

The common fear of being alone becomes the fear of not being alone. You’ll occasionally hear sounds from the cave that sound less natural or more dangerous. When Scanner Sombre isn’t giving you a melancholic and isolated feeling, it’s giving off an unsettling vibe. Of course, I knew I had to get across the bridge somehow, so I jumped over the gap… and to my doom with an unsettling bone crunching sound. You figure out that there are planks missing by completely scanning the bridge and inferring that if something didn’t scan, it doesn’t exist. Near the beginning, there is a segment of several bridges overlapping each other with planks missing. The caves are silent, save for the occasional drips and echoes, and your biggest obstacle is falling to your death. The tone of the game is definitely somber, as its title suggests. As you’re traversing the caves, your character will occasionally give you bits of the narrative that adds to the mystery. You walk ahead, scan and figure out where not to step based on what doesn’t appear. That’s almost all there is to the gameplay. The gameplay concept is simple, if the object is red, it’s close to you, if it’s blue, it’s far away. As you scan the area, walls and objects light up to show you how close you are to that object. Scanner Sombre, developed by Introversion Software (the masters behind Prison Architect), is a first person exploration game where you use a LIDAR scanner to survey and navigate caves. And you’re finally able to traverse the mysterious caves around you. With these equipped, your world has become much more… colorful.

Nearby, you spot a VR Headset and a LIDAR scanner.
