Little Nightmares (2017)

The first Little Nightmares entry is a dark and unsettling puzzle-platformer that thrives on atmosphere and environmental storytelling. The MC is called Six, a fragile child in a yellow raincoat, who must escape The Maw, a twisted underwater vessel filled with grotesque, nightmarish inhabitants. The game avoids traditional dialogue and instead builds its narrative through disturbing imagery, haunting sound design, and the oppressive environments you explore.

For those who like interpretative narratives, this is a very good title, it is good to engage with it's community to try and find out what is actually happening in the game's story, not that this is a must in order to enjoy the experience, but it is definitely a plus. The gameplay focuses on stealth, light platforming, and physics-based puzzles. You’ll often need to sneak past monstrous enemies, time your movements carefully, and use the environment to your advantage.

At times, the controls can feel a little imprecise, especially during tense chase sequences, but the sense of vulnerability they create adds to the tension. And this can sometimes feel like a downside, though I consider this a plus, since this makes up for a more immersive gameplay due to the character being a child being stalker by monsters. Visually, Little Nightmares is striking, its exaggerated proportions, gloomy lighting, and grotesque character design create a unique horror aesthetic that lingers long after you’ve stopped playing.

The short runtime (around 4~5 hours) works in its favor, keeping the experience tightly focused and impactful without overstaying its welcome. Overall, this title is a chilling, memorable experience that blends horror and artistry in a way few indie titles manage. It’s not just scary, it’s disturbing in a fairy-tale-gone-wrong way, and that’s what makes it so effective. This is definitely one of the best horror titles that I've ever played, and I highly recommend playing it any way you can.

I totally forgot that I had this game in my library until I received my new Steam Deck. Taking a look at what games are compatible, I saw that Little Nightmares is fully compatible. So I decided to try it.

Performance and graphics

The game runs really well on Steam Deck and everything looks really nice. The scenarios make you feel really uncomfortable, that you are in a really sic place but without being scary. I wouldn't say it is a terror game, but it makes you uncomfortable with what you see.

Sound

Music and effects are fantastic and contribute to that uncomfortable sensation I was talking about.

Plot

The game does not say too much about it, you need to find out what through the scenario and things you can see. I like that because you can imagine your own story that fits what you are seeing. Really nice!

Gameplay

There are 5 chapters with a different 'theme' in each one and differentiated from each other. Each chapter works as a puzzle (or multiple puzzles inside). To solve it, you can jump, run, grab, climb, crouch, and 'light' buttons. All in a lateral view. Simple but effective.

Conclusion Maybe it is a little short in my opinion, but really good game. Wishing to play Little Nightmares II. Even I am thinking of buying the DLC. What do you think? Do you recommend me the DLC and LN2?

Where this game ultimately shined best for me was the atmosphere and audio design. The enemy models were also a high point, some so ridiculously grotesque I often just stopped and stared at them, admiring how well they were designed. The art design is visually striking and although the puzzle solving and platforming gave little challenge, I will remember my 4 hour playthrough as one of high tension and atmospheric awe.

The first few levels are completely unpayable in daylight, but after that, when I could actually see what was going on on the screen, the game got much better.

It's 100% atmosphere though. Gameplay is standard platformer with rather bad controls. There are too many cheap deaths and failed jumps due to the bad camera. But it's short enough that I wasn't too bothered by these flaws.

If you want 3 to 4 hours of creepy atmosphere and disgusting sights, Little Nightmares will deliver.

My girlfriend played this not too long ago on her twitch channel, and kept telling me I needed to play it. She said it was so good, she finished it and immediately after her stream ended she went and bought the sequel.

Just beat it after about 4 hours of playtime, and I loved it! The length of the game is a little short, but I think I prefer this kind of game as a short, compact, and tightly woven experience. The game just oozes with atmosphere, and with absolutely no dialogue, it still manages to make the player feel the dread and horror of its universe, without being over the top with scares. It doesn't need to make something jump out at you for you to feel tense and scared.

Games like this sometimes frustrate me when they have puzzles that aren't clear enough to the player what the end goal is, and while that happened once or twice during my playthrough, it was never too frustrating. There were quite a few times I would get stuck in level geometry and just softlock myself, not able to move. It's a little irritating, but a quick "restart from checkpoint" is all you need, considering the setpieces and puzzles in this game don't take too long.

Overall if you like puzzle platformers, give this one a shot. I'm hoping that the second one impresses me just as much when I get around to playing it.

What if you were to take concepts and gameplay mechanics from Limbo and mix them with a Tim Burton like claymation movie? You'd probably end up with something similar to Little Nightmares the 2.5-D puzzle adventure game from Tambier Studios. The game has one monstrosity after another trying to capture Six, the player controlled protagonist, as she tries to escape from the hell she's currently in.

As you start out you know next-to-nothing about the story or Six. Throughout the 4-5 hour experience the grotesque picture starts to become less fuzzy as you make your start through the Maw, the ship on which you are trapped. You'll sneak past the likes of the extra long armed Janitor and the Chef amongst other big bads on your journey to find the light of day. Creeping around trying to solve the simple but effective puzzles never felt safe as I always had the feeling something or someone was near-by looking for me. Each of the five chapters never overstay their welcome while offering you nightmarish tenseness.

While the gameplay is fairly simple, albeit frustrating at moments, it's the aesthetic of the world that kept me going. The lighting, music (especially the last chapter), and both level and monster design are phenomenal. I had plenty of moments where I lit up the match Six carries just to be in ah of how everything looked. Shadows of objects are effective in presentation while adding that feeling of dread and darkness. It was maybe a little too dark at moments to where Six might get caught while running away resulting in death, but for the most part it wasn't an issue.

I truly hated and loved my experience with Little Nightmares. Having very recently found out there is a sequel on the way am excited to continue Six's journey through this twisted and bizarre world she inhabits.

I initially intended to give this one a 4/5 because of two things:

• the perspective often caused me to completely miss the mark with a jump even though it looked like I was perfectly aligned with whatever I wanted to reach
• the short playtime

However, I loved the last two chapters and the ending so much that I decided to give it a 5-star rating. Great game, definitely one I'll be buying the DLC for and maybe play it again for the collectibles someday.