You’re thrown into a dark pit for heresy, condemned to spend eternity there. Refusing to accept that fate, you set out to survive, even though you have nothing to defend yourself against whatever lurks in the endless caverns. It doesn’t take long before you find a knife inside a chest, giving you a way to fight back and break through wooden obstacles. Not long after, you risk your life by walking through a bed of spikes to follow a mysterious voice.
The voice belongs to Bee, a ghost bound to an amulet who can only travel wherever the amulet goes. Your silent protagonist gladly accepts her help because surviving alone would be nearly impossible. Since the hero never says a word, Bee handles all the dialogue. She comments on rooms when you press the interaction button, and sometimes chimes in automatically. While she adds plenty of personality, she also repeats herself quite often, occasionally delivering the same line in a room you've already explored or commenting on something that is no longer relevant.
Besides attacking with your knife and interacting with Bee, there isn’t much else to learn. You can push certain objects simply by walking into them, although this only works with pots that are too sturdy to break. Another important mechanic lets you unequip and throw your knife, which comes in handy when you need to weigh down pressure switches and don't have a heavy object nearby.
There’s no currency to collect or loot hidden inside breakable objects. The only way to recover health is through the occasional heart dropped by defeated enemies. Otherwise, healing is limited to the pools you encounter as part of the main path. Fortunately, you’re not forced to finish the game in one sitting because you can save at dandelions scattered throughout the adventure. Each flower can only be used once, as blowing on it sends its seeds drifting away.
Puzzles appear sometimes and usually involve pushing pots onto switches or defeating every enemy in a room to unlock the next door. They’re never particularly difficult, and it’s impossible to permanently mess them up because pots return to their original positions whenever you leave the room. Enemies and save points, however, stay exactly as you left them, which works well as long as you manage your health between encounters. One subtle detail I appreciated is how your character leaves more and more blood stains behind with every step as your health gets lower.
Each level eventually leads to an altar where you must sacrifice part of your health to open the way forward. Every sacrifice summons hostile spirits that cling to your character until you shake them off by attacking or mashing the button when they grab you. It’s an interesting idea, although it’s a brief sequence that never becomes particularly challenging.
The adventure spans three levels that can easily be completed in under an hour. The progression is completely linear, though there are occasional side paths hiding one of five collectible letters behind a puzzle. It’s worth exploring these detours as soon as you find them because doors frequently lock behind you, preventing any backtracking.
Although the game initially resembles a dungeon crawler, with its room by room exploration, enemy encounters, switches, and locked doors, it ultimately becomes much more streamlined and story driven. Conversations play a much larger role than you might expect, and there’s an unexpected twist waiting at the end.
After finishing the game, you’re given a password before it abruptly closes itsel. Entering that password when you launch the game again unlocks a second part. It begins in a familiar way but expands the story with new scenes explaining what really happened to Bee, along with additional dialogue from one of your jailers, who gives you an extra match. Matches are already used in the first playthrough to light torches, but they’re intentionally limited, leaving one special area in darkness because you simply don't have enough.
The second part follows the same overall structure and revisits the same locations, but with several noticeable changes. Rooms are expanded, secret switches have been added, and the five collectible letters are replaced with seven hidden treasures. Since I found every letter during my first playthrough, I’m not sure whether they remain available here if you missed them earlier.
The biggest improvement is the expanded dialogue and scenes. The first playthrough occasionally lets you choose between two responses for your otherwise silent character, but the second playthrough develops this idea much further. It almost feels as though your character remembers the previous journey. For example, Bee struggles to interact with physical objects early on, but this time you can choose dialogue that encourages her. Conversations between levels are also expanded with additional choices that make the story feel deeper.
My biggest complaint is the pacing toward the end. The lengthy conversations can’t be skipped, which becomes frustrating if you need to replay a section. The final boss is also a sharp difficulty spike and will probably be the first time the game demands repeated attempts because you simply won’t be able to predict attacks on your try. This leads to more serious issue of missable achievements and endings, which will force you to replay the entire game from the beginning, but for such a low price, the game is a steal.
