Nyctophobia

This might be one of the worst I've ever played. It might not be THE worst, but wow. I wasn't happy with the bugs, I wasn't happy with the cheap scares, I wasn't happy with the AI generated music which is not disclosed on the steam page. But the pipe puzzle was probably one of the worst, and it didn't even work when I finished it, likely another bug. Terrible.

w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KrrjqBmFl0

I played this game for youtube, as I had played the demo some months ago when it came out. I was disappointed. This may have spoilers. I really hate to just poo on indie developers, especially solo ones, but this game is not good at ALL. I couldn't even finish it. You start out working at the desk, where you have to have really drawn out, monotonous conversations with people. You either have the option to kind of be weird and pry into their life, or speak like one word sentences to reply to them, or basic replies. Some of the dialogue is better than other indie horror games, but a lot of it (especially the section with the grandparents) feels super drawn out. It got to the point where I was like "ALL RIGHT, MOVE ON NOW!" Because they kept talking and talking and talking. We keep on with the gameplay, in a certain part of the game you have to run outside with the flashlight and fix the electric box. You have to click it with left mouse, then fix the electricity super quick, or the monster will get you and reset you. This one isn't particularly bad, while I do think its too fast especially for people who didn't play the demo, it's fine. Then we get to the part of the game where a customer comes and tells you that the water isn't working at all. You have to grab the flashlight and go to the ... forest across the road for some reason. I was absolutely baffled to find that in the area the pipes were completely disconnected and there were about 25 pipes lying around (which is super unrealistic). Well, while doing the pipe puzzle, every minute or so you have to run over to the nearest electric box and do the electric puzzle again before anything gets you. If you are too far away from that box at any time, even to do the puzzle, you won't make it. At the same time, you have to be careful of how much you turn your flashlight on... because alongside running to the fuse box over and over and doing a frustrating puzzle with pipes that you have THREE different buttons to rotate the pieces, your battery light is limited and keeps going down no matter how long you take. If you die at this section, you either get the ENTIRE pipe puzzle thrown back on the floor, which you have to start the agonizing process again, OR like in my video, you have to restart from 15 minutes ago at the last puzzle because there's a huge bug in the game that sends you back to when you had to fix the electric the first time. Unfortunately that means we have to go through most of the dialogue again and the entire day, the unskippable LONG conversation with the grandparents, the unskippable dialogue with yourself in the beginning, and the very slow to approach customers. This is obviously a bug, but I was almost ready to quit. I replayed and tried again, and after spending about 20 minutes trying to do the damned pipe puzzle again, I strayed a bit too far from the electric box and wasn't able to make it. This made it reset the entire puzzle again, in which I turned the game off. Why? Why is there a huge pipe puzzle in the middle of this indie horror game? I understand if you had to put 5 pieces back, or 1 or 2, then come back - but there's at least 15-20 pieces of pipe you have to figure out the direction it needs to turn (WITH THREE DIFFERENT ROTATE BUTTONS) where it goes, and it takes a long time WHILE having to run back to the electric box over and over and over. This is in no way fun, entertaining, or interesting of a puzzle and I was borderline screaming by the end. I do not know why the dev thought this was a good idea, but it is NOT. Other than the awful puzzle, it did feel like a lot of talking filler and slow dialogue, slow movement with not a lot of things to do. I wish they made more of the "scared of the dark" aspect, maybe seeing faces in corners of the room, or more things like the light turning off and you having to quickly grab the flashlight because you see a face. It just wasn't really scary, instead it was super frustrating, made no sense and I ended up not finishing. Don't recommend. My video: https://youtu.be/PIkvRcCIQ34