Developed by Fear of Corn, ‘Interference: Dead Air’ is a psychological thriller set in the ‘80s. After wanting a bit of change in your life with a new job and location, you get a call from a good friend who has managed to find you a new job at her current place of work. It’s an easy job, working the graveyard shift at a security booth out in the middle of nowhere for a highly confidential facility, Area 51 anyone?

Not long into your shift, things begin to go awry and the facility is soon overrun; enemies stalk the halls and the science team is in danger. Your objective is to help your friend navigate the halls and escape to safety. Use radio communication and a map with push pins to help you keep track of your friend’s location, along with your trusty computer to reroute power remotely through the facility. There’s something more inside this research facility though, something more unworldly if you will. As it roams the halls, affecting the power, I hope you have the patience and guts to help your friend get through this.

Your radio is your primary tool and form of communication, leading to a great narrative and conversations with your companion. The conversation choices you make can lead to different outcomes, whether you make your friend resent you or you strengthen your friendship, times are tough and stressful in such situations. For the most part, this worked well and seemed like my choices mattered, but after a few playthroughs, some options didn’t feel like they mattered and led to the same response and outcome.

The character, Valerie, you spend most of your time talking to gave me very mixed emotions. Sometimes, I thought they were being nice and understanding then within a heartbeat the script flipped and they seemed angry at me for no reason. With some of the decisions, you can change the outcome leading to slightly different endings, which I always enjoy.

The radio isn’t your only toy in this story, you have a whole security booth to explore, it’s small but has plenty to play with while you wait for a response. With a bunch of activities to play with, like a cheeky little crossword puzzle, very short movies to watch on the TV, pens to click repeatedly for hours, or if you can figure out the combo for the locker, you might just find yourself on your way to playing a game on the computer. All this was fun the first couple of times playing through, but when I was going for a specific ending, I found it boring waiting around as I had done everything already. I would say the game is worth a few playthroughs though.

Being a thriller I expect to be on the edge of my seat for most of the story, this, unfortunately, wasn’t the case. There were some suspenseful moments, but not often did I feel any immediate danger or rush to solve a problem, especially for myself. However, the lights did flash and made me wonder what was going on the first couple of times it happened and the kind of sinister voice on the radio made me think “Has he got anything to do with this?”.

With most of the game being a narrative and a voice through the radio the voice acting was quite convincing. With a lot of emotion behind each bit of dialogue, with little scoffs or sighs to make you feel like you said something wrong, or the stressful and sad tone behind the character trying to escape this horrible reality. Your character however doesn’t speak, which would have been a nice touch, although it leads to the feeling of your character being yourself giving that slight bit more immersion.

The world around you is very vibrant and nailed the ‘80s vibe, with the old TV and VCR player, a boombox playing popping tracks along with the old computer and radio at hand. Other than all the doodads in your booth, the land outside doesn’t have a whole lot going on, but that’s because you’re in the middle of nowhere, a desert with mountains and the occasional car driving past. A great setting for a middle-of-nowhere, confidential facility.

Interference has a very short but sweet story, one that was straight to the point, and even though you had to wait around sometimes for a radio response, there was still plenty to do while waiting. I enjoyed playing through a few times trying to get a good ending and experience some other outcomes along the way. A great narrative and with a bunch of fun activities to experience.

Written by: MrVibeAU