Smudger's 5: Wanton Brother (Demo) - Revisited

So I've gone on record saying I wouldn't return to this demo as I was waiting for new game to release, and for the longest time that remained true - I've had a backlog of recommendations like FNaF 3 Plus and Five Nights in a Horror Attraction 1+2 to get through (which will be uploaded very soon). However, I thought I'd go back to this demo as I wanted to try something that wasn't strictly FNaF related - yes it's related to Five Nights at Smudger's, but this one isn't at all a FNaF fan game. So with that in mind, welcome to the demo of Smudger's 5: Wanton Brother.

I won't go over each minigame in a lot of detail, but I'll briefly touch over them. The first one has us trying to escape a deck on a rapidly sinking ocean liner, whilst being stalked by Smoother, this game's main antagonist. Honestly, this is my favourite one of the 4 in the demo. The atmosphere is pretty creepy, and having to just sprint down the hallway without being noticed by Smoother is pretty cool. We can't always sprint as too much noise will make him too aware of us. But of course, we can't take too long as the ship we're on is sinking. This minigame isn't hard, but you really don't have a lot of time to escape. I think this minigame is pretty well done, it doesn't really need patching at all. But I wish it was easier to turn around.

Minigame 2 involves us trying to get Smudger to the other side of the railway in time. Like last time, we have a timer to battle against, but instead of surviving against a killer train, we're against the clock. We have to constantly feed coal into Smudger and avoid obstacles on the line by jumping between different tracks - whether that's wagons or other locomotives. Hitting a wagon slows us down, but hitting another loco is an instant game over. I like this minigame, it's a nice change of pace from everything else. The idea of a train jumping between tracks is pretty nonsensical, but hey, it's fun, so I'm not complaining.

Minigame 3 is honestly my least favourite if I'm honest. This minigame conists of us running away from the beach we just landed on following the ship disaster. To escape, we have to click on a direction to sprint to a new location. Whilst a cool concept, it's not that good. To start with, there is one set path to go that doesn't change - I just went through that level looking at the list of directions I wrote down last time. Even then, it's not guaranteed that you'll make it out. Smoother can appear somewhere, at which point you'll have to run back, and then continue. However, he can appear at the same place twice, and since he hates you running between areas, he can just kill you unfairly. There is also a device for you to use, which although is a novel idea, it isn't really necessary. I like the concept of this game, and think it has a good foundation, but I think that the way it has been done in this version is... pretty exploitable, and also a bit unfair.

Then there's minigame 4, another one I like. This one is the most unique of the 4, with us (playing as Tim) having to follow the I.O.S train taking Smudger to some facility via road. We have to keep an eye on the train to out right (but can't be in view of the driver), but also keeping an eye on the road. This minigame relies you to keep an eye on a lot of things, and I like that as it means you can't slack off at any point. Some things can creep up at the worst times, but it means you can't just stare out in one area for too long. The game is also quite lenient with car damage, which is also a good addition to make things fair.

Overall, this demo is definitely promising. I really enjoy 3/4 minigames, with the other one still having some promise. The cutscenes are decent, and the story has promise too - the cutscenes remind me of classic series Thomas the Tank Engine with the model humans and locomotives with the moving eyes. I believe the story is officially disconnected from the Five Nights at Smudger's series, but I'm not sure. This demo still makes me very excited for the next time we'll see Smudger, and I'm looking forward to when that day comes. I won't drag this description out any longer, as I want to save more of what I want to say about this series when the full game releases, but until that day comes, we'll have to wait for our next encounter with Smudger.

On a side note, I'd like to say thankyou for 1.5k subscribers. Since I've swapped to this style of longer content, the channel has seen some great growth (mainly view-wise, but subs have also been very noticeably up). I greatly appreciate all the support that you all give me and this channel, and I hope you all stick around for the future of this channel!

Download S5 here: https://gamejolt.com/games/Smoother/4...

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