itch.io

Reading back on my initial review, it occurs to me that my phrasing in some sections might be misunderstood as excessively critical, so I just want to clarify that I liked the minimalist detail in the aesthetics and the story. Because we hardly know what’s going on, we’re left to fill in a lot of details ourselves, kind of like when you’re reading an SCP with a lot of redactions. The ending kind of puts the kibash on this, but that’s okay because it acts as something of a resolution to the mystery even if it still doesn’t explain much.

I saw that a lot of people were really down on the “overly” pixelated look, but I liked it because the monster design is very simple (though I must say the animations and sound design were very solid) and the pixelization means that we see it in very little detail, which reflects our limited understanding of what’s going on and makes them spoopier, especially in darkened areas where we might have difficulty seeing them. I didn’t have any problems with the game’s visual aesthetic except for that one moment in the security office where I missed a vent because it was so dark and I was afraid to turn on my flashlight lest I wake the monster in the room.

I mentioned an “oh shit” moment in my review, and the reason it worked so well was that I hadn’t been attacked yet and didn’t know what would happen if I got spotted. I was in the cafeteria looking for the key card I needed when I heard the monster coming back. Because I hadn’t thought that its patrol route would return to the cafeteria I ducked into the first hiding spot I could think of, which left me completely exposed from the front but covered me from the sides. As I watched the monster walk past he was only a few feet away, and since I didn’t know how wide his cone of vision was I couldn’t be sure I would make it out, which resulted in a near-panic moment as it was walking past. This was all made possible by your masterful execution of the minimal aesthetic of the game.