I admit, I'm a sucker for games that make you work your way around escape rooms and videogame escape rooms just hit that sweet spot where you feel like the most clever person ever for solving whatever nonsense the game is throwing in front of you, while also avoiding the real world escape room nonsense of having an uninterested person curse your existence as you fail to spot a small key in the open for half an hour.
Here there's a big attempt to coat everything with a horror aesthetic that wants to repeatedly straddle the line between Saw style deathtraps, Cabin in the Woods style claustrophobia and underground organisations and Cthulthu-esque horror. Sadly because of it flicking wildly between all three of these ideas at any given time, it never quite nails any of these, the Saw elements don't feel personal enough, the underground organisation stuff is constantly steered around and the Cthulthu stuff just raises more questions than answers.
As for the puzzles themselves they... are pretty decent with a few that had me genuinely stumped for a bit but most of them generally fall under similar rules which means most puzzle fans will burn through this quite quickly, possibly replaying a couple of times to see what would happen if you got some of the more critical puzzles incorrect.
Oh yeah critical puzzles. As you progress through the game, you'll come across several tasks where, if you get the solution to what the game wants incorrect, will kill off a character permanently for that run (unless you save/reload a lot like a true adventure game fan). This should lead to some interesting elements, surviving characters interacting or being sad at others passing but because none of the characters have any association with each other, theres never anything meaningful going on. Even when hanging out together, theres barely any interaction and barely any dialogue of worth. Its all a bit hollow.
Overall I cant help but just feel if they had focused in on one style or two horror-wise and snuck in either a few harder more complex puzzles, or used a few randomly generated ones, there would be a case to call this a hidden gem. As it is, its merely 'there'.
Here there's a big attempt to coat everything with a horror aesthetic that wants to repeatedly straddle the line between Saw style deathtraps, Cabin in the Woods style claustrophobia and underground organisations and Cthulthu-esque horror. Sadly because of it flicking wildly between all three of these ideas at any given time, it never quite nails any of these, the Saw elements don't feel personal enough, the underground organisation stuff is constantly steered around and the Cthulthu stuff just raises more questions than answers.
As for the puzzles themselves they... are pretty decent with a few that had me genuinely stumped for a bit but most of them generally fall under similar rules which means most puzzle fans will burn through this quite quickly, possibly replaying a couple of times to see what would happen if you got some of the more critical puzzles incorrect.
Oh yeah critical puzzles. As you progress through the game, you'll come across several tasks where, if you get the solution to what the game wants incorrect, will kill off a character permanently for that run (unless you save/reload a lot like a true adventure game fan). This should lead to some interesting elements, surviving characters interacting or being sad at others passing but because none of the characters have any association with each other, theres never anything meaningful going on. Even when hanging out together, theres barely any interaction and barely any dialogue of worth. Its all a bit hollow.
Overall I cant help but just feel if they had focused in on one style or two horror-wise and snuck in either a few harder more complex puzzles, or used a few randomly generated ones, there would be a case to call this a hidden gem. As it is, its merely 'there'.