Play With Me

Review

Robert Hawk and his wife Sara are driving home from their celebration out on the town for his birthday when suddenly their car is thrown off the road crashing into an embankment. Robert wakes up handcuffed to a chair with a splitting headache in a dimly lit room, and Sara is nowhere to be seen. Surveying the area as best you can from your position, you will need to find a way to unlock the handcuffs by seeking out items that may be helpful or give you clues. Soon you will discover you are being held by a serial killer about whom you have been writing articles. Yours is not the only life in danger; logical thinking and the ability to think outside the box will be required if you are to save all the lives at stake.

Released on Jan 17, 2019, by the developer Airem, this game is self-published.
I have tagged it as Indie, 2D, Horror, Adventure, Multiple Ending, Difficult. It is listed as casual on the store page; the game seems casual but is quite challenging, even with the hint and spoiler system. It features a striking visual style used in combination with sound effects and atmosphere to set the mood. You can go to the next level of immersion using your webcam and microphone to interact with the game. There are three different game modes with 2 difficulty settings. Logical and optical puzzles require seeing things from a different perspective, and the creepy soundtrack will send chills down your spine.

Quite an interesting escape room horror game for the first release by a developer. I found the graphics style to be impressive in their design; the atmosphere can be unsettling with everything going on in the rooms. With jump-scares (decently done), dusty and dirty camera lens, fog, blurring, and flickering lights (can be adjusted to your taste in the settings if you find them a bit too much). The puzzles are thought-provoking and well-designed, many of which I found to be challenging (not all, though). With choices matter and some aspects of the game randomly-generated, along with 3 different games modes, the game has a wide variety of gameplay. The difficulty settings are either Normal or Torture of the Mind.  Normal has a built-in hint system as well as a spoiler system, should you get stuck someplace. Torture of the mind is the hardcore mode of course (no hints here). I played in normal mode and was sure glad that I did; I admit I was guilty of needing to use a hint now and then, and even a spoiler when I was really confused. The whole family took turns to play, and all of us found it challenging.

The choice is up to you to use either the camera or the microphone. I would recommend having paper and pencil handy, along with a mirror, and you may want to get out of your chair to gain a different perspective to your sitting position.

I found almost all the game designs to be great and a lot of fun to explore as I solved the puzzles. The only thing I found that could use improvement was the voice acting; I would rate it as a B as it just didn’t seem to flow with the rest of the game.

It has fleshed-out settings that cover all bases, and then some; there are just too many to list in the review.

Review written by DamageInc.for Zeepond.com!