Mundaun
Mundaun is really good. It’s very refreshing to play a horror game set elsewhere than an asylum, a space station or a suburban house, there’s way too few games taking place in Switzerland. The game looks unique and I’m in awe just thinking how many graphite drawings it took and there’s quite a few striking setpieces I still think about to this day. The atmosphere is thick and eerie, you know something’s not right but can’t quite put your finger on it.
The characters are great, huge love for a certain evil one who oozes darkness. The romansh voice acting adds so much to the sense of mystery and it’s not like you’d play games in romansh everyday. The story is pretty straightforward and feels like a folktale you’d tell just before bedtime, a story the whole town would know.
– Real player with 24.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Hand-drawn Stylized Games.
Sometimes it only takes one picture to see that the game will be - at the very least - interesting. I saw the first picture of Mundaun on an indie website something like two years ago, and after that was patiently waiting for release. I was expecting another tiny 2-3-hour horror game - only this time with actual style and atmosphere.
What I didn’t expect was was ten hours of high production values all across the board.
- A culturally informed take on the classical European ‘deal with the Devil’ scenario.
– Real player with 9.9 hrs in game
My Beautiful Paper Smile
My Beautiful Paper Smile is so simple and yet so good. The controls are quite simple, but this does not make the game any easier. You need to put quite a good effort to pass all the challenges and try several times to be successful.
I really enjoyed the fact you have to collect some tokens during the game to have a bit more of content to the story, but also that it is not mandatory to find them to continue playing the game. This is something that actually makes me want to play again and again so I can collect them all
! , especially the incredibly well-hidden tokens.
– Real player with 10.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Hand-drawn Puzzle Games.
My Beautiful Paper Smile is such an amazing game.
I love the story line and character models, as well as the gameplay mechanics. Needing light in darkness isn’t new, but calling light “life” and making the darkness itself envelop you is a really nice twist on things. Makes it new again.
The secrets are so rewarding, and they reveal about what actually goes on in the facility. The Sleeping, Smiling, and Puppet rooms are (without spilling the beans), without a doubt, some of my favorite portions of the game. They speak so loudly about what they do as soon as you see them. Some of them are long, letting you soak the message in, while others are short. It only shows you a couple seconds, but the message is so blunt you don’t need any more time to observe it to get it.
– Real player with 7.3 hrs in game
恶灵退散 Go Back to Hell
the art style is cool and the sound track slaps but this is just an eye spy game for anyone thats confused by the description like i was, theres no instructions or dialog your just looking for the weird things in each image with no other context. so ya if plot is what your looking for and not just an ideal thing this isnt it but its nice none the less 3
– Real player with 2.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Hand-drawn Dark Games.
OMORI
Close your eyes, you’ll be here soon
Ichi ni san shi go fun
Tokidoki, hontou ni netai
Demo, kono waado dekinai
Oyasumi
Oyasumi
Oyasumi
Oyasu-
Oyasumi oyasumi
Close your eyes and you’ll leave this dream
Oyasumi oyasumi
I know that it’s hard to do
Days go by
Shou ga nai
Moments pass
Shattered glass
Hands of time
Where’s that chime?
In my head
I’ll just
I’ll just
I’ll just
I’ll just
Hands of time will wring my neck
Every little moment spells regret
But I don’t have to feel this way
As a voice inside my head
– Real player with 208.4 hrs in game
I got this game as an impulse buy at 2 am while talking to my friend on discord and man I don’t regret it. After multiple months and around 135 hours, I have gotten every achievement and I loved playing every second of this game. For an RPG maker based game it has such impeccable charm, the characters were lovable, and the story was great. I really did go into this game blind and that’s what I recommend everyone do. The story had a bit a bit of a slow start, but it was such an experience to see it unfold at the end and watch all the pieces of the puzzle come together. If you are thinking of buying this, do, you will not regret it.
– Real player with 131.0 hrs in game
Rising Noracam
I haven’t finished this one yet, due to my lack of motivation, but its still a pretty good goi like. It’s basicly a platformer control, but with a weird momentum that you have to keep to make some jump. Jump height also matter. If you bonk you get pushed a bit around and can fall but it feel random unfortunatly
The map design doesn’t seems to be punishing, there’s different screen change and i don’t think you can fall 2 screen in a row, although i only reached the third one so maybe it’s more punishing in the future.
