CoAction, a small Finnish indie development team, has released a demo for Sucks to Be in the Sticks, a narrative adventure game that reimagines vampire mythology through the lens of working-class struggle in a remote northern town. You play as Ilo, a 19-year-old who gets turned into a vampire and must navigate the mundane horrors of paying rent, taking odd jobs, and deciding whether to literally drink people’s blood or metaphorically drain their hopes and dreams.
Blood Versus Energy The Moral Dilemma
The game’s most compelling mechanic revolves around an uncomfortable choice. In this universe, vampires have evolved beyond traditional blood-drinking to consume human energy instead. Energy extraction works by shattering people’s aspirations and ambitions, effectively stripping away their will to pursue dreams. It’s a clean, modern approach that most vampires have adopted.
But Ilo didn’t get a normal turning. The vampire who transformed them cursed them with an old-fashioned hunger that can only truly be satisfied by blood. And drinking blood comes with its own psychological horror because it forces you to witness the victim’s darkest memories and traumatic experiences. Every feeding becomes an involuntary dive into human suffering.
This creates a fascinating moral framework. Do you consume blood and preserve people’s capacity to dream while traumatizing yourself with their pain? Or do you switch to energy and spare yourself the psychological damage while permanently destroying what makes your victims human? The game describes this as a choice between brutal honesty and comfortable monstrosity, with no clean solution either way.
Life In A Post-Soviet Nightmare
The setting grounds the supernatural horror in economic reality. You’re not some aristocratic vampire living in a gothic castle. You’re a teenager in a decaying northern town that feels distinctly post-Soviet, working night shifts to afford basic necessities. The game bills itself as a “cursed life simulator” where supernatural powers don’t exempt you from capitalism’s grinding demands.
Your daily routine involves scrubbing floors, brewing moonshine, following strange rituals, and taking whatever odd jobs you can find. The juxtaposition of vampire mythology with working-class mundanity creates dark comedy opportunities. Imagine being an immortal creature of the night but still needing to mop someone’s kitchen to make rent. The supernatural becomes just another complication in an already difficult existence.
Finland’s harsh northern climate and the post-Soviet aesthetic provide perfect atmospheric backdrops for this story. Remote towns where winters are brutal and economic opportunities are scarce already feel slightly apocalyptic. Adding vampires to that environment creates something that feels grimly realistic despite the fantasy elements.
The Consequences Of Addiction
According to the developers, continuing to consume blood rather than switching to energy leads to gradual descent into madness. The accumulated trauma of witnessing countless dark memories takes its psychological toll. The game describes this as losing your mind to the addiction, suggesting that mechanical gameplay consequences accompany the narrative weight of your choices.
This creates interesting tension for players. Blood-drinking maintains your humanity by refusing to destroy others’ dreams, but it destroys your sanity through empathetic overload. Energy consumption preserves your mental stability at the cost of becoming something truly monstrous that murders what makes people human. Neither path offers redemption, just different flavors of damnation.
The “for as long as you can” phrasing in the game’s description suggests that hiding your vampirism becomes increasingly difficult as you make choices. Communities notice when people’s dreams systematically die or when locals start showing signs of blood loss. Your feeding method affects how suspicion builds and what kind of investigation you face from both humans and other vampires.
Uncovering Small Town Secrets
Beyond survival mechanics, the game emphasizes narrative discovery. You’re uncovering the stories of everyday people, the things they won’t say aloud or even admit to themselves. Whether through drinking blood and experiencing their memories directly or through consuming energy and seeing their abandoned dreams, you gain intimate knowledge of the community’s hidden darkness.
This voyeuristic element ties vampire mythology to noir detective fiction. You become an unwilling witness to human suffering, accumulating secrets that reveal how seemingly normal people harbor profound pain, regret, and desperation. The developers describe it as supernatural horror bleeding into the personal, suggesting that human psychology provides horror equal to any monster.
