i LOVE them. no idea why-- i have never been a part of any church until adulthood when i joined laveyan satanism.

That being said. any recommendations? also open to just discuss. i'm autistic and it's a huge special interest for me :3 i also am writing a novel series about it

pls be nice lol

I have played:

The Binding of Isaac. That one is pretty obviously dead on the nose-- Isaac, you know, his dad wanted to sacrifice him to God. I haven't played a ton of this game but i am really looking forward to learning more as I get more into it.

Cult of the Lamb. Has christian elements, namely the lamb motif, but otherwise not super related. Also... not really horror imo.

Darkest Dungeon. Religion is a mechanic and characters faith has meaning. Clearly based off the Christian god but it's called "The Light". There is a character called the Vestal, which was a term for priestesses of Vesta, goddess of the hearth and home in Rome. Her canon name is Junia, considered to be the first female apostle but there'a lot of debate here.

Faith: The Unholy Trinity. I SOBBED at the ending... first reading "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" during the boss fight??? I had to pause and think about life. I also had to text my mom asking about certain bible passages and random Christian tidbits since she gave me my hyperfixation on it. She USED to be religious but she's not anymore she just still likes the art. I grew up around it so it's kind of a thing for me I guess. I literally had to go tell her about the game. Lol

Outlast 2: REALLY dark religious horror about how cultish mentalities and isolation by the church can ruin things. Been a long time since i played it but i just remember being a 17 year old questioning my sexuality feeling things about Marta and Val. Also, the first time I saw an openly transgender character in a video game. Still one of the only ones. copped me a gf that's a tall asf blond trans girl, too. she's less of a psycho though :3. But yeah, Val clearly having a lot of trauma, and ending up splintering off from the main cult and making her own was fascinating to me. And reading her notes. Val killing the children clearly messing her up and making her violent, compared to Marta who wants to kill nobody but being manipulated by Knoth?? it's such a good comparison of how different people react to things differently, and how religion gone bad can poison you.

It's SUCH a fascinating thing. and then it dovetails into ELDRITCH HORROR! which is not that far off if you think about it, right? all knowing, incomprehensible being with power you can't comprehend. it's really just a more pessimistic view of the same subject, isn't it?

The best games I've played with THAT theme are

Call of Cthulhu: i started it idk much yet i just want to get it out of the way before i get it recommended.

Call of Karen: a comedy game that i think was a student project? deliberately janky controls, utterly hilarious view on insanity in housewives of the 1950s. Who were on a LOT of drugs. you have to think about it too hard for it to be scary though. Free!

The Consuming Shadow: i will scream from the rooftops about The Consuming Shadow. 99 cents on Steam!! it's UTTERLY amazing. Clever puzzles and deduction, compelling plot and characters, loads to do, endless replayability. It's AMAZING and nobody has ever heard of it. I beg of you, go play this game. Made by one guy, cheaper than anything I have bought in my life, and it's amazing.

Darkest Dungeon: very lovecraftian theme, madness and strange creatures and gods.

Dead By Daylight: ... tangentially related. i love the game, but The Entity is about it for that.

Dredge: maybe this one just got me because i have thalassophobia but it's SO good. also autistic + like collecting things. Lovecraftian fishing sim.

Fear and Hunger: horrifying eldritch gods, losing your humanity to worship them, etc etc... haven't finished the game, died to a prison guard and got THAT scene, shut that shit down and never opened it again lol

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream: a REALLY GOOD take on eldritch horror. you may argue with me-- but AM is by any definition a god. utter power, beyond comprehension. this god was created by humanity (like they all are). really cool to think about

World of Horror: another game that ONE GUY made. Retro graphics, super super cool to figure out. Steep difficulty curve, but so rewarding to figure out.

but yeah. any recommendations for games in either category or thoughts are welcome i am feral about this topic

Any you can think of would be cool

Hey guys, I just finished up The Scourge and had an amazing time. The style of this horror is a sub-genre I want to dive more into but it feels that there aren't many horror games out that output the same vibe as The Scourge and Devotion. Any recs?

