Layers of Fear (2016)

A maybe-baby for the horror walking simulator genre. The game is good at presentation. The visuals look nice. The game directs you on a very linear path. It is about 4 hours long. It is more about creeping up to the story and as you progress you´re supposed to wonder as to what horror the playercharacter has done. If you want to find it interesting or engrossing, then you will. If you expect all the story told to you through cutscenes, then you´ll be missing about half of it. Though that part wasn´t all that engrossing either. The horror of it will be lacking for any veterans or lovers of the genre. Yet as a horror title it suceeds in really playing at the horror of a persons longing. Sure there are cliches and you´d really have to want to feel for the characters, yet the game did make me question the lenghts of longing that were hinted at for the character, the painter. How bad did his cliched longing for renown take him. Those some little questions did keep me on til the end, yet it wasn´t really worth it. The lacking gameplay and few puzzles don´t help. Also the turn mechanics were just awful. The bad. I went in expecting a horror game. Because the internet adobted it as a horror game. But a game in which you can not die. Where you have no place to hide. And where the first time you get grabbed and see that shacky nonsense and no death, then the game has lost all of its horror. What lingers is the question of the emotional painter. Yet the character was never developed. His emotional voice ranged from mean to sad and then whining behind the toilet and, in a house with like 30 bathrooms, whining to be let in. A 3 out 5 for the effort and not being broken and actually having some heart to try and be noted in a sea of saturation. Yet if you play the DLC, then the question of the child would be answered and the game would be a 2 out 5. I keep it at 3 because the game does include multiple endings and that multiple endings need praise.

I actually enjoyed this game quite a bit. Yes, it's a so-called walking simulator, yes, there aren't really puzzles, yes, it's mostly wandering around experiencing things. The game's strengths are its deep, creepy atmosphere and its ability to surprise you with a surprisingly wide variety of scares. It's fairly short and some parts fall a bit flat, but for anyone who is able to immerse themselves without distraction and who likes to pick up clues to piece together a story, it's well worth playing. Normally, I'd give it four stars. Unfortunately, the game has a huge flaw: if you get the "loop" ending the first time you beat it, you will be unable to get either of the other two endings- EVER- by continuing from that save file. You need to start a new game, despite very misleading wording that makes it look like you can and should continue. The game does not make this clear, and I spent hours on forums trying to find out why I got the same ending a dozen times over- the developers of the game themselves dropped all kinds of hints as to how to get the endings (which work fine- on a NEW GAME), while neglecting to mention this absolutely vital piece of knowledge. A game centered around the same scares in the same rooms every time with only a few branching paths does not hold up well to a dozen playthroughs, and even three is kind of pushing it. That said, the first playthrough was surprisingly effective, not just in terms of being scary, but in creating a very specific mood and emotion. I see a lot of criticism here, but I can't think of any other recent game that was this effective at getting across subtleties- most of it feels very personal to you as the character, rather than being random spooky stuff. The Inheritance DLC is even better at this, and is essentially the game Among the Sleep, but done better. Both the main game and DLC have a few weak or tedious sequences, but taken as a whole, they're done very well and give an experience you can't get anywhere else.

It's okay. Strong "Jacob's Ladder" vibes, but that movie meted out the suspense appropriately. This one is more "enter room, find thing that startles you, move on to next room". After a certain point the jump scares are predictable and overstay their welcome. The game is gorgeous, to be sure, and if you appreciate that, or appreciate unsettling visuals, it's definitely worth a playthrough. But get it on sale. And if you're expecting some deep story, there are better choices out there, so you should look elsewhere.

This is a walking simulator with very little story that will not necessarilly make sense and a couple "puzzles". You’ll get a couple small jump scares and then get used to them and just ignore them trying to get to the end as quickly as possible. Pros: - beautiful graphics - fluid 60 FPS most of the time - chromatic aberration can be disabled as well as head bobbing (I left head bobbing on though), and the FOV can be increased - key binding and mouse speed options - can be finished in a reasonnable amount of time (two or three evenings, so maybe 5 hours?) - not really frightening because there are many jump scares and it’s impossible to die. Cons: - some heavy stuttering sometimes - a few very obvious graphical bugs (on Linux) - on the first launch the game opened a borderless window that was smaller than my screen and blocked alt-tab and did some weird broken things. I had to edit the prefs file to restore a decent resolution and then the game worked correctly. - uses Google Analytics. - very annoying "puzzle" near the end of the game where you have to find draughts pieces in a dark room and where the game sometimes makes the view spin by itself for no reason that I can guess. - it’s a short game for the price - not really frightening because there are many jump scares and it’s impossible to die. - gets boring after a while. Despite all the cons I don’t regret buying it (on sale) and playing it. It was beautiful and different. It’s also refreshing to be able to finish a game.

Layers of Fear is a walking simulator/ horror game done well. The story was interesting and the atmosphere was perfect. Overall a good game but its very short and doesn't really have any gameplay to it because its a walking simulator. 6/10