Freeware ‘Bunny Man: Lost Souls’ Review – Beware The Killer Rabbit!
Bunny Man: Lost Souls is a freeware PC horror game which follows in the tradition of Slender and Hide. Created by solo developer Leocesar and featuring concept design by Estevão Mendes, the game breathes life (and death) into the spine-tingling urban legend of the Bunny Man, which is much creepier than it sounds.
At its most basic level Bunny Man operates in a fairly straightforward manner. Since there is no in-game exposition, players have to rely upon their prior knowledge of the urban legend for a good understanding of the loosely defined story in the game. A link to the Wikipedia article about the myth, a brief summary of the game control system and an outline of the ultimate objective are all provided on the download page, but once the game begins you are on your own.
Thrust without preamble into the shoes of an unknown and silent first-person protagonist and armed with only twenty fast-burning matches, players must survive a night in the darkened woods surrounding the infamous Bunny Man Bridge. Rather than collecting notes, the goal of the game is to rescue the lost souls of the Bunny Man’s nine murder victims by passing through all of them before becoming the tenth.
But beware, there is a catch: the souls must be rescued in a specific order. The idea is novel but in practice quickly becomes annoying as there is no way to determine the order except by dying – a lot. Souls are lit by an inner light when they are saved, but an incorrect choice causes souls to shriek and alerts the Bunny Man to the player’s location. Memorizing the positions of the souls won’t help because they are randomized; determining the order requires an attentive ear, a good memory (or good ol’ pen and paper) and a somewhat unhealthy dose of trial-and-death.
Frustrating though it can be, Bunny Man is nothing if not hare-raising. Terrible puns aside, the atmosphere is by far the most successfully horrifying element of the game. Thanks to the eerily quiet surroundings and selective use of chilling sound effects, there is a tangible sense of dread from the moment you hit “Enter” to start. The forest itself is nothing new (especially for Slender fans) but the railroad tracks and the tunnel under the bridge feel authentic and add an extra element of intrigue to exploration, especially for those familiar with the myth and the real-life Colchester Overpass.
A mysterious mist permeates the environment, playing strange games of shadow and light and severely screwing with the player’s state of mind. Bloody scrawls on the walls feature warm and welcoming messages like “I shall kill all” and “I love to hunt,” while matches are cold comfort at best. Offering little in the way of illumination, each one lasts only a few seconds before a sudden gust of air – or breath – extinguishes the flickering flame and plunges the player back into darkness.
Though it is a bit disappointing that all of the souls look the same (and possibly bear a little too much resemblance to people wearing sheets with eye-holes) their transparency is perfectly engineered so that they are only just visible once you get up close and personal. There are few things more startling than suddenly realizing there’s a ghost hovering only a few inches in front of your face.
Even worse is when a flash of lightning or a trick of the mist reveals the Bunny Man himself lurking only a few feet away from you. Though I admit I always imagined him to look more like Frank from the movie Donnie Darko, this version (should you be unlucky enough to get a good look) is pretty creepy in his own right. Maintaining a fair balance between scary and realistic, the main improvement that needs to be made would be adding more detail. The brutal killing animation and the dead rabbits hanging from his belt are nice gruesome touches.
The sound design is, if possible, even more unsettling. The variety that the souls lack visually is made up for audibly as each is assigned its own unique “voice.” One sounds like a music box, another like a dying man moaning for help or a small child crying. The Bunny Man himself is atrociously quiet and his proximity is easiest to detect by listening to your own heartbeat, which races faster and faster as he draws nearer.
Resist the urge to run if you can – the noise of your shoes crunching through grass or slapping against the pavement might make you panic more. And stay away from the tunnel unless you have a morbid fondness for labyrinthine underground passages filled with the ghostly echoes of trains.
What Bunny Man: Lost Souls needs most is simply some fleshing out. Some sort of introduction, a little more characterization and detail, and a few more narrative hints and references to the urban legend would be a good direction to go in. It is not a perfect game. But considering it was created by a team of only two and considering it is after all free, it is pretty impressive and shows a lot of potential should it ever be further developed. Even as it is, it’s good for a few scary rounds of hide and seek and is definitely worth checking out for fellow horror fans and legend trippers.
If you’re feeling brave – or if you’re hearing Elmer Fudd’s voice in your head as you’re reading this – you can go ahead and download Bunny Man: The Lost Souls from the official page. You’ve got nothing to lose, except perhaps a good night’s rest.
