If I had to explain the game in three words, it would be "Firewatch but spooky".

The gameplay involves exploring an abandoned hotel and slowly piecing together a paranormal mystery, all the while communicating with another character via mobile phone. Unfortunately for such a dialogue-heavy game, the writing isn't great, but the voice actors do their best with what they've been given and it does become less noticeable once the story gets going.

The story itself is fairly simplistic and ultimately a bit unsatisfying, although it certainly surprised me at points. It also struck me as quite poorly paced, with a lot of exposition at the start and towards the end. Most of the time I was interested in seeing what new areas of the hotel I would be investigating more so than what plot revelations might unfold.

That brings me onto the strongest aspect of the game: the atmosphere of the hotel itself. Everything from the design and layout to the lighting and particularly the sound come together to perfectly induce a subtle unease. A dimly lit kitchen, a creaking floorboard down the hall, a deer skull hung above a fireplace... while you are never under obvious threat, these touches had me closing doors behind me and breathing a sigh of relief when I got back to the relative cosiness of the main character's bedroom - recreating that fear one can sometimes feel when home alone at night. The game makes very effective use of binaural audio, to the point where I had to pause the game on more than one occasion because I couldn't tell if a noise was coming from the game or was actually in my house.

Considering only what I've covered above, I would be tempted to recommend the game... but unfortunately, as other reviews have touched on, the game covers some fairly dark topics and just doesn't handle them well. Quite a bit of the story concerns a relationship where one individual was underage, but 1) this seems entirely unnecessary - the same story could be told if they were an adult, and 2) the older individual is, at best, not criticised for the relationship and perhaps even meant to be sympathetic. There are also some weirdly specific sensitive topics just thrown in as background details with little, if any, relevance to the plot (the main character went to anti-abortion marches, another character was dyslexic, etc.), and the topic of suicide itself is handled quite gratuitously.

If I had to explain the game in three words, it would be "Firewatch but spooky". The gameplay involves exploring an abandoned hotel and slowly piecing together a paranormal mystery, all the while communicating with another character via mobile phone. Unfortunately for such a dialogue-heavy game, the writing isn't great, but the voice actors do their best with what they've been given and it does become less noticeable once the story gets going. The story itself is fairly simplistic and ultimately a bit unsatisfying, although it certainly surprised me at points. It also struck me as quite poorly paced, with a lot of exposition at the start and towards the end. Most of the time I was interested in seeing what new areas of the hotel I would be investigating more so than what plot revelations might unfold. That brings me onto the strongest aspect of the game: the atmosphere of the hotel itself. Everything from the design and layout to the lighting and particularly the sound come together to perfectly induce a subtle unease. A dimly lit kitchen, a creaking floorboard down the hall, a deer skull hung above a fireplace... while you are never under obvious threat, these touches had me closing doors behind me and breathing a sigh of relief when I got back to the relative cosiness of the main character's bedroom - recreating that fear one can sometimes feel when home alone at night. The game makes very effective use of binaural audio, to the point where I had to pause the game on more than one occasion because I couldn't tell if a noise was coming from the game or was actually in my house. Considering only what I've covered above, I would be tempted to recommend the game... but unfortunately, as other reviews have touched on, the game covers some fairly dark topics and just doesn't handle them well. Quite a bit of the story concerns a relationship where one individual was underage, but 1) this seems entirely unnecessary - the same story could be told if they were an adult, and 2) the older individual is, at best, not criticised for the relationship and perhaps even meant to be sympathetic. There are also some weirdly specific sensitive topics just thrown in as background details with little, if any, relevance to the plot (the main character went to anti-abortion marches, another character was dyslexic, etc.), and the topic of suicide itself is handled quite gratuitously.