10 Dead Doves

10 Dead Doves (2024) is a narrative puzzle game about a hike that turns into an unnerving horror story. You move through the world, investigating items to find subtle clues and solve puzzles, all the while experiencing surreal dreamlike sequences and meeting disturbing characters. It's a strange combination of comedic horror and road trip camaraderie

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You play Marcus Stetson who, alongside his good friend Sean, embarks on a hike to the heart of the Appalachian mountains in search of the mythical Ant Farm. Things take a turn for the worse - and the strange - when you begin receiving dream messages from a birdlike figure, only to wake up and find all the birds nearby have dropped dead. It's up to you to piece together the mystery, and to escape with your lives.

Play involves moving around the small environments of the game world, which you view from a fixed camera angle. As you explore, you talk to your companion and piece together their long and storied history. Along the way, you search for items that hold essential clues on how to complete the various puzzles, such as a can with the code for a button pad on the bottom.

The result is a puzzle adventure that offers an unusual blend of uneasy Twin-Peaks-style horror and deadpan road trip comedy. Gradually unravelling the mystery of both present-day events and the history of their friendship requires good observation and clever deduction - a combination that makes for a compelling experience.

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Our examiner, Ben Kendall, first checked 10 Dead Doves 10 months ago. It was re-examined by Ellen Robertson and updated 7 weeks ago.