I don't know if people will agree with this, but Stray Souls was really that bad? Giving the the current non horror games being made thanks to SBI and Ubisoft falling into gutter. I know the developer was desolved due to the negative feedback, but given the current games that are terrible recently. Alan Wake 2 did not make any money, Dustborn was made by a racist developer, Concord is a 400 million dollars failure, even Dragon Age Veilguard is getting refunds and backed up by false positive reviews, even SBI sided with Powell which caused major backlash. Is Stray Souls really a bad game, I heard no ill doing on the games develolment.

It’s on sale for $29.99 USD at a local shop and was curious if it’s worth the huge mark down or even at that price it’s a bit too steep. Heard middle of the road things when it came out but at that price, curious to hear what people think!

Edit: I pulled trigger on the deal and am picking up later today! Sounds like a good middle of the road experience and frankly for that price I can’t say why not!

Hey everyone!

I'm doing my final project on biometric devices in horror games and could really use your input in this quick survey. It only takes a few minutes, and every response helps a ton. Thanks so much for taking the time!

https://forms.gle/t5fqrDMrbBZNCx6i7

😊 Thanks again!

I loved mouthwashing so much and I’m trying to find similar games that I could play in my ipad. Could you guys give me any recommendations? ty in advance!

So I see the game was supposed to release on October 29 2024 on PS5 according to the trailer...yet I can't find this game anywhere...not on PSN and I can't find any physical copies online either

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CImKvn0qWR8 Release date at the end.

Anyone knows what's going on and where this game is?

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hucojS6D7hI&ab_channel=BreakingTheGame

Pretty much the title. I'm a researcher working on the philosophy and psychology of video games and I did a video about SH2, one of my all time favourite games.

Description: In this video, we dive into Silent Hill 2 through the lens of psychoanalysis, exploring how the game portrays the unconscious mind, dream symbolism, horror, and the haunting power of trauma.
Silent Hill 2 contains one of the most sophisticated portrayals of human psychology in video gaming history, one premised on a particular conception of the function of dreams, upon which Freud’s idea of the punishment dream rests. Using Freud's dream theory, we analyze the psychological horrors James Sunderland faces, the role of repressed memories, and the symbolic meaning behind the eerie town of Silent Hill.

I wanted to share a great horror game with a good storyline called Interstice. Could you recommend another horror game that has a strong narrative? I want another one.

I know, i know, it is hard to find and it makes sense that most horror games would be about survival but it just adds an extra layer of stress to me.

Any recommendations for horror games where you don't have to manage your resources or worry about dying every second and repeating a huge chunk of a game?

Thank you

Edit: I am also not a huge fan of the choice-based games

Anyone else like to do a thing where, during a horror game playthrough they like to just chill for a while in the prologue area where none of the major scares have happened yet?

I.e. the lighthouse in Bioshock 1, outside the Baker house in RE7 etc etc

Hello everyone, I'm lookin for some horror games where we don't have any weapons but we are only supposed to run, defend or hide from the enemies with the elements of stealth. Best example is Resident Evil 2 Remake Mr X at Police Station, The Evil Within first mission ending where we avoid that chainsaw monster, Resident Evil 7 Bakers House and Village House Beneviento basement type of gameplay. The monster or ghost or enemy must be continuously looking for us for the most part. Thank you.

I personally thought this was what made survival horror games survival horror. I mean games where you're hanging on to every bullet that you can get away with not spending, because later you might mess up and need them. I think it adds a lot of tension to be technically able to go full combat, but prefer not to.

I mean games like:

• Bioshock
• The Last of Us
• Signalis
• Dead Space

Ive felt this a little when playing Resident Evil 7 and I've never played any Silent Hill games.

Does anyone else know of any games that scratch this itch?

I’m actually quite surprised that nobody is talking about Slitterhead. The game that the Silent Hill creators made. It’s only a few days from releasing and there advertising for the game is apparently not good. What do you guys think about it so far?

I've never played RE but liked Alien: Isolation, SOMA, Prey (2017) and Penumbra.

What is the best game to dip my toe into the series? Appreciate but probably won't enjoy games without modern-ish QOL improvements, tank controls

Been loving this game. I finished Vivian’s story and started Amy’s and holy hell is the villain in Amy’s story terrifying. I screamed when she started chasing me and scared my cat that was laying next to me 😂😂

I think I'm just posting this for me to be honest, but here we go.

