October is the month of all things spooky and ghostly. So, it seemed fitting that my first review of the month be all about the horror genre. Follow the Darkness is a short indie horror game I found when roaming on itch.io. This RPG horror sounded promising and so, being free, thought I’d have a gander. I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting going in but after finishing the game, here are my thoughts.
Why not read more of our horror related posts?
Storyline
You play the character of Rina, a 17 year old girl who cannot remember the last month of her life. She is being stalked by the mythic Fox; a God that is said to haunt you for seven days until it drags you to hell. That is, unless you atone for a great sin within your life. However, when Rina wakes up in hospital, she has already lost 3 days of her 7 and must discover the truth before time runs out. It was a very simple story line that I actually quite enjoyed for the most part. The climax of the game was especially enjoyable with some nice story telling and neatly tied up endings. I don’t tend to enjoy ambiguous endings for the sake of it so I’m glad everything was resolved.
It wasn’t over complex which is not necessarily a bad thing. Especially considering this game was free. Rina’s journey was nicely told and had a great little twist thrown in at the end. It would have been nice to see some more story telling through notes or something though because it felt a bit dialogue heavy in places. Mostly, though, I very much enjoyed it.
Gameplay
You never know what to expect with short indie horror games so I was tentative about the gameplay. And, unfortunately, for this one, there wasn’t much to go on. Although it had great story telling, there wasn’t much else going on in terms of gameplay. There were the occasional moments where you were being chased by a spirit and had to run away. There was also the use of sprinting which was a nice touch but hardly felt needed until the very end of the game. For the most part, the gameplay just involved running around. And it was very linear. Not much in terms of exploring. But, as I’ve already said, this game was free and for an hour of gameplay, I guess you can’t complain too much.
Graphics & Sound
I was quite surprised by the graphics in this game. Although it was probably using some stock RPG Maker assests, it still looked really nice. And the sound was quite nice too. It had beautiful music and the sound effects worked really well. I always sound that good sound design is when you don’t notice it. It felt seamless and fitting to every scene and moment. Kudos.
Horror
So, something I always tend to review with horror games is how much horror was actually in the game. And, to be honest, there wasn’t a whole lot. Was it spooky? Sometimes. The parts in the hospital were perhaps the creepiest and made me the most anxious. Unfortunately, due to the length of the game, the scares became a little repetitive. I am glad they didn’t do any unecessary jump-scares though because then it would have really brought the game down. This short indie horror game didn’t do too badly when it comes to being a horror.
Why not play Follow The Darkness for yourself?
