Layers of Fear (2016)

Well, playing Layers of Fear wasn't exactly a pleasant experience. And not because it was sooo scary that I couldn't finish it or something. (I did not finish it anyway)

It started out pretty good. Exploring an empty house where you don't know what the fuck happened before you got there is a classic of horror games, but it always works. The anticipation of what terrible things you might find while you're snooping around and opening drawers keeps you hooked. Unfortunately, what I did find was a bit of let down. I rapidly found myself less and less compelled to figure out what the fuck happened.

I don't mind reading a plot through notes and such at all, but there were too many of them and you can figure out a good chunk of the plot based on the ones you find toward the beginning if you've already read/seen horror stories similar to this one. The puzzles quickly become repetitive, and the horror, well... Once it starts becoming surreal, the anticipation of what you might find in the house sort of vanishes and then the game tries to throw screamers at you to keep you scared. While they occasionally made me jump— in the same way that someone standing next to me without me noticing and then screaming would, they never really made me scared.

I might have pushed through all that to at least finish the game and find out if there were any plot twists that might've made the boring puzzles worthwhile, but for some reason, first-person games that bore me and have no characters to latch onto also make me nauseous. I don't know. It's not the first time it's happened. Some people get car sick, I get 'first person game where you're reading the plot through notes with no characters' sick.

I originally only gave the game one star, but past my general frustration with it, I have to admit it's got a good art direction going for it. The paintings especially looked great, and their art style is what originally drew me to the game! So, here. Take my two stars. Too bad it didn't have enough to keep me interested apart from that.

Layers of Fear is an artistic masterpiece that brilliantly melds psychological horror with stunning visuals. Its immersive narrative unfolds like a dark, twisted painting, keeping players on the edge of their seat. The game's dynamic environment and mind-bending shifts create an unsettling atmosphere, making every step a nerve-wracking experience. The haunting soundtrack adds an extra layer of tension, enhancing the overall sense of dread. The impeccable use of psychological elements, coupled with the captivating storyline, sets Layers of Fear apart in the horror genre.

Pros: Captivating narrative and psychological depth. Visually stunning and atmospheric design. Innovative gameplay mechanics that keep players engaged.

Cons: Occasionally predictable jump scares. Some may find the pacing slow at times.

Layers of Fear is an amazing horror game, making it my all-time favorite in the genre.

Layers of Boredom

Beat with the wife ending. This game was not scary at all. Sure the atmosphere was creepy and I was getting Call of Cthulu vibes, but nothing scary actually manifested. I did not react at all to any jump scares, and I actually missed some of the scenes by looking in the wrong direction since my first thought upon entering a new area was "ok let's get started on searching for treasure", instead of "is there something in this room that might kill me?". I can't really immerse myself in a scary situation if there is no potential for loss. The closest I experienced in this game was falling down from high up, which made it look like I died but did not reset puzzle progress; just a minor inconvenience. Apparently I died from her ghost but that did not cause any setback, in fact it seemed like what needed to happen to advance the game.

I did not like the controls of holding a button then looking in the direction to open doors and drawers. Far too often I ended up looking at the ceiling instead. A simple button press would have been better. I did not like all the tedious searching through dressers and cupboards. The puzzles were not bad but they overused the 3 digit code type. I had trouble with the animal code because the game had just shown a rat and had been going on about rats for the entire game. Despite the paper having a picture of a cat I was absolutely sure the solution had to related to rat, but a walkthrough told me it was whatever the picture was. I had to watch a YouTube video for the phone dialing puzzle because I did not know how to operate such an old style phone. I knew the code just not how to input it. The worst part was the final chapter about looking for board games pieces, which was way too tedious and went on for way too long. Sometimes during that chapter my camera span around in circles for a while and I could not tell if it was deliberate or a bug. The game did impress me with how seamlessly the world could change just by looking around but that was not enough to offset the incredibly boring gameplay. The story was barely interesting enough to keep me playing, and I am not even really sure what happened. I guess the wife made a dark magic pact or something for her success, and then had to pay for it with the husband's sanity? Or her being horribly burned? Or maybe it was just an accident. Then they became distant and eventually hated each other to the point she killed herself. Then he used her corpse as painting supplies to try to resurrect her? Hard to tell how much was real and how much was insanity. The game needed an intro because I had no idea who I was playing as and what the point was until much later in the game.