– Real player with 1.3 hrs in game
Subway Midnight
I PET THE DOG OMG OMG OMG I DID IT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
– Real player with 4.9 hrs in game
This game made me scream so badly my roommate had to come make sure I wasn’t being murdered.
I really love the different designs and areas. I only played through it once so far and got the bad ending but I definitely want to play it again to see if I can get the other endings. The level and sound design is brilliant, in my opinion. The game really knows how to invoke anxiety and fear into the player. There’s the anticipation for a scare lurking around for the majority of the game. I enjoyed all the puzzles as many of them felt very unique and there was certainly a feeling of relief upon completing specific ones and entering essentially a safe zone.
– Real player with 4.8 hrs in game
Dark Tales from México: Prelude. Just a Dream… with The Sack Man
DARK TALES FROM MÉXICO
This is a saga of 9 short games and a prelude in a 3D survival horror style, based on tales from the real Mexican folklore in which every monster it´s originally a physical sculpture made and painted by hand and then 3D scanned using photogrammetry.
IN THIS EPISODE
You are a young girl who is sleeping and having a nightmare in the middle of which your grandmother appears giving you a key, then a black cat starts talking to you and tells you that if you want to wake up, you must recover, in less than an hour, a dagger that is inside a labyrinth where the Sack Man lives, the monster that steals children from that old legend that your grandmother also told and warns you that this labyrinth is alive, that it changes its shape and that it will protect the monster by showing you your own fears, and that if you fail, you will remain inside the labyrinth forever and you will never wake up again.
The Dream Machine: Chapter 1 & 2
This is a review of the full game
Artstyle
Unusual, intricate, sometimes strangely beautiful, sometimes downright weird (towards the end). The main protagonist is stop-motion animated clay, the backgrounds are all handcrafted from a variety of materials. It takes some getting used to but it really grew on me.
The music and sounds are very well done and enhance the atmosphere of the game. There’s no voice acting, you have to read the dialogue which sometimes is a bit tedious but on the whole is well written and not too long.
– Real player with 27.6 hrs in game
Just add this to the list of things that prove that video games are art.
This game has some of the most intriguing, gorgeous, adorable (and in many instances disgusting) designs ever contructed. The art style is like if the film “Mirror Mask” were made into a game. And the plot is just as gorgeous and surreal. “The Dream Machine” is like the ultimate indie game.
You play as Victor Neff, a self-proclaimed “handsome” man, who has just moved into a strange new flat with his pregnant wife, but things get strange very quickly when your wife notices the landlord acting really weird. I will not spoil any of the plot. It is a game you must see to believe, but if you can believe it, there is in fact a Dream Machine in the game.
– Real player with 25.8 hrs in game
Divine Favor
Spooky, cause like i’m afraid of literally every bug that ever existed.
I don’t understand why the first like hour was just black though.
The game seemed long at the start but faster when things started going.
I don’t know if this is going to get updates or more story but overall pretty spooky man.
The story is pretty good and the art is too.
For what is I don’t feel that it would be worth $1 as the story is kinda short.
But if you like this sorta spooky text story then I definitely recommend, but this game just ain’t my cup of tea.
– Real player with 0.4 hrs in game
In hindsight, I should have known this, but there is absolutely zero gameplay. However, it is a very interesting story which is thoroughly enhanced by the sound effects. It does what it does well, but it really doesn’t do much. A little bit overpriced even with the low price of .99.
– Real player with 0.3 hrs in game
Doll
Dark, moody, intruiging, with a vague story that leaves you wondering. While the gameplay is nothing like that, the whole vibe reminded me of Pathologic.
Pros:
-
Great, dark atmosphere
-
Intriguing story which does not overexplain itself - quite the opposite
-
Not to dragged (don’t let me ingame time fool you, I was afk most of the time)
Cons:
- The controls. Why is E the interaction button, but I can’t use WASD but have to resort the arrow keys? Why do I have to go through the tutorial screens every time I start the game?
– Real player with 4.4 hrs in game
This was awesome. Thanks so much for the experience!
– Real player with 1.9 hrs in game