Small towns are perfect settings for this type of story. Everyone knows everyone, making anonymity impossible. Secrets fester for generations because there’s nowhere to escape. Adding a vampire who can literally see or consume those secrets creates narrative possibilities that pure horror or pure slice-of-life couldn’t achieve independently.
Who Is Making This Game
CoAction appears to be a very small team from Finland. According to Reddit posts, Alyona identifies as the sole developer, suggesting this might be a one-person project or a partnership where one person handles most technical development. The studio describes itself as a small group, indicating collaboration even if the core development work falls primarily on one creator.
This explains both the game’s intimate focus and its modest scope. Single-developer narrative games can achieve remarkable depth by concentrating on writing, world-building, and atmosphere rather than complex mechanics or cutting-edge graphics. The 2D presentation and life simulator mechanics play to indie development strengths, allowing strong storytelling without requiring massive art or programming resources.
Finnish game development has produced remarkable indie titles in recent years, from Control to My Summer Car. There’s something about Scandinavian development culture that embraces weird, dark, and uncompromising visions. Sucks to Be in the Sticks fits perfectly into that tradition, taking familiar vampire tropes and filtering them through distinctly Finnish sensibilities about isolation, dark humor, and economic struggle.
The Dark Comedy Balance
The game markets itself as a dark comedy, which feels appropriate given its premise. There’s inherent absurdity in being an immortal supernatural creature who still needs to work minimum-wage jobs and worry about bills. The juxtaposition of cosmic horror (witnessing humanity’s darkest memories) with mundane annoyances (needing to brew moonshine for cash) creates humor through contrast.
Finnish humor tends toward the dry and deadpan, finding comedy in suffering rather than escaping it. This isn’t slapstick or witty banter. It’s the humor of recognizing that existence remains difficult regardless of supernatural status, that becoming a vampire doesn’t exempt you from capitalism’s grinding machinery. Some will find this hilarious. Others will find it depressing. Both reactions are valid.
The developers emphasize that despite dark themes, the game doesn’t rely on gratuitous violence or explicit horror imagery. The terror comes from psychological and emotional sources. Witnessing someone’s traumatic memories or destroying their capacity to dream creates horror through empathy and implication rather than gore. This approach requires strong writing to work, but when executed well, psychological horror lingers longer than shock value.
Platform And Release Details
The demo is currently available on Steam for Windows PC. The full game is targeting Q1 2026 release, though some listings mention Q2 2026, suggesting the timeline might still be flexible. Console versions haven’t been announced. When asked about Nintendo Switch in Reddit discussions, the developer expressed uncertainty, noting that porting can be challenging for indie developers with limited resources.
The game carries mature content warnings including some nudity or sexual content and general mature themes. Given the game’s focus on psychological horror, intimate revelations through blood-drinking, and adult situations in a struggling working-class environment, these warnings seem appropriate. This is explicitly not a game designed for younger audiences.
Steam lists the game under Adventure, Casual, Indie, and Simulation genres. The Casual designation seems questionable given the heavy themes, but likely refers to the relatively relaxed gameplay loop of life simulation rather than intense action mechanics. Players expecting cozy farming sims should be warned that this leans much darker despite surface similarities to daily routine simulators.
The Narrative Game Renaissance
Sucks to Be in the Sticks arrives during a renaissance for narrative-focused indie games. Titles like Disco Elysium, Night in the Woods, and Citizen Sleeper proved that players hunger for games prioritizing writing, choice, and thematic depth over mechanical complexity. These games tackle difficult subjects, adult themes, and philosophical questions that AAA productions typically avoid.
The vampire-as-working-class-metaphor angle feels particularly timely. Vampires have always carried economic subtext about parasitism and class division, but typically from the aristocrat perspective. Positioning the vampire protagonist as someone struggling with poverty rather than embodying it creates fresh commentary. You’re not Dracula in his castle. You’re the servant who got bitten and still needs to pay rent.
