One of the best things about the horror genre is that it works regardless of the material. Jump scares, written notes, spoken stories, disturbing audio tapes, puppet shows, silence, total darkness, interior architecture or lonely streets – anything can be made into superior ingredients, given the right recipe.
You don’t need complex sound design or a detailed fog system like the Silent Hill 2 remake to be scary. Sometimes, all you need is a well-crafted story with some collectible letters, engaging polygonal characters, and simple but functional mechanics.
Old school pixel horror games influenced by
fear spotlight is the first game developed by Cozy Game Pals, a small independent studio founded by Bryan Singh and Crista Castro. It’s also the first game to be released by the recently formed Blumhouse Games division, which is responsible for dozens of beloved horror movies for over two decades. A lot of it you don’t have, but that’s not the point.
For a small team from diverse backgrounds, the division seemed like an opportunity to tell their own horror stories.
You play as Vivian, a young girl who enters school at night with her friend Amy. They borrowed a Ouija board that had been kept in the library for some reason and prepared appropriately for their brief conversation with the spirit. Like a paranormal phenomenon, things quickly spiral out of control and Amy disappears. Now you need to explore a twisted school in search of Vivian’s friends while avoiding strange presences and burning lights that come from nowhere.
Relevant
From Game Jam to Blumhouse debut, a captivating story that shines a spotlight on fear
We spoke with Cozy Game Pals Bryan Singh, Crista Castro, and Blumhouse’s Louise Blain about the touching story of this ’00s horror indie game.
Like other notable gems in the genre, such as Signalis and Crow Country, Fear The Spotlight adopts a retro style that mimics the PS1 aesthetic and isn’t shy about its polygonal presentation: its characters and objects are geometric enough to evoke Some good scares, thanks to the subtle atmosphere created because of them.
Most of the time, you’ll be walking through apparently empty corridors with the low vision provided by your flashlight, looking for a single pesky item you missed to solve a puzzle. Some puzzles felt too trivial, like asking me to move an object from point A to point B with few obstacles in between, while others raised the bar with multiple steps and a change of pace.
However, what ultimately makes them more interesting is paying attention to your surroundings. After checking the room for a few minutes, you’ll feel like you’re being watched from every corner. Sometimes it’s very clear as you see the eyes of little creatures looking at you from behind walls and from unexpected locations. But more often than not, it’s just a small step, the sound of a lock, a faint whisper, a letter that’s not supposed to be there, and other wonderful details that lull you into a blissful paranoia. This is a classic survival horror game that will keep you anxiously on the edge of your seat.
Vivian couldn’t defend herself. The young girl can only walk, run and crouch, hiding whenever an invincible enemy appears. The focus on stealth as a way to overcome combat scenarios is coherent and (mostly) well-crafted. There were a few times where I felt like my input was being read and the being in front of me was just messing around, and until I took a step, the obstacles weren’t really intuitively placed. Fortunately, this only happened a few times, enough to surprise me but far from frustrating.
Well-crafted atmosphere and solid story eliminate unnecessary jump scares
I’m grateful that Focus on Fear never tricked me into cheap jump scares. As you interact with objects and switch to first-person perspective, it’s easy to surprise you with ugly faces or loud noises when you exit a puzzle and return to the original camera. The team understood the task and invested time and effort in making every room of this school hide a mystery, a small possibility that makes you uncomfortable or leaves you breathless. Sometimes horror doesn’t need to show you gruesome acts of violence to get your heart racing: it might be more effective to throw in little hints and fill your mind with dark spaces.
At first, I thought this story would fall into tired horror clichés, but ultimately I was surprised by the unsettling story it tells about the dangers of standing out from the crowd and trying to be special, experienced Themes of abuse and self-hatred. It’s well thought out and effectively subtle, requiring some thinking on the part of the player to connect all the dots. Sadly, some moments are underplayed by off-sounding voice acting and occasionally awkward dialogue that, whether intentional or not, misses the mark.
It took me about three to four hours to complete Fear The Spotlight, which is a decent runtime for an indie horror game like this.
When you finish the main story, there’s some extra content that I can’t mention in this review, but don’t skip it – it’s a valuable summary of the experience. This “epilogue” explores new themes like grief and dysfunctional families, helping to add more layers to the characters you’re already familiar with. It also offers some new mechanics that don’t significantly change the gameplay experience, but are a welcome addition to keep things fresh.
Cozy Game Pals offers a sweet experience for those who want an effective Halloween short story that retains the look of games from decades ago in their hearts.
Played on PS5.
- Compelling storytelling
- wonderful speech
- It’s fun to play
- The dubbing could be better
- Lack of difficulty options may make the challenge trivial for experienced players
- Some secret parts are annoying