Over the last few days I played and beat Finding Frankie, the recently released mascot horror game. And first thing I want to say, if this genre needs to die already. Sorry, but it's true. And sadly, I know the genre won't die because I know of at least a dozen upcoming and also recently released mascot horror game, and there have been several announcements for future titles as well. So sadly... Not going anywhere.

People might also be wondering: "Why did it take you several days? Youtube playthroughs are like an hour to an hour and a half, are you bad at video games?" No, actually I'm fine at video games. No for me it was an issue of frustration constantly putting me off, and working every day, and spending time doing other things in general. ...Oh also I spend way too much time trying to actively BREAK the game I am playing, leading to a ton of wasted time and repeated sections trying to outsmart the game. And in this case, I succeeded in outsmarting the game many times. But this morning I say down and finished the game... After faffing about for like 3 hours and repeatedly soft locking myself trying to be clever.

SO LET'S REVIEW IT!

It's bad.

Ok, review over.

Ok but for real this time. So Finding Frankie is a mascot horror title in which you are invited via willy wonka VHS tape to partake in a parkour game show at a place called Frankie's Parkour Palace. Which is just a giant indoor trampoline park. Oh it also has a waterpark. Oh and parkour... And... Food? And... Broadcasting on a private television network??? And an advanced robot's lab that can create life apparently? Ok. So it's like the pizzaplex in FNAF security breach where when the devs were making it they just threw whatever they wanted into it and pretended that was completely normal and fine. But I will touch on that a bit more later. For now let's start with some basics.

Controls: I felt like I was constantly trying to run on ice, everything was slippery and not well thought out. There are two different interaction buttons, left click and E. They both interact with different things, and later the game just takes away the E key and replaces the interaction function with a duck. That sentence might sound like I just had a stroke, but I assure you it makes perfect sense in context. The duck is called "Deputy duck" and acts as a single area puzzle key item that highlights interactables and has a flash function... Not flashlight, flash. I never found an actual use for this. Movement feels super slow and clunky, ironic given this is meant to be a fast paced parkour experience. Walking feels more like crawling, and running feels like a light jog. Jumping has no REAL function in game other than to allow you to reach bars, bars are just... Bars. That you swing on, and have an annoying feature where you need to be jumping to interact with them at all, but jumping alone doesn't interact, you need to jump, be looking directly at the bar, and hold left click. This causes the player to swing on the bar. The only other use for jumping is vaulting, which is done by pressing jump while running at a short obstacle, and the player will vault over it. The game also has the most broken dash I have ever seen and would be fun to use if not for the horrendous way it was implemented. To dash you need to be running then press crouch. Run is left sprint, and is NOT a toggle. To run you HAVE to hold shift. Crouch is left control. Now... I don't know about anyone else, but I don't have the right number of fingers or dexterity to press and hold left shift, forward, and left control all at once. Seems like a poor implementation of an otherwise cool feature. So controls kinda suck, everything is slippery, and you need alien hands to use them.

Story: If there was a story beyond "Do parkour, avoid evil robot bunny, win money" then I never found it. I have no idea what any character's motivations were, I have no idea who controls the show, or how they keep getting funded, where they are, who I am, why I am there... But there's more things to be upset about then a nonexistent story... Such as...

World/level design: Holy shit. *Holy shit* Whoever designed these environments and levels... Please, PLEASE, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, experience -A- room. Just... Enter a single room, observe the room, experience the room, and then... Understand how rooms work so you don't do this. Like... Go to a building, any building, and explore it so you understand how ROOMS work. I need to really break down how the game opens for you to understand why I am so frustrated by this.

