treated it like a survival horror and tried to run past things any time I could), but I do agree that it didn't really add much to the game. The art is so amazing and creepy on its own that it didn't really need the threat of death to keep me on my toes.

I have to emphasize that the art is the main draw here. Every possible camera angle could stand on its own. The late-game temple, especially the murals on the wall that seem pretty significant to understanding the structure of this society, is just awesome to behold.

Overall I'm really glad that I gave it a chance and stuck it out until the end. I'm not sure exactly what happened or what themes were being communicated, but I have enjoyed looking around the Internet for others' interpretations, and I'm still thinking about it, which is more than I can say for most games.

Yeah, Act 3 was rough and I did rage quit it for about a week. I was specifically at the part where you get the pistol attachment but not enough bullets or healing. The part where you’re doing the “rotating this will cause another thing attached to spin” puzzles. I could have really done without the parasite damaging you when I was already low. I wanted the flesh puzzles but the forced encounters were getting to me.

Yes, I knew that combat was best to be avoided but some of those early areas were spots that didn’t make it apparent HOW to bypass and my plan of approaching slowly to assess the unknown was in fact the WRONG way.

But yeah, came back and rather than backing away as far ask I could that just meant I was pinned in a three on one situation, it was the seemingly counter intuitive rushing forward so I was closer but at least had some width that I was finally able to do the puzzle parts again and progress.

And even though there are the tougher chargers that show up in Act 4, it felt like the health and ammo resources also ticked up and there were less guys putting you in narrow dead end corridors. Also at that point I brought up a guide just to get a preview of upcoming encounters to be ready for them.

Only puzzle I had trouble with was the ”egg wall” in Act 1 because a combo that it didn’t actually click until late the visual difference between the two grab-able eggs and the rest of the “rocks” as well as the “bad egg” made me think I had to still do something to prepare and reinforce it. Also after doing the “saw route”, I was still poking around thinking there was a way to release Scorny Jr but I guess nah.

It was also funny to finish this after hearing Dan on the recent Hellraiser Film & 40’s and Sonic 06 talking about not picking up on metaphorical themes in the Alien franchise. By Act 5, it takes Alien subtext and just makes it TEXT.

And yeah, I got the impression that Act 1 was a bit of their first intention of having multiple solution/choices and made as a pitch/demo/proof of concept but that part got lost in the production demands for the later acts.

But overall, pretty effective horror flesh puzzle adventure with some stumbles on the Act 3 combat challenges. It was about the right length for me and wouldn’t call for it being longer. Glad to have it on Gamepass as I certainly balked when I saw it was $30 retail.

This is still a “review in progress” but I finished what I believe is Act IV last night. Got to the boss fight (as I understand it) and died on phase 2 after a pretty long battle. I have to say that I don’t mind the combat now that I’m in the flow. The only thing that annoys me is the tendency of the game to immediately drop a few enemies on you as soon as you get a reload station. The area with the two bull-creatures in Act IV was especially annoying, since I ended up spending all my shotgun shells (in addition to the one guarding it).

Overall, I think this game has top 10 potential for me this year. Let’s see if it sticks the landing.

It's a good old trick, but definitely laid on real thick and indiscriminate in Scornland. It's not so much the usual fun of getting baited into obvious traps for goodies as it is just a standard procedure that happens every time. Somehow including the first time you ever get any ammo and haven't even loaded the gun the first time. Almost have to respect that kind of dedication to the bit.

Right there I also figured I could take one bull-like meat sack with just the pistol no problem and simply got stunlocked in a corner by the second one that spawned behind instead. I could basically hear the developers shouting "SCORNED!" so I suppose it was a thematically appropriate way to go at least.

I finished this game last night, and I’m not sure I feel that it stuck the landing. All of the post-boss fight stuff is interesting, but it was also annoying with trying to figure out how far I could travel while not having much health to replenish. Beat the boss itself fairly easily on my second try as well.

