Scanner Sombre

About Scanner Sombre

Scanner Sombre came out on 26 April 2017 from Introversion Software, the studio behind Uplink, Darwinia, DEFCON and Prison Architect, which also published it. 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, with no limit or cooldown. Slowly a passage, a rope bridge, a fence or old scaffolding takes shape out of nothing, and the map shows everything you have painted from above. You can widen or narrow the beam, and later upgrades add a burst scan and a sensor upgrade. Water swallows your dots: they rest on lakes and puddles for a moment and fade, so wading through a pool leaves 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 sound tells you whether you walk on stone, gravel or water. The maker calls it a tense horror cave exploration game where darkness is the enemy, while PC Gamer's reviewer found it drifts toward horror in its first half, with one moment by an underground lake that had them running through the blackness, and then settles into calmer exploration. Remnants, strange symbols and short texts point to a darker story in the cave. There are no monsters to fight and no jump scares were reported.

PC Gamer's reviewer finished it in about two and a half hours and scored it 80%; a New Game+ mode lets you go back with your upgrades. Steam lists VR support through SteamVR, standing or room scale, and the game is voiced in 26 languages. It is sold on Steam and DRM-free on GOG for Windows and Mac. It suits players who want a short, 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, checking the map to see what you have painted.
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: footsteps change on stone, gravel and water, and dripping warns you of a puddle ahead.
• Try New Game+ after the ending to keep your upgrades and look for what you missed.

Questions