From Next Door (PC)

Source: Itch.io Page

From Next Door is a short mystery-horror game created by SpaceZeta for the 2016 Pixel Horror Jam. Using inspiration from Junji Ito and the Silent Hill games, Space Zeta crafted an atmospheric horror game that kept me on the edge of my seat.  I am not much for horror games, especially ones that involve jump scares, but this type of atmospheric horror is something I love. I am also a fan of both the Silent Hill games, and Junji Ito manga(Uzumaki was my favorite.)

You play as a young woman named Namie, who is moving into a new home with a price that seemed too good to be true. She’s hoping that this will be her big break. However, when she comes across a locked room on the second floor, and she realizes she doesn’t have a key, she starts to feel that maybe there is something she isn’t being told about this house.

Source: Screen Capture from Game

She wonders if the neighbors have any idea about the house. On one side of her she has a nice family living there, but it doesn’t seem they know too much about the house, or why the previous tenants left in such a hurry. All the realtor will tell you is that the previous tenant had an emergency and had to leave immediately. On the other side of your house is an odd house that appears to have a door… but no windows.

She managed to find a key among the previous tenants abandoned belongs—of which they left literally everything—and opened the looked room to find a normal looking tatami room with a boarded up window. Peeking through the boards reveals that the house next door DOES have a window… but how strange that it is lined up directly with hers. Not feeling that this was strange, or foreboding in any way, Namie decides to remove the wooden boards. Any sensible person, especially one who has ever read a Junji Ito novel, would promptly get the hell out of dodge... But not Namie. She is either very brave, or very stupid.

In the room with the boarded window, Namie also finds a wallet that seems to belong to the previous tenant, Daisuke Sen. She calls Omura and asks about how to contact the previous tenant. He reluctantly agrees to get the information for her. When he does, he is only able to give her an email address. Namie emails Daisuke Sen to ask about the window. She immediately gets an email back that simply says, “DO NOT OPEN IT. GET OUT OF THE HOUSE. FIND THE NOTEBOOK.”

Still, this does not convince Namie to leave. In order to solve the mystery you’ll need to play the game for yourself. I’m not going to spoil any more of the story, or it's surprises, but I hope this enticed you to play it. The game recommends you wear headphones, so I spent the majority of the game waiting for that jump scare that I knew was coming.

Source: Itch.io Page

A particular feature that got me, was that it’s almost always night during the course of the game. At night, when you enter rooms, you need to turn on the lights before you can see. I have a fear of the dark, so when I walked in a dark room, I was immediately tense, until I got the light on. There are also some nighttime scenes where you are lying in bed and cannot do anything except wait in the darkness, which is even worse.

The art for this game is nice. I did always like the pixel game aesthetic. It has a Game Boy Advance game appearance. The sound effects are spot on and really add to the overall atmosphere of the game. SpaceZeta really did a superb job pulling the elements of a good horror game together. Of course, I recommend playing the game for yourself! You can download and play for free *here*.

I hope that you will give the developer works of encouragement, or helpful criticism, to help them further improve their skills and future content.

Happy Gaming, Friends!

Bell

Free Itch.io Games #4

Hello Friends! Welcome back to another installment of free games that you can find on Itch.io! There are some interesting games in this installment, so be sure to give them a play!

1. Other

Source: Itch.io Page

Other is a short, retro style RPG created in a collaboration by Nathan Addison(Skruffye), Michael Bohea(LeftRight92) and Kevin Sum(KNJ). Makoto is a 17-year-old boy who lives in a village that requires a sacrifice every 10 years to keep the village safe. This time, Makoto had his name drawn. Now Makoto has 3 days to complete the proper rites, and say goodbye to family and friends. The choices you make when speaking to the villagers will determine what happens after you are gone.

I liked the retro appearance of the game. I thought that the character sprites were cute, even though I was never sure if I was talking to a child or an adult. I wished that there had been more to explore. Although all the buildings have the appearance of open doors, you cannot enter any of them. There are vines you can climb on the sides of the buildings with no apparent purpose. More than anything I enjoyed the message of the game—even little words of encouragement(or hate) can impact a person’s life for a long time to come.

The game is fairly short and can be completed in about 20 minutes to half an hour. I would recommend giving it a play for yourself. You can find the game free to download and play from their Itch.io page *here*.

2. Lavender

Source: Itch.io Page

Lavender is a short little puzzle game created by Clockwork Prince. The story is very Rapunzel-esque. Lavender’s mother was traveling, and became hungry. Being pregnant, she worried for the welfare of her child and happened across a garden. This garden had abundant fruit, so the woman helped herself. Little did she know, a witch owned this garden and had been watching her. The witch scolds her and demands tribute. The woman has nothing of value to offer… so the witch chooses to take her child. The child then grows up in a (normally) locked tower.

It’s Lavender’s birthday, and her “mother” is telling her the story about the witch and the pregnant woman. I gathered that the woman who Lavender is calling her mother is the witch, but truly this is not really confirmed. The woman leaves Lavender without giving her the ending of the story, saying she will tell her another time(she never tells us), and gives Lavender a beautiful comb for her birthday gift. Lavender is happy with this gift and, after her mother leaves, she takes to brushing her hair, and drops the comb right out the window. Oops. We have to get it back before mother returns! 

It just so happens that mother didn’t lock the escape hatch. So we traverse our way through the tower to get our comb back! Along the way we face puzzles on each level of the tower. I found them challenging, but not frustratingly so. I actually really enjoyed this game, despite it being so short. A full playthrough took me about 25 minutes. If you like puzzle games as I do, this would be worth your time. You can find Lavender free to download and play on Itch.io *here*.