The game would have been better with much less interactible furniture, more drawing the player towards the spooky stuff, and actual threat to avoid, resources to manage, fail states, gameplay etc. Even if it was just a sanity meter that went up or down depending on the player's actions, with 0 sanity meaning game over.

5.0/10

A solid 7.5 out of 10 looking game

Writings and general plot

Art direction and immersivity

Whole dynamic and game length

Unfortunately not everything in this short game is great

Technical part

The best Layers of Fear can offer you is screamers. But is it bad?

But at least gameplay is good, right?

There is nothing to do except for slowly walking and opening doors. Is it interesting to progress the story? Hell yes. Is it interesting to play? Hell no! Player does not have inventory, health system, any kind of enemies and all of this create a special feeling of emptiness in mechanical gameplay. Some rooms are looking really nice and can create a discomfort but deep inside you know that nothing can hurt you. Everything you see and hear is just a trigger to little cutscene that will result in your further progress. And this is bad.

Yes there are some puzzles here and there but the only type we got is safes/numbers which is simply not for everyone (and I don't find them entertaining). Looking for codes and than searching for a place to enter it... For a 3 hours long game it might be fine, but even then they all are about looking and remembering for 3 digit codes entire the game. The only time it was not about 3 digit code was ouija board and it has 9-digit code!

So what is the result?

• -1 point for the gameplay mechanics. Fortunately the game is short enough to end fast
• -1.5 point for being the bad horror. I am really easy to frighten but not a single time I experience a real fear
• -1.5 for bad Switch port only

6/10 for Nintendo Switch release

7.5/10 for any other platform with stable FPS

If you like reading stories, early 20th century is your setting and you like painting give it a try! It is short, the atmosphere is great and and plot is really good. If you are into some gameplay adventure games or looking for a scary horrors this is not for you :)

I got this game for free from the Epic game store. I decided to give it a try seeing as I read it was short and it's the Halloween season.

I enjoyed it a lot. A few of the scares got me and I enjoyed the spooky atmosphere. It was definitely a little scary at times.

The puzzles were easy, but I'm really not that good at puzzle games so I didn't mind that.

Graphics were great and the sound was good but it could get a bit too grating at times.

I found the story to be compelling and interesting too.

I did have a strange bug at the end of the game where my character kept spinning in circles. I could tell where that may have been intended but then it kept happening, not sure if it was intentional or not.

A horror adventure game that’s not really all that scary.

If I had to sum this game up I would say - opening drawers, jump-scares, reading letters and looking at weird paintings. And that’s pretty much sums up my experience with the game.

So what’s the game about. You start in an old house without any proper intro or any starting goal. And you start exploring which at first means opening drawers and closets and looking for you have no idea what. The story itself is I guess about a painter and his family. It’s told through various notes and newspaper pages you read to familiarise yourself with what’s going on.

Visually it’s quite nice looking - although probably a bit too of what you would expect from a haunted house.

The game is extremely linear although it suggests otherwise at the start. And that annoyed me because I was looking for places where I actually could have made a choice but didn’t find it. As there are none - though only was sure after checking how to get alternate endings and the conditions are so obscure I’m guessing 99% of people will get the same one. The best way to describe just how linear is “you walk into a room, there are four doors - you pick the only one that isn’t locked and move on”.

What’s cool about the game is ever changing house layout. Each open door leads you someplace new and it’s not uncommon for rooms to change their layout right behind your back. That’s a pretty neat feature - you walk up to a window, look back and there’s no furniture or doors where there was just a second ago. Really well done and interesting.