So we just start in a dark closet space, a garage door opens and we are in another slightly larger space. There doesn't appear to be any other doors into or out of that space... Meaning that we allowed ourselves to be lead into a short hallway, told to stand at the end of it, and let ourselves be sealed into complete darkness via an industrial garage door. When we exit THIS space we find ourselves not in a lobby, or any sort of meeting space, but a literal starting line for the parkour. The game also gives us a map right before we leave, not one we can take with but just a physical map on the wall and... Yeah we can see zero other ways into or out of that space. It's such a weird choice, but gets weirder. We get chased out of that room by frankie, which I will touch on shortly, and run down a hallway... Into a tutorial, it's important to note that the game gives ZERO instruction on what you are meant to do here, and I died 3 times because I made the obvious and logical assumption that I needed to run AWAY from the big supposedly scary monster... Nope, turns out you are meant to run INTO and PAST him. So after that we can choose to skip the tutorial, which again comes AFTER the game has started and AFTER you encounter the monster, and BEFORE you know anything. The game tells you how to play AFTER you have to bumble through the controls on your own. After that it FINALLY leads into a lobby, kinda. Which has it;s own weird layout including a seemingly inaccessible trampoline space (where you can see frankie if you strain your eyes) and a short parkour thing with multiple breakers you need to activate to unlock a door...

Other examples of bad level design include: several rooms that clearly have doors to nowhere, the waterpark area having slides that go into the walls, the waterpark area not having any pools or water areas, waterpark area having a wierd triangular sitting area that also seems to serve food? But the seating area is up a floor from the waterpark area, overhangs into the waterpark area, but doesn't have any access from the waterpark area... It's so weird, like... to use that sitting area you would have to circumnavigate the entire building, then to go TO the waterpark from there you would have to re-circumnavigate it to get down... Like... Whoever designed the water park area, please experience ANY BUILDING. Also in the waterpark area, slides that just smash faces into concrete, a bunch of fans that push people into saw blades on the ceiling, a breaker box/switch on TOP of some scaffolding, that doesn't actually connect to anything and doesn't even have wires attached. It doesn't DO anything... I literally CAN'T do anything... And yet there's still more level design issues. There's a section where you briefly visit a sewer/water treatment area, you do this by going down a single flight of stairs and dropping into the basement of the building. Hey, game devs... What the fuck? How is anyone meant to get down there? Also there are no stairs, how do I get back up? Hey, game devs, why are there pipes on the floor? Like... There are pipes on the floor, and then at the end of that section before the "puzzle" in it there is a single stairwell that goes up half a floor to an isolated room where you trigger two breakers... Those stairs are bolted down... INTO THE PIPES... Why, in the FUCK, would anyone ever bolt anything INTO A PIPE? BUT THERE IS STILL MORE! To escape this area you do a puzzle where you swim around the water treatment area and trip several breakers... Underwater... With visible power lines and outlets... Under water... And exposed light bulbs... Under the water... Hey game devs... How am I alive? Also, minor nitpick, but you spend most of this section underwater, but there's no oxygen meter or timer, you can just... BE underwater indefinitely. Then after triggering all the breakers a door opens and reveals... A single trampoline that somehow launches you into the ceiling, which... Has a waste disposal system in it? That drops all the trash... Back into the basement? Game devs... Please explain to me why I would dump my trash into the ceiling... So it goes to the basement... That doesn't make any god damn sense. I jsut... Want you to experience what a BUILDING is so you never make these mistakes again. But moving on...

