5 Days a Stranger

5 Days a Stranger is the first in a series of freeware, horror adventure games created by Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw. If that name sounds familiar to you, it probably is; he recently achieved internet-stardom via his wildly popular series of Zero Punctuation video reviews. He had been creating adventure games for years before this, however.

5DaS, while not his first game, was certainly a turning point. Before this, most of his games weren’t bad, per se, they were just...unpolished. That’s not to say that 5DaS itself is polished, however. The graphics aren’t the greatest, the interface is clunky, and the music is ripped straight out of RPG Maker.

So then, how does the game manage to be so fantastic?

My guess would be the storyline, which is easily the highlight of the game. On the surface it seems rather cliched: five strangers trapped in a house together, being killed off one by one. However, as the game proceeds, you learn that not everything is as it seems, and that there’s a compelling backstory to the murders.

The characters are another great aspect of the game. While they all fall into movie cliches (the main character, the woman, the kid, the skeptic, and the mysterious one), they manage to overcome this flaw, and remain interesting throughout. Notably, Trilby, the main character, stands out from the rest.

5 Days a Stranger is certainly flawed, but play through it anyway. It’s worth it just to be able to play through the three sequels (7 Days a Skeptic, Trilby’s Notes, and 6 Days a Sacrifice), and the storyline of the first game is compelling in its own right.