Finnish indie games specifically seem drawn to melancholic examinations of struggling in harsh environments. My Summer Car simulated rural Finnish poverty through car repair. Now Sucks to Be in the Sticks explores it through vampire mythology. There’s something distinctly Finnish about finding supernatural horror in economic precarity and social isolation rather than haunted mansions or demon invasions.
FAQs
When does Sucks to Be in the Sticks release?
The full game is targeting Q1 2026 release, though some sources list Q2 2026. A playable demo featuring refined content is currently available on Steam for free, allowing players to experience the game’s opening chapters and core mechanics before committing to a purchase when the full version launches.
What platforms will the game be available on?
Sucks to Be in the Sticks is confirmed for Windows PC via Steam. Console versions including Nintendo Switch have not been announced. The developer expressed uncertainty about porting due to the challenges indie developers face when adapting games for console platforms, suggesting PC will remain the primary focus.
What is the difference between drinking blood and consuming energy?
Blood-drinking forces you to witness victims’ darkest traumatic memories, causing psychological damage to your character while preserving victims’ capacity to dream. Energy consumption destroys people’s aspirations and dreams permanently but spares you the trauma of experiencing their memories. Both options carry severe consequences with no morally clean choice available.
Is this game appropriate for all ages?
No, the game carries mature content warnings including some nudity or sexual content and general mature themes. The psychological horror, adult situations, and heavy themes around trauma, addiction, and economic struggle make it unsuitable for younger players. It’s designed explicitly for adult audiences comfortable with dark narrative content.
Who is developing Sucks to Be in the Sticks?
CoAction, described as a small group from Finland, is developing the game. Reddit posts identify Alyona as the sole developer, suggesting this might be a one-person project or a very small team where one person handles most development work. This explains the game’s focused scope and narrative-driven approach rather than complex gameplay systems.
What gameplay does the game actually involve?
The game is described as a life simulator and narrative adventure. Gameplay involves taking odd jobs like floor scrubbing and moonshine brewing to earn money, following daily routines, making choices about how to feed as a vampire, and uncovering the secrets of townspeople through conversations and your feeding method. It’s more about choices and narrative than action or combat.
Can you avoid drinking blood entirely?
The game suggests you can switch to consuming energy instead of blood, which is what modern vampires in this universe typically do. However, your character is specifically cursed to hunger for blood, so transitioning to energy likely involves mechanical challenges or consequences. The description mentions trying to switch to more wholesome sustenance, implying it’s possible but difficult.
What makes this different from other vampire games?
Most vampire games focus on power fantasy or gothic romance. Sucks to Be in the Sticks grounds vampirism in working-class economic struggle in a post-Soviet northern town. You’re not a powerful aristocrat but a teenager trying to pay bills while dealing with supernatural hunger. The moral choice between blood and energy consumption creates psychological horror rather than action-focused gameplay.
Conclusion
Sucks to Be in the Sticks represents an ambitious attempt to deconstruct vampire mythology through the lens of economic precarity and moral ambiguity. By positioning the vampire protagonist as a struggling teenager in a decaying post-Soviet town rather than a powerful supernatural aristocrat, CoAction has created space for fresh commentary on class, addiction, and the cost of survival. The choice between consuming blood and witnessing trauma versus stealing dreams and preserving sanity offers genuine moral complexity without easy answers. Whether you’re drawn to narrative-focused indies, dark comedy, or simply vampire stories that break from tired tropes, this Finnish oddity deserves attention. The demo available now on Steam provides a risk-free opportunity to experience CoAction’s vision before the Q1 2026 release. Just remember that despite the life simulator framing, this leans much darker than cozy farming games. You’re not tending crops. You’re deciding whether to literally or metaphorically drain your neighbors while trying to afford rent. That’s the kind of uncomfortable choice that makes for memorable storytelling, even if it doesn’t make for comfortable playing.