Another example of shitty level design: There is a chase sequence with a character named Hotline Henry, which leads you to a bathroom, which has a vent, which leads to a game where you have to avoid obstacles moving at you rapidly that will shove you into sawblades and kill you... This room has ZERO doors... How the hell was this room built? How do people normally get into and out of it? Why is the bathroom vent the only access point? Also, the puzzle/game is to avoid obstacles, easy enough. The game has an invisible wall where the obstacles pop out of, preventing the player from falling off. Very basic, simple game design thing... Except... Once I had beaten the room I had no idea where to go, going too close to the saws killed me, there were no other doors, and down was into a void and also there was an invisible wall... WAS... An invisible wall... Turns out after beating the room you are meant to jump off into the void which takes you to the next area... So... The game has a whole timed minigame with an invisible wall preventing you from doing something, only to actually want you to do that thing in the end... So... Another instance of counter-intuitive gameplay, right alongside running TOWARDS the monster in a horror game. But more importantly, this was the first area I was able to sequence break the game and get out of bounds. See I had died and didn't want to do the room again, so I mashed myself into a wall hoping that when the timer started I would clip through the obstacles, and yes this IS a thing I do several times to avoid having to actually deal with the game's bullshit, but found that one of the corners of the area didn't have an invisible wall... And I fell through... At firs tI thought this would sequence break the game but instead it shoved me out of bounds, and I was able to see the entire map... And then I moved and instantly died, so I assume they must have a kill field that only worked when the player tried to move, not sure why. But also that did end up sequence breaking the game, I think I passed through the field that was meant to trigger the cutscene of me fallign into the next area, but because I hadn't completed the puzzle the game got confused. It spawned me back to before the puzzle, but when I reentered the room the puzzle wouldn't trigger, and the invisible wall was gone. So I was able to freely drop into the void and continue. These sequence break issues would become more frequent as the game progressed, and I found that you could re-trigger certain lines of dialogue and chase triggers by going back through areas and interacting with certain objects. this also allowed me to fully skip the waterpark section later, during which I found a spot on the floor that the fans were active in, somehow, and they pushed me into the ceiling fans... Because I had died impossibly to something I wasn't supposed to be able to reach the game got confused again and just auto-completed the entire room except the final switch. Which was easy to do since I didn't have to do the entire rest of the room now.

So... yeah, devs need to experience a ROOM and then also fix a lot of areas that can easily be sequence broken by rubbing yourself onto things.

Boss(es?): so the game has at least one actual boss "fight" and at least one chase I would classify as a boss, even if it's not really. So let's start with Henry Hotline since he dies first, his "boss" sequence involves locating 6 phones in a pitch black room using Deputy duck's radar function. You hit the radar button, it sends out a pulse and it outlines all interactables for you even through walls. It does NOT, however, show enemies locations. Which made this section quite miserable. Henry makes no sound at all unless he is riding your ass, not sure why. This makes him incredibly hard to locate and avoid, and often times I would just let him kill me if he spotted me, it was legitimately faster than trying to outrun him and getting to the "safe room." Supposedly there was a way to locate him using the phones, as activating one would cause a ringing sound at his location, because he is a sentient toy phone you see. But the mechanic never seemed to work and ultimately once I had found all 6 phones in the pitch black maze it was actually easy to beat him. Then there's a brief chase, and he is killed off (technically he dies slightly later, but he is never a threat again after this point so... Dead).

The other boss fight, which IS an actual fight, involves the player and frankie on a series of platforms that collapse a few seconds after being touched. The goal is to avoid him for 2 minutes and then after 2 minutes trigger a cannon full of noob-noobs to kill him by collapsing the entire floor at once. What's a noob-noob? Well other than a bad rick and morty reference, they are little red dudes that look like they were ripped straight from poppy playtime's smiling critters line, and explode when touched. They serve no purpose at all to anything and only show up twice in the entire game, one of those times being right now to kill frankie. I tried to do this fight legitimately, and got close several times, but ultimately the AI kept cheating and I decided to cheat/cheese it back by allowing myself to fall through a gap in the floor early, and my character got stuck on the switch you need to pull to kill frankie after the timer runs out. Frankie's hitbox seems to be in hit feet, so he wasn't able to hurt me, and his AI grew increasingly more deranged as more and more floor fell through. Turns out the AI wasn't programmed to deal with me and my bullshit, ultimately I beat frankie and the game was over... OR WAS IT??? Yeah, yeah it was. But in a very dumb way. So let's break down my personal experience from start to finish and then wrap up!

So I said I would touch on the BS that the game started with, and it's now time for that. As I mentioned you start spawned into a closet, you exit the closet and... Are immediately lost because the game has given you ZERO direction at this point. What you are meant to do is interact with the outfit in the room, then after putting on the outfit exit the room using the breaker... The game doesn't tell you any of this, and yeah you could argue that it's obvious but... Is it? Even triple A games have some kind of basic tutorial for the player, and try to give the player a nudge towards the goal, but I was legitimately confused because I wasn't able to open the door using the breaker. turns out, I needed to put on the outfit first. After being confused briefly by that we exit that room and line up with the three other contestants and a timer counts down... 3... 2... 1... ... ... ... And then frankie bursts through the door and instantly kills two of the contestants. The third one backs away through the door you entered from, and I... Stood there and died like an idiot.

