Positives
- Some good ambience
- Had some creepy moments... at first
- Level design is often pretty good
- Some level of creativity
Negatives:
- Outright terrible AI
- Levels are used over and over again
- Terrible pacing. Enemie is being used constantly
- Frustrating and scare factor decreases immensely after a while
- Often lack of any clear directions
- Story is very cliché and often makes no sense
Story: 2/10
Every possible cliché in horror history can be found in this game. This story contains: Creepy ghost woman, sounds of a child, ghosts running past you quickly, unhappily married woman, someone getting killed or committing suicide, waking up in an unknown place, chasing your loved one, objects flying around, areas changing form, etc.
I understand it's difficult not to use a single cliché, but at least try to add something new to the genre.
I would also like to point out how terrible the pacing is. Listen, the ghost woman is so overused, and I don't just mean in horror games overall. You need to give us some breathing room. Never once did I get a chance to explore, or have a moment of peace. That annoying son of a b*tch spawned constantly after a couple of chapters and all it achieved was making me scared at first, but after those first chapters, I was just annoyed, frustrated and bored. In order to keep us scared, you have to take us out of horror from time to time, or we get used to it.
Gameplay: 2/10
Hide in lockers simulator. 99% of the hiding spots present in this game, are lockers. The AI is the worst I have seen in any horror game, even worse than Amnesia's enemies when they run around in circles and get all confused. That game is nearly 8 years old, so I can understand the AI not being so advanced. At least in that game, the monsters will attempt to get you if they notice your hiding spot. In this game, 9 out of 10 times, the enemy can see you enter a locker, and "lose" sight of you. I could litteraly flicker my flashlight at the ghost and she wouldn't notice me unless I was directly in her sight.
The puzzles were not that bad though. You sure put creativity into them, but due to the bad pacing, I didn't get enough time to explore and enjoy solving these puzzles. However, a lot of time, I had no clear directions, and I just ran around aimlessly, eventually triggering some event by random chance.
Level design: 7/10
This to me was pretty much the only saving grace in the game aside from some creativity. Lightning is good, the design is overall good and a lot of details were put into the levels. There were tiny things here and there, like I would look outside a building and see a concrete floor instead of grass, but what is holding it back from being even better, is that you reuse the same maps over and over. I don't mean like, hub areas (which it uses to to some extent), but I would literally go to completely new areas sometimes and see the same map I had already been in before. To me, that's lazy design.
Music/Sounds: 3/10
Some ambiance used in the game is good, no doubt, and fits the environment. However, there's a huge lack of actual music and it feels like the same ambiance is used too often. I'm also certain I have heard many of the creepy sounds you used before too. Almost as if the sounds are assets you bought. They did not feel unique at all.
Creativity: 7/10
This is the section where I cover ideas and mechanics which were not necessarily good, but still deserves some cred for being fun and original. The giant enemie was cool! Finally, something else besides the walking stereotypical ghost/zombie enemy (which unfortunately was used only for a short while and then never seen again). The whole luring enemies away was cool. Leaning too much and too long could get you spotted. Using real photos and history and implementing it to your game, you have some cool ideas, but why not put more effort to the story as well?
Bugs/flaws: 7/10
(The lower the score is in this section, means a lot of issues. A higher score means not so many issues)
Had little to no issues running this game. The AI was bad though, and aside from the points I previously mentioned, she would also on occasion just walk into a wall. This is nitpicking, but your notepad can also glitch through everything, walls and entities alike. My flashlight however, could not. Why not add collision with the notepad as well?
Etc:
Ending your game on a cliffhanger, seriously? Nowhere on the store page did you clarify that this is an episodic game series.
Conclusion:
Truth be told, this game could be a 5/10, but the gameplay was so frustrating with the stupid AI and downright insulting cliffhanger ending, that the game for me is a 4/10. Truth be told, I would have given it 2/10 on gameplay and story alone, but I can't deny the quality of the level design and neat ideas used here and there.
I do not recommend this game to anyone.
Final score: 4/10
