Scanner Sombre, while flawed, is a delightful experiment. In what it fumbles with in regards to its story execution, it makes up for with a wonderful new gameplay mechanic just begging to be copied by future gaming endeavors. Much like the much-loved portal gun, the titular scanner of Scanner Sombre makes the experience shine with a fresh new take on exploring a video game environment.
You start the game by waking up as a nameless archaeologist alone in your camp at the bottom of a cave system. From there, you are quickly introduced to a prototype cave mapping scanner used in archaeological survey. The entire area surrounding you is pitch black you see, and with no light of your own to guide the way, you must use the scanner to paint the cave system with glowing dots, allowing you to navigate the otherwise invisible landscape. You can adjust the width of the scanner to paint everything in front of you slowly, or one small area quickly, as the scanner only has basic functionality and a small resolution before collecting upgrades for it throughout the game. The scanner's soft whirring is your constant companion, and breaks the near-silence of the cave with a pleasing white noise as you make progress turning the featureless black cave into a spectacle of lights. The purest joy of the game is discovering the cave and seeing your handiwork form some truly astonishing sights, all the while the scanner itself remains a tangible friend.
Everything else in the game unfortunately, is far less compelling. The story for one, is rather underdeveloped and seemingly cobbled together of themes the writer likely thought were intriguing, but often times are soundly defeated by how poorly executed they are. There is narration from your character at times, of which usually involves him telling the player how important or special something is about the cave and his mad desire to uncover a lost civilization therein. Added into the mix are light horror elements in the form of noises from some unidentifiable monster lurking in the cave, though without spoiling anything, these strings are never brought to any kind of resolution or intelligent interpretation. The game makes the fatal error of explaining how engrossing things in the game are instead of letting the player decide for his or herself, but with such sophomoric material on hand, it all feels like an insult to your ability to judge quality storytelling on its own merits.
In the end though, Scanner Sombre was never supposed to be about its story. It's a game that hands you a device not yet seen in gaming, and sets you loose to test it out in an environment that's up to the task of keeping you entertained and curious. The execution of operating the scanner is done well enough to carry the 1-2 hour experience, and despite its shortcomings, Scanner Sombre offers enough innovation and wonder to feel like time well spent.