Ok round 2. speedrun putting on clothes, opening and door, going into the room, and this time after triggering the countdown I back up, assuming maybe frankie has an animation I missed... He bursts in, kills two people, I keep an eye on frankie and the third contestant while he escapes... And I die.

Ok round 3. Speedrun clothes, leave, trigger the count down, this time I back into the door thinking maybe I am meant to escape with the other guy... So I wait, he moves to the door, door opens, I run into... An invisible wall and die a few seconds later to frankie.

OK ROUND 4... Clothes, door, timer... I wait, then wonder... "Am I... supposed to run past him?" So I do, I run THROUGH frankie and out the door he came in through. Ok. First time in the history of ever have I ever run TOWARDS the monster that has already killed me 3 times in a horror game, but turns out that was what I was supposed to do. We go down a hallway a bit and have a turn off with a sign for the tutorial area, which just explains the basic controls and have a no risk course for you to run to get used to them. This is where my frustrations began, I already mentioned the slippery controls, which were a constant thorn in my side, but I also found it confused they would put the tutorial AFTER the first monster encounter. I also learned to hate the bars, and to hate the horrible implementation of the dash in this area. After exiting the tutorial we go into the lobby where a voice, who sounds like they are clearly trying to just be Caine from TADC, tells us frankie doesn't normally just decide to kill people, and maybe Henry can help. So we make our way through a short obstacle course in the lobby area, unlock a door, which gives us a key, which unlocks the next door, which leads to another short parkour/puzzle room where we now need -3- breakers, which opens a vent. I need to pause for a moment to say, this area pissed me off so much... Not because of the puzzles, but for two reasons.

1. Invisible walls EVERYWHERE. This was another MASSIVE frustration for me throughout the game, and a reason why I had to keep pausing to take breaks... EVERYTHING has an invisible wall on it... EVERYTHING... That waist high barrier that looks jump/vault-able? Naw, there's an 8 foot tall invisible wall on it. That counter in the middle of the room? Naw, invisible wall. Railing on the stairs and balconies? Invisible walls. There are so many invisible walls in this game that I actually started mapping them an using them to try and skip rooms. Including the final room, but we will get there.

2. The blood textures. In this room there is an escalator. It's running. There is also blood on it. Now... A logical person would have probably not had the escalator running, and then texture the blood onto it directly. Or make the texture using on the escalator just having the blood as part of it, or even just had it only move up 1-2 steps before going jittery and going back to it's starting position... Whoever added the blood in this situation decided to instead just have the blood be a physical and separate texture overtop of the escalator, which means the escalator steps are moving UP... But the blood is stationary... So... It immediately breaks the immersion. This also becomes a recurring issue throughout the game with moving objects having static blood on them, it's distracting and dumb.

So after a few telegraphed scares in the vents with henry we finally encounter Deputy duck... A puzzle/key item we use in exactly ONE room and never again. The next room in fact! The pitch black maze with Henry and needing to find 6 phones. I think I spent an hour in this room, not because the puzzle was hard since I literally had a magic duck that told me where the phones were, but because I was trying to understand the logic of the sound based puzzle they had made. As I said Henry was entirely silent unless he was riding your ass, and you could jsut barely make out his silhouette running around in the dark, and triggering a phone woudl alert him to where you were in the maze, and once alerted he knew EXACTLY where you were and went straight there. There was one phone in a "safe room" that Henry was unable to access, so I was spending a lot of time hitting that phone and listening. What I heard was 2 rings followed by a cliche "hanging up the phone ring" if you ever owned a rotary phone you know the exact sound I am talking about, followed by a growl. Now it seemed like hitting the phone would cause henry to ring, which was meant to tell me where he was at. But really all it seemed to do was draw him to me. I spent a lot of time testing how "aware" he was of my presence, and... Yeah, he seemed to retain that knowledge briefly after seeing me, several times I hit the phone and stood outside the safe room, he woudl run at me, I would duck back in and he would walk up to the door then walk away... However he would then spin back around and rush at me again if I exited the room again even if his back was to me... He just knew where I was. Eventually I gave up and just did the puzzle, found the exit, did the dumb chase sequence twice because for some reason he managed to catch up to me the first time.

