Receiver is a first person shooter designed by Wolfire Games, an independent studio also responsible for Overgrowth and Lugaru: The Rabbit’s Foot. It’s not a very large or long game - the entire world takes place on top of a roof of a very large building. Receiver explores the mechanics of shooting more than a traditional FPS; not really surprising given that it was developed for the 7-Day FPS challenge.

The game really begins when you find cassette tapes lying around, which gradually reveal your history and purpose. The monotonic voice on the tapes claims to be your only hope of survival against interdimensional beings, and guides you through the game as you find new ones along the way. You proceed uneasily through dark hallways, and barren and sterile rooms. The layout procedurally generates itself and never looks exactly the same, although patterns tend to pop up every so often. The enemies, quiet and drab. They creep; they do not jump.

As you move through the “houses,” the bare bones user interface doesn’t add any frills. In the bottom of the screen, the player can see their items laid out in a straight line, going left to right, each slot corresponding to a number key. The fairly Spartan visual look of the game, with little in the way of complex graphics (mainly flat shading and the occasional colored light), feels more deliberately empty to create a feeling of loneliness rather than incompleteness.

While sparse, the environments in Receiver do a lot to add tension and unease. — While sparse, the environments in *Receiver* do a lot to add tension and unease.

Receiver places a huge emphasis on the controls Reloading a gun takes 7 full key presses and aiming is iron-sights or hip-fire only. Whichever pistol you choose (of which there are three possible options), you have to hold the right mouse button to aim the gun, and fire with the left mouse button. To sprint, you must tap the W key rapidly to gain speed in-game. However, when you enter combat with the enemy, your complete control over your movements makes you feel both in control and helpless as you scramble to press all the right buttons to link the minute movements that make up the fight while furiously mashing the "w" key to sprint away.

Receiver helps you by giving you an option to view all the actions you can take at any given moment (in white) against the total possible actions that the player can do (in gray). — *Receiver* helps you by giving you an option to view all the actions you can take at any given moment (in white) against the total possible actions that the player can do (in gray).

From this description, you might imagine the enemies were some kind of horror-movie fodder, but they’re just machines. There are two kinds of enemies in the game, rotating automatic turrets and flying tazer drones. You find both in any place, though usually not right next to where you start. A single beeping tone indicates that one of them has spotted you. One hit means death, so you must see them first. The lock on beep sends more of a chill down your spine than most horror movies can.

Like the environment, the enemies are simply visually designed, but like the gunplay, their complex mechanics force you to use a very careful playstyle. The turret is made up of the ammo box, the battery, a motor,and a camera. If you shoot out the camera lens, the turret spins and won’t see you. If you shoot out the battery, the gun stops spinning. If you shoot out the ammo box, the turret spins and sees you, but can’t shoot. If you shoot out the motor, the barrel of the guns drops to the floor and stays stationary. The flying drone has a similar set of mechanics, though hitting their various parts is more difficult because of their high attack speed. As you might have guessed by now. running and gunning in Receiver is usually tantamount to suicide.

Enemies are carefully designed to promote a careful and considered approach.

I would be very interested to see this model applied to a larger game. The difficultly and tension of the gunplay would work well with an inversion of the usual macho hero first person shooter. Maybe you’re a civilian who gets caught in an active warzone and you find a weapon on a downed soldier and you use it to try to escape, your skills with it building every time you need to fire it, or a similar situation where the violence inherent in the gameplay speaks to the horror of war.

Worth Playing?

Yes. Though Receiver is sparse on details and content, it creates one of the most viscerally potent experiences in the FPS genre. You can’t spend more than a few hours delving into the game. The minimal layout and procedural levels become monotonous before too long, but it’s a short, sweet, and won’t take up too much of your time and wallet. It’s worth playing if only for the stark contrast with almost any other first person shooter, save some of the more simulation based ones.