Layers of Fear (2016)

Not a game. Doesn't have to be a bad thing, but not a game. An interactive story.

There were no puzzles, just things to pick up. Doors were locked but keys lay out freely.

You can't die. You have to be able to die in a horror game or there are no stakes. I never had a reason to be scared.

Not a game. A story told in a very non-obvious and some might say obtuse way. Go for it if that's your thing.

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

The horror genre and I have a strange relationship. I LOVE reading horror novels and comics, reasonably interested in playing various horror games, tolerate some horror TV shows, and generally avoid most horror movies. The main reason for this is the gore - I have a hard time tolerating gore in a visual manner unless it's so campy, it's ridiculous - and amount of jumpscares. I can tolerate some jumpscares if it feels like it's part of the narrative, but I'm terrible at handling a constant stream of it without feeling overwhelmed. Layers of Fear was one of those games, where it kind of close for me in some scenes in tolerating this, but the story was interesting enough for me to want to keep progressing and complete it.

Story

Sometime in the 1920s, you are a painter returning to your empty house after a court hearing in order to work on your "magnum opus," in which you then start to dive into your past through hallucinations. You were once ambitious and full of life, and married to a beautiful woman, who was the model for your painting. You both had a daughter, bought a dog, and became more focused on your work. But then... things go downhill from there.

Gameplay

This is a psychological horror story that is a walking simulator and puzzle game. Through the six chapter, you have to uncover objects by walking around the house to piece together clues, while also encountering jump scares. The house changes as you progress further (I read this game was influenced by P.T.) as well. At the end of six chapter, you will see your painting progressing as well and also further gets to the truth of what happened.

Inheritance

There is an add-on story that continues the game in the perspective of the daughter returning to her childhood home to witness the full story from her eyes. In this story, you can make choices that will impact what ending you will get (good, bad, or true).

Overall

I liked this game a lot, actually. I thought the story was very good and told in a unique way, and I really liked being able to continue into Inheritance for another perspective. Admittedly, I did play a lot of loud music to help get through some of the game, haha. I liked being able to interact with the environment to solve puzzles and consider what has changed in the house as I progress. If you enjoy horror games, I think it's worth adding to your collection.

I recently played Blair Witch and thought the mechanics of that were interesting so thought i'd check out Layers of Fear since I got it on Amazon Gaming at some point. I've grown fond of the psychological horror genre and tried a few titles this year since playing Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, So the thought of a schizophrenic painter player character sounded good to me.

First, the world changing as you move through it mechanic is present here in it's original form. The fact you're inside a structure makes it very obvert compared to Wandering in the woods of Blair Witch. There is also zero attempt at subtlety (something Blair Witch would often do to mess with your head making you wonder how you missed items or details or whatnot) This game is very heavy handed where you pretty much know something is about to happen when you turn behind you or you look in a mirror or something like that you are pretty much anticipating every little new room as you turn the door handle to step in.

While it's not bad, it is a constant fourth wall sort of feeling that personally led to a bit less immersion. This game is not so great to play retroactively after playing their newer games I suppose. I knew I could more or less just run through the house to advance and that kinda is what i did.

This game wasn't really that scary other than a few specific points. I found it rather hard to get into. The general premise of the game and playe character was pretty cool. I'm currently playing the DLC/sequel Inheritance and find i'm liking the character and experience a bit more.

In addition to the game play resembling Blair Witch, the story and characters of Layers of Fear reminded me quite a bit of Amnesia a Machine For Pigs.

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.

6.5/10

Full review: http://wp.me/p55m9h-1ft

You learn its tricks pretty quickly because you're not in any real danger for the most part, so it does get a little tedious. It's also quite short. You spend your time walking, reading things and solving simple puzzles. With that said, I did enjoy my time with it because the sound was good, there were some scary parts despite the issues, and the story was decent enough to get invested in.