After Henry was the sawblade obstacle dodge room, which as I said I sequence broke by trying to mash myself into a corner. And after that the game actually weirdly turns into an open world game... No, I'm not joking. You end up in a basement/maintenance area, they all loop around and interconnect, with elevators leading to all the areas you've already been, and tunnels leading to the final 4 areas. But first you encounter Frankie! The other Frankie. The "good" frankie. Who is trying so hard to be Caine that it makes my TEETH hurt. Also we discover that frankie absolutely wants us to die, we see a dry erase board in the room he is in that literally says when and where he plans to kill us. Frankie might be an idiot, just saying. From here we fall into the impossible sewer area I mentioned before, and this area... So first you go through a poorly lit area with a few underwater sections, and I was primed for some good water-based scares. The water was dark and it was a prime opportunity to have something attack or chase us... But nothign happened. I got to the breakers, turned on power to the trampoline room and water park, and leave... And oh, there's the scare. Frankie, the 'good' frankie that is, rushes at me and experienced a slight scare... Which instantly goes away when I realize he's not a solid object... But first he opens a door for us to exit through. A door I ignore completely and swim through Frankie to go back to the start of the area. This would be a massive mistake as upon realizing there was nothing there I then had to swim all the way back, and while innocently looking at his model's feet... He despawned, and the door reset. Soft locking my game... I tried to kill myself in game by going to one of the underwater sections but discovered the horrifying truth... WE DON'T HAVE LUNGS!!!! That or we have gills because I couldn't die. I tried reloading the game as well, but turns out frankie only triggers once in that area. So yeah... I locked my game and had to start over...

OK ROUND 5! Clothes, exit, frankie, henry, sawblades, sewers, ok back to where we were. This time I go through the door frankie so kindly opened for me. And had to do the underwater breaker puzzle, where EVIL Frankie was reaching down and trying to grab me whenever I came up for air... Jokes on him, we JUST established I don't have lungs and don't need air. So this room ends up being extremely trivial. After triggering all the breakers and somehow not drowning or getting electrocuted I open the door and... Take the trampoline into the ceiling of the basement, from the sewer, and just saying that line has caused me physical harm because of how stupid it is. Like... someone explain to me why that is there, what purpose in universe does it serve? This is EXACTLY like another situation from poppy playtime where I got mad because they decided to put a jump pad RIGHT BESIDE a set of stairs... THAT'S NOT HOW THINGS WORK, JUST HAVE STAIRS YOU FUCKING IDIOTS.

Anyways we have power to half of the final areas, and I proceed to jump into a massive underground incinerator to then activate -4- breakers to also power the second to last area. How massive? Bigger than a football field. However it turns out this was kind of not needed yet, as you actually have to visit the other two zones first to find keys! So I did the waterpark first... It was kinda dumb. There are three puzzles in this room, first a 5 breakers puzzle in which you have to navigate a confusingly laid out jungle gym. After you do that a fan is turned on, this fan unlocks the second breaker puzzle. Which in turn activates 6 more fans. This is where I found the wonderful bug where I rubbed myself up agaisnt the fence near the fans and accidentally shot myself into space and died to the saws on the ceiling. this ended up being a boon since it let me skip the first two puzzles entirely. This was also where I learned that the wall-based jump pads are... um... Broken as fuck. So they way they are meant to work is pretty simple, you jump and bounce off one, into the next one, into the next, and so on until you get to the end of whatever area you are trying to do... But it turns out they actually just react to jumping and if you spam jump you can fly while near one. Oops. Trivialized another puzzle on accident. This lead me to the wall switch that wasn't on the wall, or wired to anything, but whatever I hit the switch and got the key.

Next was the trampoline room! Nothing happens in this room, you hit a switch which start a timer and you need to jump through all the hoops before time runs out, it was super easy and honestly could have been removed. After doing the hoops you have to catch 4 noob-noobs before the timer runs out, then hoops, noob-noobs, hoops, noob-noobs... then finally you get a key and we're off to the final, well... Second to final.