Thematically, I’m not sure there’s a lot of payoff (but of course the narrative is super light to begin with). Scorn is essentially defined as contempt, and you can see how degraded everything outside of the “palace” is. The closer you get, the more interconnectivity there is, culminating in the hive mind of beings in the game’s final area (not to mention the fornicating statues). So my first read is that you play as two “othered” beings, ignoring or resisting the hive mind’s contempt for you. They end up doing it different ways, with Scorny Two (gonna use the terminology from above) looking for a literal light at the end of the tunnel, and Scorny One ultimately showing enough contempt for their fellow “other” to stop them just short. You could argue the game is making a point about respectability politics, but that might be too charitable.

The biggest disappointment for me was that early scenes sure felt like they deliberately evoked Holocaust imagery, but I don’t think the game justified using it by the end. Not nearly as bad as like, the Game of Thrones writers fumbling the ball on sexual assault, but it was something I looked for all game with the hopes it would be handled tastefully. After finishing it, I kind of think they just used it for the vibe of the most-scorned people, but maybe someone can correct me.

I think I hate this game. Like legitimately hate it. It's just so boring and full of endless samey hallways and the combat is slow and boring and unfair (not because it's difficult because I've been one shotted by a projectile from an enemy in an area I could barely see let alone get to, and also ranges are tough to judge.)

It's horrifying because it's so boring and the checkpoints are not awful but far enough apart that dying just makes me groan and roll my eyes. I feel like if it had a quicksave function or just no combat I might like it more, but I didn't like the parts without combat either because they were boring and opaque.

In general I hate game design that has you doing puzzles where the various parts you need to interact with are far away from one another. It's so tedious.

"Oh you wanted to try something and it didn't work? Well you just wasted 5 minutes and now you have to go undo it and wander around to find something else to try. I is gud gam dezigner who care abut pliers. I mak boring shit game to tak ur money!"

So yeah, I can sort of tolerate this when I have something to listen to and distract myself with and I may try to finish it because I am stubborn but I think this is the worst game I have played this year. None of the horror visuals have any impact on me whatsoever because I am just bored and angry while playing. I don't care if your visuals are fantastic (and they are well done) if your gameplay loop is "wander around, die unfairly, repeat."

EDIT:

Literally 5 minutes after writing this I figured out how healing works, which does improve things, though doesn't fix the fundamental problems. The game both tells you how to heal in the pause screen and doesn't explain you need to hold the button down or tell you in any way that the weird item you pick up that holds healing charges is used to heal so I had no idea what it was or what it did because this is Scorn and fuck you if you want to understand what's going on.

I don't think this fundamentally changes my dislike of this slow, boring, game but the combat is not as unfair as it felt.

I got to the part where you get your first real gun and combat becomes a thing and yeah... It was a somewhat passable puzzley horror but the survival horror aspects are really undercooked and the checkpoints are terrible. I did enjoy the visuals and the atomsphere though. I feel like they probably should have just made a gross walking simulator. The game kind of reminded me of Agony but I actually finished that garbage.

I finally finished Scorn over the weekend, having had a longer break from it on purpose to savor the flavor.

This is probably my favorite game of the year so far. I found the puzzles to be mostly pretty rewarding, didn't have much issues getting lost and only died a couple of times during the whole game.

I don't want to make excuses on behalf of the developers, but I kind of feel that the combat is frustrating on purpose. This is not a game where you're meant to feel powerful and having to be scared of even the smallest enemies is somehow very fitting. After getting the second weapon the combat became a breeze anyway. That boss fight was too long though.

I'm not sure I fully picked up on what the ending was supposed to communicate to me, but I enjoy making my own little theories. Or maybe the point is that it doesn't really provide any satisfactory conclusion. That would be pretty scornful.

The art was fantastic, and I mostly just enjoyed seeping in the tapestries and atmosphere of the game.

Overall, I always enjoy when developers have a very distinct and different idea of what kind of game they want to make and fully go for it. I don't think this concept could work in any other medium other than games and what they've achieved is spot on for a first attempt for a studio. I'm really looking forward to what Ebb Software decide to do next and am sure that this experience will stick with me for a very long time.