Mechanics

This page lists the game's mechanics, along with other tips, tricks and trivia.

To begin with, the goal of Recovery is to escape the mine, by finding 6 (out of 7) gears to repair the escape elevator in floor 3.

Controls
This game is confined to first-person.

WASD to move, Shift to run, E to pick up items, and Q to drop them.

You are limited to four inventory slots in your hotbar.

Arrow keys may also be used to move: Up and Down for forwards and backwards movement, Left and Right to turn slowly.

Left click to toggle light sources.

Sprinting
In the bottom left corner of the screen is a white energy meter that limits how long you may sprint for. If you drain the meter, it will turn red. This is called exhaustion, and you cannot pick up items while exhausted. You also cannot sprint again until the meter refills and turns white.

You may sprint forwards and sideways, but not backwards, using WASD. You may sprint backwards if you use the Down key, however.

When your stamina is about halfway depleted, your vision begins to be covered with static. This effect is more pronounced on low graphics settings (around 3 or below).

In order to move faster than a walk, but slower than a sprint, you can shift-spam, which is exactly what it sounds like: mashing the Shift key. This prevents stamina from being drained, and if done correctly, will prevent you from hearing your own footsteps.

End States
There are four ending states you may experience: Deceased, Abandoned, Game Over/Spectate, or Escaped.

Deceased: Die to Screamer, Laughing Jack, or Redface. There is no other way to die.

Abandoned: Left to die when the escape elevator goes up without you.

Game Over/Spectate: You should be spectator (don't pick any character at the start). You will receive this final status in any scenario of the end of the round.

Escaped: Leave on the escape elevator.

Spectating
If you are Deceased, or didn't choose a character at the beginning of the game, you may spectate any of the alive players in 3rd person. You also have better vision than the alive player, allowing you to potentially navigate them in pitch-black darkness.

Intro Cutscene
It is the only cutscene in the game, and it can be skipped (how do votes count?).

The elevator slowly descends into darkness while someone's voice, possibly a foreman, comes onto the radio(s) to speak to the player(s) about their objectives:


 * Explore the abandoned colliery
 * Locate the generator
 * Recover any remaining company equipment
 * Clock off for the day

Suddenly, the elevator malfuctions and begins to fall, cutting off the man's speech as the elevator plunges into the mine below.

The transcript is as follows:

"'Aw yeah, they come in on such a short notice. Somebody is trying to cover this place up, ASAP. Just, bring any of the property you can find, up, and uh, watch your head. Someone had another accident. Also guys, find something behind-'"

Audio may be found here

If the cutscene is skipped, the screen fades to black after everyone playing gets on the elevator.

Beginning Dialouge
A bass sound plays as the game suddenly cuts to the crashed elevator, dust flying up into the air as the text "RECOVERY" in bold red letters pops up on screen, and the Objectives list from before has its contents slowly fade to red before disappearing. If you are solo, your character thinks to themselves.

If you are with other people, the dialouge will change, with the characters speaking to one another. Anything your character says will be prefixed by "You:" while the others will be prefixed by their character names. Specifics may be found here.

After all the dialouge ends, the text "Find a way to escape the mine" will appear in white, while underneath the Objectives list is only one note:


 * Escape

The text will eventually fade after a few seconds.

If the intro cutscene was skipped, the Objectives list will not appear. However, the "Escape" note still appears after the dialouge ends.

The Map
There are three floors which you must progress through: Floor 1 (where you begin), to Floor 2, to Floor 3, where the escape elevator is. Each floor has the same layout, however, most rooms and both elevators are randomized as to where on the map they are located.

More information on the map, its rooms, and its monsters can be found here.

Utility items are required to progress through the mine, such as crowbars and fuel.

Tips and Tricks

 * 1) Camping out in a dead end and turning off all light sources gives a chance to avoid the Screamer.
 * 2) Lag can slow you down if you run on a low-end computer, which will lead to you being killed by the screamer (in chase).
 * 3) When listening for anything (Screamer, the generator, Laughing Jack), swivel your head around. This will help you determine which direction the sound is coming from.
 * 4) Running sideways is helpful for moving past Stunner in a chase, should the Stunner be blocking your path.
 * 5) The screamer will always take the shortest and fastest path leading to you in chase, leading to the screamer flanking you
 * 6) The screamer walks, the stunner runs. If one is behind you, the other is in front of you.
 * 7) Practice your camera flicks, they are useful against Stunner.

Glitches

 * 1) While shift-spamming, there is a chance that you may glitch and run even faster than normal without making any noise at all, as if you are floating. This only lasts for as long as you are holding the run key.
 * 2) When you unlock the locker with the key to get the boltcutters, the locker can sometimes glitch, resulting in that it can't be opened and/or it will take a long time for it to open, possibly resulting in death.

Trivia

 * The name of the game refers to multiple goals at once: the goal of the plot initially is to recover company equipment, which morphs into recovering company equipment in order to recover yourselves from the mine.
 * If all the players die, then the escape elevator will start going up, even if it has not been repaired.
 * This may be due to the game ending when the elevator rises, so the elevator is programmed to rise when it is either triggered or upon detecting all player deaths.
 * The man heard in the Intro Cutscene is VicgamerX