Carbon Steel is a puzzle horror game where you conduct unethical experiments on creatures dragged up from the depths below. The story and concept are very similar to the creator Mike Klubnika’s other games, like The Other Side.
The backstory is again left as a mystery, as you come to an apparent booth that asks you for a passport. Then they send you along a trolley where you’re dropped off at your lab. Just like The Other Side, the outside world seems to be grim and unexplained. It doesn’t take long before you realize you’re a slave worker of some sorts. Or signed up for an agreement you didn’t know would end up like this.
Lab Puzzle Tips
Around the lab, there’s a bunch of tools that take some learning. Basically you have to take the empty looking vials and fill them with the anesthesia. To do that, you have to pull the lever to the right of the chamber to lift the creature up first to identify it. There’s multiple classes of creatures which seem randomly selected, and you have to fill up the vials depending on this class and their weight.
The charts for these are shown on the disks next to the computer. You need to put the right one in and select the page for their class. If you fill it up wrong, then it ends in disaster for you. Using the right mixture, it’ll put the creatures to sleep. Then you can extract their energy with the other tubes that have the weird shape in them.
On the following days you’ll have to use the machine on the right to figure out their class. It’s pretty simple, basically just lining up the lines on the diamond cursor. Lastly there’s the fabricator you need to use on the chamber for the more violent creatures.
Carbon Steel Endings Explained
There’s two different endings depending on if you use the experiment container with the X. An engineer who works behind the scenes tells you to use it, and not trust the researchers. Extracting the experiment in the X marked tube will give you the good ending. Where it blows up the researchers room. You can leave and get on the trolley with the engineer who helped you out.
If you use any other experiment tube, you’ll get the bad ending. Where they’re no longer interested in the usual experiments. So they decide to turn to humans, and you’re first. It was pretty horrifying to read their email, and knowing you were about to be next. You can’t exit out, and you get tased from behind.
I really like the similar design of The Other Side that the creator used. Carbon Steel had really enjoyable, but disturbing experiments. The constant rumbling of the vessel freaked me out and make me think it would come bursting out at any moment. Once again the story was a masterpiece, taking place in a strange, unknown, and horrific world.
Carbon Steel gameplay video
Download for free on itch.io
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