10 Dead Doves Review – A Little Bird Told Me

Last year, after I watched the Kickstarter trailer for 10 Dead Doves, I had been dying to play it ever since. It’s actually a trailer I’ve revisited a few times to appreciate the excellent editing. This indie psychological horror game by Duonix Studios (Mark Byram II and Sean-Michael Millard), tells the story of two friends who venture out onto the Appalachian Trail on what is supposed to be their last adventure. They seek out the Ant Farm, an urban legend that supposedly grants wishes to those who find it.

10 Dead Doves is more than just a “don’t go into those woods, legend says they’re haunted” kind of horror game. This psychological horror game presents a deep dive into the friendship of Sean and Mark, voiced by Sean and Mark, as well as their past regrets and what this journey means to them both. It’s an incredibly personal game and that works massively in its favour. The dialogue feels natural, as though they’ve transcribed everyday conversations they’ve had in real life. And while the regular, in conversation, voice acting can sometimes sound a bit disjointed (maybe due to editing or just poor line delivery), for the most part the interactions between Mark and Sean were the best parts of the game besides the key story reveals.

Despite the line delivery of regular conversations sometimes sounding a little off, the key story beats and emotional moments were performed tremendously well by both Sean and Mark. In fact, Sean does such a convincing scream of terror that I was half convinced they had released an actual demon on him in the woods and recorded the audio from it. Has anyone checked on him since the game was released?

The storyline is incredibly emotional as we take control of Mark, alias ‘The Most Pathetic Man On Earth’ as he and Sean get split up while running away from a mysterious, nightmarish creature. While we avoid the creature and search for the Ant Farm, we’ll uncover the truth behind the goings on at the Appalachian Trail and why the two have really travelled there. 10 Dead Doves takes on a very artistic way of showing its story through trippy visuals, cutscenes and narrations which will probably not make sense at first. Because of this and also its multiple endings and collectable memories, it has a lot of replayability for those who want to go back and see what story bits they didn’t pick up on or understand properly the first time.

The story’s trippy aspects come in the form of Mark’s dreams as he suffers from narcolepsy. In the waking world, birds drop dead around them and creatures chase them in the woods, and in the dream world, Mark is haunted by a bird-like figure who types away at his magnum opus while Mark traverses through trippy and probably metaphorical mazes. When we’re not listening to feathered Alan Wake’s monologues, we’re traversing the Appalachian trail, solving puzzles and experiencing the narrative. I will say that the gameplay is where 10 Dead Doves really dropped the ball for me.

While I enjoyed the puzzles and general area exploration, it tries to throw in several chase and stealth sequences which work extremely poorly from a fixed camera perspective. While this has worked with previous games before, Resident Evil for example, and makes design-sense considering the retro-style visuals, I think the problem with the fixed camera in 10 Dead Doves is that it sometimes switches sides, turns the player around or maybe happens too often. As a result, it’s incredibly difficult to know where you’re going or whether you’re now walking backwards or around in circles, which is further pushed by the fact that sometimes we are actually stuck in a loop for psychological effect meaning it’s sometimes difficult to determine whether this is happening or if the camera has just confused us again. The game tries to mitigate this with glow sticks to mark previously explored areas, but these wouldn’t be needed with a better map or fixed camera. They’re also useless when revisiting previously explored areas.

10 Dead Doves also insists on throwing in plenty of sequences where we are simply walking through a maze, fighting with the camera, when the scene could have easily just had us walk from on side of the screen to the other in a straight line and still have the same effect, it feels like it’s trying to elongate the game length which is honestly not needed. It’s roughly six hours long and honestly I think it could have been shorter and its story more impactful this way if these these silly chase and maze segments which add nothing to the gameplay or story had been removed. This becomes especially more evident in the third act of the game where the puzzles are swapped out for chase segment after chase segment to the point where it becomes a drag to play and I relished the moments where control would be taken from me and I could enjoy a cutscene instead.

In terms of audio and visuals, along with the trippy dreams, 10 Dead Doves has great fully animated cut scenes that fully immerse the player into the story. It does a good job at raising tension without relying on jump scares through creepy enemy visuals and sound design and some eerie moments. The graphics are in an early 2000s style which I think works well for the type of horror game it is. One thing I will say is that the facial expressions seem to be done through some form of stop motion, and while Sean looks okay, oftentimes Mark could look really uncanny and it spoilt a few emotional moments. Audio-wise, 10 Dead Doves has some seriously creepy sound design and while the soundtrack wasn’t massively memorable, it served well in the scenes it accompanied.

I did have various issues with the sound mixing. I had to mess around with the audio levels to begin with as Mark and Sean’s conversations were being drowned out by the ambient noise, but then later on in the game they were far too loud during intense moments, and then quiet again when speaking normally.

Overall, 10 Dead Doves has its gameplay faults which can make it a drag to finish towards the end, but it possesses a truly unique and personal storyline which is worth experiencing regardless.

Jess played 10 Dead Doves on PC with a review code.