Scanner Sombre

About Scanner Sombre

Scanner Sombre came out in April 2017 from Introversion Software, the studio behind Uplink, Darwinia and Prison Architect. You come to in a cave by the light of a fire, find a helmet and a LIDAR scanner, and set off into a darkness so complete that nothing is visible unless you scan it.

The scanner is the whole game. Each pull of the trigger throws dots onto the hidden rock, coloured by distance in a rainbow from red to blue, and they stay where they land. Slowly a passage, a rope bridge or old scaffolding takes shape out of nothing. You can widen or narrow the beam, and later upgrades add a burst scan, a map and a high-resolution mode. Water swallows your dots, so lakes and pools leave you nearly blind.

The fear comes from the dark and from not knowing. The silence is broken only by your footsteps, echoes and distant falling rock, and the maker calls it a tense horror cave exploration game where darkness is the enemy. Remnants, strange symbols and short texts point to a darker story in the cave. Reviewers found the tension strongest in its first half, before it settles into exploration. PC Gamer's reviewer took about two and a half hours to finish it, and a New Game+ mode lets you go back with your upgrades.

VR support for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift was added in 2017. It suits players who want slow, eerie exploration with a striking look and no combat, and anyone curious what a game drawn only in points of light feels like.

How to play Scanner Sombre

1. Pick up the helmet and the LIDAR scanner near the fire at the start.
2. Hold the trigger to spray dots onto the dark around you and reveal the walls and floor.
3. Adjust the beam width: wide to sketch a whole room, narrow to pick out detail at a distance.
4. Follow the passages up through the cave toward the surface, using the map once you have it.
5. Use the upgrades you find, like the burst scan, to light up large spaces quickly.

Tips

• Scan the floor ahead before you step; it is easy to walk off a ledge you have not drawn.
• Use a narrow beam to reach far walls, then switch back to wide for nearby rock.
• Expect to be nearly blind in water; dots fade on its surface, so cross pools carefully.
• Play with headphones; sound is half of what keeps you on edge in the dark.
• Try New Game+ after the ending to keep your upgrades and look for what you missed.

Questions