Box of Broken Nails

Gra z chorobą artystyczną.

This game is absolutely delightful. Within its short playtime (around 30 minutes to an hour depending on how long it takes you to find your resources), it is able to craft a core gameplay loop that is deliciously nerve wracking. The feeling of hearing the knocking grow louder and louder as you run around like a headless chicken trying to find an extra plank is good on its own, but the way the game sprinkles in so many randomized side events into the forray while this happens brings it to another level. It creates this really great push and pull where it almost feels like the game doesn't even want you to be scared of some of the randomized noises, and more like it's simply trying to pull your attention in twenty different directions so you feel torn between hurrying over to board up the door and stopping to check if that light in the distance really *was* always there. My only real complaint about the gameplay is that it advertises itself as being "about attempts," which I don't don't think is quite accurate. There's only around 2-3 events that make replaying the game worth it, and by the time you 'figure out' the innerworkings of the game, which will probably happen around the 2nd run, the spooks lose their luster and it more or less becomes chore simulator while you wait for a new vague sound effect to play in the distance. It isn't a massive complaint or anything, but seeing that bit in the description gave me different expectations on the kind of game it would be. I refuse to say anything else about the gameplay to keep this spoiler free, however my only non-gameplay related note is sadly a second complaint. The game feels poorly optimized. I played it on a laptop that's capable of running Resident Evil 4 Remake and Box of Broken Nails dropped down to around 10 FPS when it wasn't plugged in and ran at a toasty 83 degrees when it was. I do not normally have any kind of cooling issues and most other games run perfectly fine when it's running on battery, so I'm almost certain it's a fault on the games part which really hurts me to say. If the devs read this please, for the love of god, try to put some more time into optimizing your next game, I would love to play it but I really don't want to fry my computer. Other than that though I'd say it's a 7.5/10, great first outing for the devs and I am geeked to see what they do next.