Imaginary Friend Asylum

This was made with the Unity engine, and by two people. The animations and gameplay can be jank, and the price is a little high for what it offers, but not egregiously so. Still within tolerable levels especially for the story and the designs of the imaginary friends and the work put within them. There's some awkwardness to the story, like what the 'secret' imaginary friend discovered and whatever the 'Void' was, but the friends otherwise work well within the story. It's also telling that they're the only true source of color and outward personality in the asylum, especially from the perspective of the children. The developers claim to have done a lot of research to make this seem as realistic as possible in terms of asylum depictions for the 40s, and from the little I know, they did a pretty good job. The children all have their own quirks and personalities, as small as it might be (Trust me when I say it's REALLY hard to juggle with more than four characters at once when you're writing a story). As such, only a select group of characters are able to get a more developed background and personality, helping focus the content. I also enjoyed how all the characters only have outlines and you can't see beyond that. It's a very creative way of making characters without having to go into precise detail for all of them. You already know who is who when they're important. The imaginary friends also have fantastic designs that really grab your attention, though I'm unsure why the painter is shown without his mask in the Steam Store. This is a clear recommendation from me. It's, unfortunately, underrated and ignored for the likes of more well-established horror series, but if these developpers got proper backing and more experience, I'm certain that they could make something far more developped graphically and, more importantly than graphics, functional. Despite the inexperience in developing (or perhaps limitations brought about by Unity), the playthrough was very smooth. I only encountered one bug with the patient sheets and an automatic scene trigger opening at the same time, getting the sheet stuck and forcing me to restart the game. The game is quite short, taking only a few hours, but the experience of the story and seeing what the developers are capable of was a very enjoyable experience.