The story overall is not bad but fairly predictable. Didn’t find anything surprising there.

Where the game fails the most is building up some sort of tension or horror atmosphere. Apart from jump-scares which are frequent and a cheap way to get you “scared” there’s nothing else to keep you frighten. There’s no death (almost none) and the atmosphere is not really that scary. A little into the game and I’ve sort of started expecting where the next jump-scare will happen being mostly correct. There’s no tension, no anxiety - to be honest at parts it feels like a walking simulator. The handful of puzzles are mostly annoying or unclear as what is expected from the player - especially the looping corridor with the phone - ugh - still not sure how I got past it.

Overall I wasn’t too impressed. Finished it but can’t say I had tons of fun playing.

Game #2 of my Spooooooooooky Gaming Marathon is Layers of Fear. It was okay. I guess. Hey, it was free, at least!

If you read the paper scraps you find in the first minutes of the game, it becomes fairly obvious where the story is going to go. You're a one-legged dude whose wife died in a fire; there was a kid at some point; and you're trying to finish some important painting.

Despite being on some "scariest games ever" lists, I didn't find the game to be particularly scary at all. This is mainly because the game makes it clear from the start that your character won't get hurt. You just walk in circles (or sometimes just back & forth) getting beat over the head by jumpscare after jumpscare after jumpscare.

On the bright side, the graphics are neat, and there are quite a few trippy effects. Voice acting is pretty meh, though.

So, after reflecting on it more, I think my final feeling is... I want to finish the game because of the atmosphere and the premise, but I just really don't enjoy jump scares. It's cheap. I know it's coming, but I just have a jittery, overactive mind, and so the anticipation just leaves me in a constant state of not enjoying the game.

I'm 'afraid', but not because of some irrational, unnerving fear of what's lurking in the dark, but because I know the game is going to throw something at me that if it wasn't accompanied with a loud bang or a flash of light, wouldn't actually bother me. I'm scared like I would be if I was hanging out with a friend who just occasionally punches me in the chest. And like that kind of friend, even though I was enjoying his stories and the interesting atmosphere, I'm tired of his shit, and I don't care what the ending of his story is anymore, because fuck you, I don't want to get punched in the chest anymore.

Horror is interesting, it can be a lot of fun, but I want to be creeped out and unnerved. I want to be unsettled and forced to think. I don't want to sit around waiting for something to keep pounding my fight or flight response and then going: 'WAS THAT SCARY?! DID YOU ENJOY THAT?!'

This, I suppose, is less a review of the game than that this was kind of me mulling over how I feel about horror as a genre, but I think this holds up as a 'warning' to people playing the game. If you like jump scares, this game might be fun, and I think the story is potentially pretty interesting. Pushing the audience to think through what really happened to this deranged painter and his family, could be quite interesting. But if you want interesting atmospheric horror without the bursts of cheap quality scares, at least for the first couple hours of the game, you're out of luck.

[As a side note: If anyone knows any good creepy horror games that don't rely on this 'tension, jump scare, tension, jump scare' mechanic, and just sets the creepy mood and then uses it to tell an interesting story, I'd be interested in a recommendation.]

Thanks, I hate it.

But for real, this is the kind of horror that's all about build up and tension, and then throw a quick scare at you, and the build up and tension. It's a pretty good bit of atmospheric horror, if you're into that. I don't think the scares are cheap, but even if they're done 'well', I don't like jump scares.

I don't know if I particularly want to keep going, I don't play a lot of horror games because horror stuff almost always teeters between 'not frightening' and 'triggers paranoid hallucinations' for me, and there's only some things that hit that sweet spot of 'oh nice, this is creepy and interesting, but not going to make me have to avoid windows for the rest of the night'.

How scary is this game?

I accidentally just dropped a hot coffee down my butt while setting up to play it. I am pretty sure I have burnt myself. Does this game feature any jump-scares as effective as that? If not, I probably won’t bother. You could say I have already shed the layers of fear, which is how I refer to my coffee-soaked clothing.

