First of all, I was really impressed by the graphics, it looks real slick considering that we're dealing with an indie developed horror game. The last indie developed horror game I played was Lone Survivor and that had fucking pixel art, so it's nice to see a small developer going the extra mile with the graphics.
Mechanically it works very well, the controls are nice and slick and easy to figure out without looking at the tutorial. Basically if you have played a game on the PC ever, you will instantly be able to figure out how to control your character.
The puzzles in this game I both enjoy, but have sort of a problem with. For example there is a bit near the start of the video where I get stuck for a short while because I wasn't able to figure out right away that I had to walk through the wall. One thing I am glad about is that the game didn't tell me what to do, it let me work it out for myself. That said I feel what it should have done is maybe made the hole in the wall pop out a bit, like having vines growing out from around the edges or something to indicate that it's something you can walk through.
The other problem I had, puzzle wise, was the candles. There is an edit where I wasted a shit ton of time trying to figure out what to do, and this is because I think the objective was badly put forward. What I was doing was trying to use my camera to light the other candles. I was clicking around, pressing buttons on my keyboard to try and activate the flash and all sorts of shit. I was even convinced at one point that there was something in the sky I had to snap in order to make the puzzle work. At the end of the day it wasn't a puzzle, it was trying to make me go back and fight some enemies.
You see the problem is that a blue border pops up when you get near the candles, which means something important is there, so I was convinced for a long time that the key to those candles was in that area. You could argue that the music was an indication of something being there that I had to go kill, but I thought the music was playing because of the big hangy dude. If they had just played a sound of something crawling out of one of the nearby graves or ANYTHING.
Finally, is it scary? Well to me, no, not really, but the potential is there. The scene with the ghost facing the wall in the room was quite effective as you can probably tell from my reaction in the video, but I find there is no tension in the combat music when you fight the dudes in the graveyard. The dudes are slow and crap, probably because they are there to teach you about combat, but the sound design for these encounters is a little weak. Take Silent Hill for example, where the monsters sound truly horrible and the music that plays does a good job of making you panic.
It's a good demo worth checking out and there is the potential for something really good here I think, With it just being a demo and no release date in sight, I'm hoping that they will be able to put out a finish product that will rock our socks and fill our pants with large volumes of wee.
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