3. Ada’s Room

Source: Ludum Dare Page

Ada’s Room is a challenging platformer created by pixelstab. You play as little Ada, who is going to bed at the beginning of the game. While she sleeps, she suffers from nightmares and must face her fears and survive. I love the idea of this game, facing your nightmares in an action platform style.

I’ll be honest though, I couldn’t beat this game. I couldn’t make it past the first nightmare, so I can’t tell you much about what the game holds after that(if anything). I can tell you that this game is a challenge. Your only controls are the 4 arrow keys. Left, Right, Up to jump(Up Up to double jump) and down to attack. You have to be both fast, and accurate, because if you miss, then you’re dead, and you start over from the beginning. This game is unforgiving, but it’s not bad. The movement of the characters are smooth, the pixel graphics are attractive and the music is great.

My hands just simply cannot handle being scrunched up and having to click those dang arrow buttons as much as is required without cramping up. Yay for carpel tunnel. Anyhow, if you’re looking for a challenge, I would recommend Ada’s Room, which can be downloaded and played for free from Itch.io *here*.

4. Desolate Village

Source: Screen Capture from Game

Desolate Village is a short adventure horror game created by Choko-flan, about a strange village and rumors of dark happenings. You play as Alex, and you work to uncover the mystery of your missing memories, and how you got to be where you are. These talking animals must be an illusion, or a dream. When one of them gives you pills to take to “help restore your memories” you must decide whether to take the pills, or not to take them. What are the consequences of this action? Will you regret your choice…?

Overall, this game was alright. As a horror game, I didn’t find the game particularly scary, or suspenseful. It may have been more effective, if the game didn’t crash on me 8 times through the play of a half an hour long game. Sometimes the game crashing would cause the other programs I had running(Skype, Microsoft word for notes, and google chrome), to also crash and I would need to restart my whole laptop. It was frustrating.

The game developer did say that they planned to remake/rebuild the game in the future, which would be a great benefit to this game. With some fixes and touch ups, this could be a game worth showing off. The main things I would like to see are updated artwork(with higher quality, less sketchy perhaps), smoother transitions(sometimes I would walk on to the next screen during night and it would be day for a moment before it switched to night), the bugs(Crash crash), and the grammar/spelling errors. If you want to check out the demo yourself, you can download and play the game for free from Itch.io *here*.

As always, if you play the games, be sure to leave comments for the creators with words of encouragement, or bugs/errors that you notice, to help the creators further develop their games and improve!

Happy Gaming!

Bell

See the Gaming in Pajamas Compendium *HERE*

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Imaginary Friends for PC

“I had imaginary friends and even they were mean to me.” –Oliva Wilde

Source: Itch.io Page

Imaginary Friends is a retro style horror RPG created by mannytsu using RPG Maker software. You play as 14-year-old Hailey, who has spent her entire summer vacation alone in her room. Her mother wants her to go outside and get together with her friends, but she doesn’t have any. When Hailey accompanies her mother and brother to the store, something strange begins to happen… Before she knows it, she finds herself in a strange world. To get home, Hailey will have to confront her childhood, and look deep inside herself so that she can move forward and grow.

I don’t play a lot of horror games, and I don’t know what made me decide to play this game to begin with, but I am glad that I did. For good portions of the game, I was just waiting for the jumpscares—but they didn’t come. No, the horror aspect of this game comes from the atmosphere of uncertainty and unease that are created. I use a headset with one ear piece because having both of my ears covered makes me anxious(I might miss something important, like if my daughter needs me), but I imagine the atmosphere would have been intensified if you used both. Particularly in the school towards the end of the game, the shuffling and whispers were pretty unnerving for me.

Source: Screen Capture from Game

I also died a lot in my playthrough, and I mean a lot. Everything and everyone is out to kill you, so save often. Make extra trips back to save points to save again. I must have saved 50 times by the end of my game. I came to think that everything was going to kill me, even inanimate objects—who knows what could happen.

The game is in a charming top down retro style, which I love. In addition to the sprites, drawn images appear of each character next to their dialogue boxes. The artwork for the characters is well done, and the environments are wonderfully made as well, able to be either dark and foreboding, or light and whimsical. The NPCs in the Cloud Kingdom are varied and interesting, as are the dolls in the doll house. All around the style of this game was great. The music and sound effects did a great job of complimenting the environments as well. 

One particular thing that I liked was that during some parts of the game, you would traverse though crayon dawn areas that would flow into the normal game backgrounds. This is something unique that I haven't seen in many games before, so I really liked that. 

Source: Screen Capture from Game

In addition to the horror aspect of the game, the game also has some great puzzles to solve. I did always enjoy a good puzzler. The puzzles aren’t overly difficult, but enough to make you think. I did get help up a little bit in the school because I wasn’t being thorough enough in my search for what I needed. There were puzzles I did not complete. There is a safe in the school that requires two different keys and a combination to open, but I only managed to find one of the keys.

The story is about loneliness, the difficulty of making new friends, and moving on. Hailey will need to reconcile her past friendships and move forward to make new friends. For as unsettling and tense as the game was, the ending was oddly uplifting. I appreciated the entire ride. Kudos to mannytsu for putting together such an amazing game.

Source: Screen Capture from Game

You can try this game for yourself by downloading the game for free on Itch.io *here*. As always, I hope that you’ll also leave your words of encouragement and helpful criticism(if you have it), that way the creators and continue to develop their skills.

Happy Gaming, Friends!

Bell

See the Gaming in Pajamas Compendium *HERE*

Follow me on: Twitter

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Join me on: Steam

Email: bellannmae@gmail.com