Not terribly great.
The few notes don't make a ton of sense and aren't formatted terribly well. Reading notes is common for this kind of horror game, but the notes in this game are just blocks of text, and therefore some of them are a pain to look at while reading. Still, I've seen worse formatting from small dev teams, so it isn't the end of the world. What is a little goofy is that there are a couple of times that characters make direct reference to notes in the game world - for example, the final antagonist says, "you remember that note you read earlier? That was me!" Just awkward for immersion.
Gameplay is okay. Nothing groundbreaking, but nothing terribly broken either. You can clip some of the physics interactable objects into each other/the floor, but it really will only happen if you're playing around or really trying to make stuff break. If you just use physics objects as intended, there's no issue.
There really aren't any puzzles, this follows more of the fetch quest design of "puzzle" common in horror games. For example, being stuck in an open maze-like area to look for fuses for a fuse box while there's a monster patrolling. It doesn't break the mold on that design philosophy, but it isn't terrible either. The monster that's patrolling at any given time can break down doors, and it's probably the only time I got a good jump scare. I was happy to see that it wasn't even a scripted event, as I died and went back to that spot but it didn't happen again. So there is some small amount of emergent horror gameplay elements. Only downside here is that some of these maze areas are a little too large, so you'll be wandering around for a while, and honestly some of them are way too small!
The story is pretty weak. I could go on ripping it apart. A Russian underground base in Nebraska? But all the notes are in English? There is justification given, but it's pretty weak. And the setup again is given justification, but it's weak. I don't want to spoil the entire thing, but the most ridiculous elements of the premise are hand waved away in a few notes, and those justifications don't stand up to scrutiny. The plot develops at an insane pace, which makes sense with it being such a short game. The only true character in the game, Billy, is mildly compelling, but he just states everything about himself and his situation so bluntly that it really detracts from any emotional investment. To explain: you first meet him by picking up a walkie that he connects to you through. He tells you he has a way to get out of the facility if you come to meet him and help him out. You go through a door like 5-10 minutes after this conversation, it loads the next chapter of the game, and immediately he's back on the walkie with a, "I haven't been totally honest with you," message. You wouldn't expect a turn like that until hours after originally meeting a character in a longer game. Of course, this game is short and doesn't exactly have the time to develop everything naturally, but it's jarring and forced. Knowing the scope of the game, maybe a character interaction like this should've been avoided. But this game is HEAVILY inspired by the classic Penumbra series, so Billy's relationship with the main character feels like some sort of obligatory parallel to the main character of that series and Red. Overall, the ideas for the story are sound enough, but just don't have time to properly develop and feel rushed through.
There are plenty of technical issues. The only resolutions offered are completely random, like 1074x798 or something similar. Due to these weird resolutions, many text box pop-ups are cut off - I never saw a message that a door I attempted to open was locked, it would just pop up with "ked". You can't rebind controls, so enjoy G for your light source - it makes some sense that it's "g" for "glowstick", but it's just unnatural to press rather than F.
I've been pretty harsh on the game, so you may wonder why I recommend it. Even with all of these flaws, I can't say it's the worst thing I've played. It isn't BAD, it just isn't great or notable in any way. As far as smaller indie horror goes, while this doesn't deserve many accolades, it's still far from the bottom of the barrel. These developers clearly did try to make a competent game. And there ARE positives to it. The graphics are not at all bad, definitely not for a game of this scope. Many environments are truly unsettling or unnerving at times. There's a nightmare sequence that genuinely is pretty good, although held back for me by the fact that I have no idea what triggered it (I was walking around while an NPC was talking at the start of a chapter and it just cut off into the sequence), There is voice acting, and it is entirely serviceable. I complained about poor justification for certain elements of the plot earlier, BUT I have to say that at least they TRIED to explain some of the more absurd choices. The maze sections did provide me with the tension and suspense you'd expect, with a jump that really got me. The monsters are varied - actually, this one really stands out in comparison to bigger games with bigger budgets. This had at least 4 distinct monsters, whereas Routine, just for example, only had 2. There is a lot that drags this game down, but plenty of positives as well. And most importantly of all, at $4, it really does not oversell or overvalue itself. I can see other small devs pushing for a $15 price tag for an experience like this, but I absolutely respect this team for setting a reasonable price.
