Uh Oh!

Uh Oh! is a short horror game that takes me into an abandoned experimentation facility where pretty much everything has gone wrong. I am exploring the place through a VHS camera, trying to work out what happened while avoiding some seriously creepy creatures. The whole thing is built around the found footage style, so the picture is grainy and distorted and the camera makes everything feel like I am watching something I probably should not be seeing. It is a very simple setup, but I think it works well for a horror game that is meant to be finished in around an hour. The atmosphere is probably the best thing about it for me. The old VHS look gives the facility a really uncomfortable feeling, especially when I am walking through dark rooms and have no idea what is going to appear next. The sound design helps a lot too. I can hear noises around me without always being able to tell exactly where they are coming from, which makes me much more cautious when exploring. I like that the game does not need constant jumpscares to keep me nervous. A lot of the tension comes from knowing something could be nearby. The three VHS tapes also make the story more interesting than I expected. I am not simply walking around one building doing the same thing for an hour. The tapes are connected and slowly reveal more about the facility, the experiments and the creatures inside it. I like having to piece things together instead of being given every answer immediately. There are also different endings, so I have a reason to look more carefully at what is happening instead of just rushing through to the end. The actual gameplay is fairly basic. I spend most of my time exploring, looking around for clues, solving small puzzles and trying to avoid the creatures. There is not a huge amount of combat or complicated mechanics, which I think is the right choice for something this short. The giant creatures are much more effective when I cannot simply shoot everything that moves. When one of them starts chasing me, the game becomes more about getting away and finding somewhere safe than trying to fight back. The biggest weakness is also the short length. The developers describe it as an experience that should take around an hour, and that feels about right. I can appreciate a short horror game when the pacing is good, but I still finish feeling like the ideas could have supported a longer experience. Some of the puzzles are also quite simple, so there are moments where I am mainly walking from one story section to the next. The VHS effect looks good, but it can sometimes make it harder for me to see what I am supposed to be looking at, especially in darker areas. I also think some of the mystery works better than the actual explanation. I enjoy wondering what is hiding in the facility and trying to understand what happened, but once everything starts being explained, some of the strange atmosphere disappears. That is a common problem with this kind of horror because the unknown is often more effective than the answer. Still, I like that the game gives me enough information to understand the basic story without turning the whole thing into a long explanation. Overall, Uh Oh! is a good short horror experience that knows exactly what it wants to be. I like the VHS presentation, creepy sound design, strange facility and the way the three tapes gradually build up the mystery. The gameplay is quite simple and the one hour length means there is not enough here for me to give it one of my really high scores, but I would much rather have a short horror game that stays focused than one that fills the time with pointless sections. It is free, easy to get into and has enough atmosphere to make the short journey worthwhile. For me, it is a solid little horror game that makes good use of its limited runtime. Rating: 7.7/10