This second to last area is called Frankie's Frosty Peak, and I tried... so... So... So... SO... Hard to break this room, you have no idea. The area is MASSIVE, and for no reason since most of the room is entirely empty. so empty they had to put in fences to direct the player, but ALSO had to include jump pads randomly becuase they knew I would find a way, and I did... Find a way to get behind the fences, not sequence break the room, sadly. But I tried, oh god did I try. There's a sort of side area in this room that goes all the way up to the ceiling, probably like 6 stories up, and at the top of those stairs is also where the final course ends. But the surrounded the stairs in invisible walls, and I swear I tried so hard. I had the entire area's invisible walls mapped, but I just couldn't find a gap to squeeze through and skip the final course. I got close, but in the end it seems like there was just one massive walls between the floor and ceiling and I jsut want to say... For a game about parkouring to escape monsters, you sure do have me on some tight fucking rails game. A real parkour-er would have jump jumped the stairs and been done, but nooooooo, I don't get to be smart. So yeah, I ran the course, and it was more than a little frustrating as the game suddenly threw a ton of new mechanics at me all at once, including having slime rapidly filling the room (that instantly kills you when you touch it), somehow even slipperier controls, bumpers that shove you backwards, and giant boxing gloves that shove you off the course into the slime. I think I died about 6 times because I kept getting caught on the bumpers... Also, secret tech, your dash renders you immune to all obstacles on this course. You can dash through the gloves, you can dash into and past the bumpers... Dash is so OP here that I'm actually shocked it was left in like that. But in the end I got there, and now... The final area...

First is a very short sawblade room, to pass this room all you need to do is walk on top of the spinning obstacles, turns out the game jsut let's you do it. Then you walk down several long hallways, and finally reach the final fight... But first the big twist... Frankie was EVIL the whole time!!! Wait... That wasn't a twist? He was constantly yelling at me to stop ruining his game show the whole game? He is literally heard over the intercom directing 'evil' frankie to not kill me? He blatantly ignores all the dead bodies and pretends they all died mysteriously throughout the game? Oh ok. So I guess not a twist and frankie shoves you into a hole where you end up having to evade 'evil' frankie for 2 full minutes on the previously mentioned platforms that fall after being touched. Honestly it's not a bad concept for a 'fight' and like I said, I cheesed it after the AI cheated several time by just letting myself fall and getting stuck on the switch that ends the fight. (Check that out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7ie4yTuiDo ).

After that there's are several cutscenes, frankie recruits you to be part of the show permanently, somehow the show is renewed for another season, and finally ends...

So... Yeah, game just isn't good in my opinion. And while writing this I thought of several more issues, such as the trailer just being a lie. There are a bunch of courses in the trailer that aren't in the actual game, as well as a bunch of dialogue, and story elements.

All in all I think this entire genre needs to die, or if not die at least take a couple years off to rethink itself. So many devs fall into the same traps, and the same story beats, and use the same tropes... and honestly I am really over it. Which is depressing because I myself have had several ideas for how to make a "true" mascot horror game, one that doesn't rely on monsters, or jumpscares. I have an idea for a horror game that doesn't use blood, or darkness, and counts as a mascot horror game. One that takes place in broad daylight with tons of people around. But...

1. I don't know how to make a game, not in the literal sense. Like... I don't know how to model, code, etc.

2. The market is just too over-saturated right now, I don't see any room for any more mascot horror titles at this time.

Anyways... I am out. Gunna go play anything else for a while.

I absolutely LOVE games like Amanda the adventure and hungry lamu. Or like games where everything is not as it seems, has a lot of lore, and there’s so much need for attention to detail. Does anyone have any recommendations?😭

Always wanted this game as a kid, and was so excited to pick up the remaster only to realize it’s another poorly made cash grab. I’m not far into it but there’s constant stutter and frame rate issues along with some very frustrating bugs.

So far the most annoying one I’ve ran into is an enemy sprite on the tower level not dying leading me to try to kill it for 30 minutes only to realize the game registered it as dead but the sprite never despawned or showed a death animation