This is one of the best horror experiences I've had on itch. There are no "cheap" jumpscares here; just pure, unnerving psychological horror. The ambiance is wonderfully haunting. I'd love to see this idea fleshed out into a short game, as the demo already does so much in just ten minutes and could be expanded upon further into something more memorable than it already is.
flyr102
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A member registered Apr 09, 2020
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★★★★☆
I wouldn't rate this a full four stars; 3.7-3.9 if I could.
For a game that had me completely hooked for its first ten minutes, I was disappointed when it let the reel go with its ludicrous ARG. The problem with this game was that one could tell that there was more to be discovered after the "main" ending, leaving me excited to dig for clues. However, the passion for exploring quickly died out after my logical next step resulted in nothing (e.g., scouring the dev logs on the itch page, throwing myself at every wall in the map to find lack of collision, making sure I had found all the dialogue routes). After watching the complete walkthrough video, I was frustrated by the farcical, nonsensical steps required to complete the game.
Though I know this student project undoubtedly deserved its high academic marks, its nerve-wracking ambiance is undermined by its "90s Point & Click"-like puzzle design (i.e., more Broken Sword's Goat Puzzle than Myst). Despite this game being three years old, today's ARGs suffer a similar fate in that they still haven't figured out how to make their puzzles rationally clever. The only way to get closure from many of these experiences is the just wait until MatPat comes out with his video. I'm surprised he never made one about this one...
If you want a more memorable experience, I urge you to check out papercookie's newest game "MapFriend."