Amanda the Adventurer

Amanda the Adventurer was provided by DreadXP for review. Thank you!

Amanda the Adventurer is an escape room-esque horror game that revolves around a 90's style kids show. As Riley, you inherit your reclusive Aunt's house and, in the attic, you find a stack of VHS tapes. After popping one in, you will watch, interact, and navigate through puzzles to unlock more tapes and figure out the secret behind Amanada and Wooly...who seem to be communicating directly to you. With multiple different endings and challenging puzzles, will you be able to escape the attic alive?

Personally, I am a fan of horror, but I get scared really easily, but I really like how this game tells the story. There weren't many jump scares, but there is this unsettling and atmospheric feeling that permeates across the game in large thanks to the CGI style this show emulates. Mix that in with the lore tapes, which tell parts of the background of the show with footage of real people, and you get a creepy story that doesn't need to go out of its way to scare you.

The game itself is relatively short, I finished it within a couple hours and got each of the endings, but it did take a lot of thought to get there. There were also some elements around the attic that tells more of the story, if you decide to go back in and check out the nooks and crannies. Overall, I would say the horror experience is worth it for $10, especially since it relies less on jump scares and more of the feeling of something unsettling around you. It can be played on the Steam Deck, but it isn't perfect.

Amanda the Adventurer - Steam Deck Performance

Opening the game up, there were some graphical options I could change like the overall quality and resolution, but due to how the game is, I thought it wouldn't be necessary to change them. When I was watching the show in-game, this was correct and I would get 10W - 11W of battery drain. As soon as I turned around and looked into the 3D attic though, it would immediately jump to 24W to maintain an unstable 60 FPS.

After this, I tried to lower the settings completely, even turning resolution to 960x600, but I would still get jumps in framerate when moving around. The battery drain would go down overall, but the framerate was still a bit jumpy.

I settled on keeping the default settings (1280x800 resolution with high overall graphics) and pushing for a 50 FPS cap. This allowed me to have a TDP of 9, which kept battery drain around 10W - 14W overall and a stable 50 FPS. It didn't feel as smooth as 60, but an overall stability increase and lower battery drain were worth it to me. The battery drain is still a little high in the 3D sections, but with how short the game is, it will work well!

While Amanda the Adventurer doesn't have cloud save support (it doesn't really need it due to how short it is), it does support 16:10 resolutions so the entire Steam Deck screen will be filled. As far as controller support goes, we have a little problem.

The Virtual Keyboard and Crouching

For the most part, the default KB+M does work quite well with the game, using the right trigger to pick things up and the right touchpad to select things when you are watching the show, but it falters in 2 specific areas. First, crouching is not binded to the layout, so you will need to do it yourself. Crouching isn't necessary in this game, but I needed to use it a couple times because I accidentally threw items I needed onto the ground. I would recommend setting Left Control to the X button, but you can choose which one works best for you.

The bigger problem is the segments in the shows that need a keyboard input. You will have to click the Steam + X button to bring up the virtual keyboard, but it will be covering the screen where what you type shows up. To fix this, you need to press Shift and click the spot that would usually close the virtual keyboard to move it to the top. This can be a bit of a nuisance to have to do, but it will work in the end.

Conclusion

Overall, Amanda the Adventurer is a competent horror game with some pretty intricate puzzles that really makes you think. I loved that the game doesn't rely on jump scares and cares more for creating a creepy setting with a TV show that has unsettling visuals. It is a little hard to play on the Steam Deck, but overall, it does work and work well with some minor changes!

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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