Little Nightmares
Don’t Look Back
Developer Tarsier sTudios publisher Bandai namco enTerTainmenT price $ 19.99 AvAilAble At sTeam little-nightmares.com/en/
While most horror games deal in gore and jump scares, there is a different breed of horror that has established a firm foothold in the indie scene - the horror puzzle platformer that relies on mood and the chase rather than the shock and the kill. Not necessarily pioneered by, but certainly brought to mainstream attention by the likes of Limbo and Inside, these games use scale and distance to make the player feel small in an overwhelmingly dangerous world, and insignificant compared to the evil they face. Little nightmares takes this approach a step further, putting the play in control of a miniscule, raincoated child in a world of monstrous, outsized adults. Awakening from a nightmare, the player finds themselves on a ship populated by horrid, bloated and malformed adults who would like nothing more than to eat you up. How you got there and why everyone wants to eat is a mystery you’ll have to discover for yourself. Little is explained explicitly, but the overall plot is laid out for those who explore.
The scale of the ship is daunting. Each room is essentially a level, with the player having to work out how to get to the next using a combination of platforming and light puzzling, all the while making sure that they aren’t spotted by the gluttonous passengers and crew. The world is outsized for the player. Everything is huge and that is where the platforming comes in. A tallboy could be a ladder to get you to a desk to find a key, or a roof beam could be treacherous tightrope over the head of a hungry cook. The approach makes the platforming feel very organic in the world, but also proves to be one of the
populated by bloated and malformed adults who would like nothing more than to eat you up
few frustrations with the game. The camera is stuck in a 2D view but the levels have depth to them, so sometimes, due to the fixed camera, angles of jumps are hard to judge leading to having to do the same jump over and over again to try and get it right.
Little Nightmares is a short game - most people should be able to get through it in a single 4-5 hour sitting, and ultimately it’s not what you would call particularly difficult outside of camera problems, and yet it remains a game that is incredibly easy to recommend. The constant creepy mood is thrilling and is heightened by both the art design and the ambient soundtrack. Character designs veer wildly between the cute and the grotesque, with the main character being adorable, in a very vulnerable kind of way, while the adults look something like a mix of Terry Gilliam’s more disturbing animations from Monty Python and Bobo and Lil Debbull the twins from Dan Ackroyd’s 1991 disasterpiece, Nothing But Trouble. Although there is a soundtrack that becomes more prominent during chase scenes or tense moments, for the majority of play time the soundtrack is made up of ambient noise and the wheezes and grunts of the adults. It’s effective and unsettling, constantly reminding the player that they are alone, and insignificant in a world that is too big and too strange for them. TAVISH FORREST