Also, I need some ice.

If the term "walking simulator" is a pejorative to you, then stop right here. This game is not for you. If you're still with me, Layers of Fear is a first-person horror exploration game with no combat, puzzles, or dialogue options. In the style of a "Gone Home," you explore what's in front of you until you get bored or something happens. Unlike other walking sims, the experience changes as you play. You play as a tortured painter trying to finish his latest masterpiece. You walk through your own house, uncovering the madness within. Your insanity will ramp up, as rooms start shifting and changing into monstrous hellscapes. You still explore, but now dripping black ichor makes up the walls, and the bed starts screaming at you. You do, however, have some agency, and there are multiple endings. I do not have the desire to see more than the one I got, but if you want to maximize your value you can. There is one enemy in the game. If you come into contact with it it does not end the game. Rather, it shifts your character's current location. Maybe you lose out on a little more exploration or exposition, as you're teleported forward. There are discreet sections where the enemy pops up, too. So you don't have to worry about it snatching you while you explore. You'll know when it's time to run (this happens maybe 5 times throughout the game?). There is a certain ending for never being caught by the enemy, if you're interested. It must be said, however, that the non-threatening aspect of being caught drains some of the tension. This was a worthy trade-off for me, though. I was looking for an experience that just let me be, and not make me replay sections over,

Layers of Fear isn't my favorite walking simulator, but I applaud the horror theme and the overall level of detail. I think it's a great step in the right direction for software that is more of an "experience" than a "game."

Layers of Fear is a spooky horror walking simulator with some very simple puzzles, more to give the player some sort of interaction rather than to perplex. You spend the game walking around the twisting, warping halls of a creepy old mansion in the 1950's. The basic story is that you're an esteemed artist who has fallen from grace, after some sort of family tragedy and various substance and mental illness problems. You stumble around the mansion, which is littered with paints, canvases and wine bottles, as you grapple with paranormal things and hallucinations, reading notes to figure out the mystery.

In many ways this game is like a horror-themed Gone Home: exploring a house, looking at notes and artefacts, opening cupboard and drawers, unlocking doors. It some parallels with Kubrick's The Shining too, one of my favourite horror films. There are also elements of Antichamber here: the visual effects are very impressive and I was constantly surprised by the smooth transitions as rooms loop back on themselves and seemingly-impossible doors and hallways lead to optical illusions and MC Escher architecture. It was all very clever.

For the most part, this game is very classy. The art direction is brilliant. This horror theme is centred around old paintings and paint. The visuals explore the sounds and textures, colours and the melting appearance of paint. It's hard to describe unless you see it yourself, but they've tapped into something original and genuinely chilling as they submerge you deeper into this melty paint world, like a colourful House of Wax.

Despite the clear and original art direction and the intelligent story, progression and gameplay, the game is not without its faults. For the most part I enjoyed the experience. The feeling of fear and horror is slowly built upon with story, sound and subtle changes to the environment. Unfortunately, for much of the game, the devs resorted to rather cheap jump scares to get a rise out of the player. Like a bored kid in an old ghost train, I sighed with disappointment each time a spooky skeleton or a rubber spider plopped out from behind a trapdoor for a cheap scare. I wish the devs hadn't resorted to this, because I don't think it was necessary. There were a couple other cringe-worthy tropes that cropped up, including a "spooky ghost children" trope, complete with wind-up carousel, etc.

But, if you can overlook some of these cheesy pitfalls, for the most part this game is an original take on the horror genre, and one of my favourites to date. The overall approach to the horror was something akin to Eraserhead; horror expressed through the surreal, the unknown. The environments in the game are ultra-realistic and a wonder to behold, it's worth entering this world just to put yourself briefly in this beautiful creepy old mansion and marvel at the mind-bending halls, tactile surfaces and gorgeous paintings. It was a short, imperfect but delightful experience, and I would recommend.