10mg: Sealed Estate

I was not expecting a game intended to be over in 10 minutes to overstay its welcome. I got tired of walking. I got tired of flashlights charging.

Sealed Estate developed such an intense atmosphere from the get go that I absolutely did not expect. The art style, music and story all compliment each other brilliantly and conveyed a classic short horror story in a innovative way and with a bold aesthetic. Spooky, creative and an overall brilliant experience.

[h1]10mg: Ten Ten-Minute Games![/h1] Sealed Estate branches a number of genres, it could be loosely defined as a visual novel, it is also a top-down adventure game with dungeon crawler vibes and a stylised psychological horror. This is quite the feat for a ten-minute game especially as the different aspects don’t make this 10mg title feel cluttered and instead meld in a sort of trippy harmony. This eclectic mix of game styles is mirrored in the minimalist but varied art styles and also in the mechanics and gameplay. [b]WANT TO KNOW MORE?[/b] My full review, covering all ten 10mg games is available at [url=https://indie-hive.com/10mg/]Indie Hive[/url].

I purchased the full 10 Minute Game Collection and am going to play them in the order they appear in my library. That means this is #6 of 10. Know in advance what you are getting. As the collection title suggests, a ten minute game is not a triple A title. It is a short game-jam-esque proof of concept / working prototype / execution of an idea. At least that's what I'm going to infer from first impressions. Sealed Estate is a small self contained narrative driven surreal horror experience. There's probably a genre title that sums that up succinctly, but that's what I'm going with. The basic premise is this; you have crashed your car and you seek help in a nearby mansion. Why oh why do people crash their cars right outside the weird old country mansions? Crash your car in a city people, you are so much closer to help and useful services. Honestly. Naturally, the mansion is not filled with helpful people, but rather with nightmarish creatures seeking your corporeal annihilation. Anywayy, gameplay is a curious mix of Wario Ware style scenes intersecting a top down exploration action puzzle. The mini games if they could be called such, come unexpectedly and will have the player frantically following on screen prompts to progress. These range from steering a car to barricading a door and are largely presented in a crude hand drawn style which somehow adds to the sense of urgency. The larger top down exploration game has a graphical style similar to Ape Out: minimal, clean, spartan. This is then projected through a filter of nightmarish glitching and discordant resonance, with the screen elements shaking and vibrating like a barely contained animal. Add to this the disjointed thoughts of the protagonist being displayed in a large chaotic font and the overall picture is quite striking and unsettling. The story is told through notes and televisions which is hardly a new approach in this type of game, but remember this is a game designed to be played and completed in around ten minutes. This is the best quick way to give lots of information to the player. Of course said information is obscure and cryptic, and open to interpretation; but that's all part of the fun. Sound design is basic but perfectly suited. Plenty of footsteps, whispers, static buzz and things going bump in the night to keep tensions mounting. The soundtrack consists of choral hauntings and ominous industrial tones which could almost be interpreted as music or the intense humming of evil. While I did largely enjoy the game, I do have a few gripes. 1) A total lack of options. 2) No way to quit the game, except for the old fashioned way. 3) My mouse look locked up before I completed the game, making finishing unnecessarily difficult. This may be a feature as opposed to a bug, but it was annoying nonetheless. All in another fine addition to the 10mg collection, and certainly a much different tone to the other games in the collection so far. Without doubt the best ten minute horror experience I've had outside of a dentist surgery.

So many nice little details packed together into this micro game, that conveys an excellent and cohesive experience.

little horror game 57/100

Incredibly tense, not going to sleep tonight.

This is a kinda interesting puzzle game. I liked some effects that made it hard to walk straight. Those were really neat. Something you try to walk into a lot has a weirdly small hitbox. Would have felt better if those were larger. Worth it as part of the bundle but not on it's own.

A very nice atmospheric puzzle-y game. The plot is basically a textbook creepypasta game plot, but the visuals, sound design, and interactions are really novel and interesting, and it's a perfect game for Halloween.

I didn't like it.