Dang. I was actually fairly excited for this one, to the point where I nearly bought it full price while it was still in Early Access. Thank the Gods I didn't, as it's barely worth HALF price upon full release. Why did I bother gettin' so excited, you ask? Well, 'cause...y'know...screenshots 'n' stuff. Sigh. When will I learn?

My first question to all the non-English speaking indie devs of the world (and a good number of English-speaking ones, for that matter): do none of you live in cities with universities? And do these universities not have Drama courses? Because I can tell you right now, if a brave Brisbane dev was currently looking for perfectly talented people to do some voice acting FOR FREE, they'd have about five hundred eager young (and sometimes not so young) people to choose from. Why do these devs always seem to insist upon them and their mates voicing their games, especially when none of them seem to speak English even semi-fluently?

Even if there's no one in their neighbourhood who can speak the Queen's language with anything approximating conviction, there's this brand-new thing they invented a few years ago called, y'know..."the internet". There's an international community out there, for ♥♥♥♥'s sake. YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO IT ALL YOURSELVES. That's why we have specialisation of professions in our societies: so not everyone has to be good at everything.

Anyway, first rant over. After an appallingly long and painful drive to the "mansion" where our story's main events will take place, we thankfully ditch the dire dialogue for a while, and instead spend ten minutes walking in circles trying to find our way into the mansion. I mean, there's clever map design and there's just plain old obscure, and this first environment firmly falls into the latter category. It's not TOO much longer, then, before we're entering an especially sinister-looking basement via some cellar doors which do an awfully good job of blending in with the block-y scenery all around them, and shortly after this we encounter our first "enemy".

Now I say "enemy", in inverted commas, because for a while there he was so seemingly disinterested in trying to find me that I just assumed he'd crawled out of his little hidey-hole to stretch his legs for a bit. But hey, he got me eventually, and when he did: whoa, spiffy-city! Definitely one of the most underwhelming death scenes I have had the exquisite displeasure to experience (thankfully though, my last save point was mere metres away, and the monster had in the meantime considerately retreated back to his hidey-hole, so I didn't bother disturbing him again).

Now, before you start getting the idea that there's absolutely nothing I liked about this game, think again. It has its fairly spooky moments: an oversized centipede not far past the area I just described was very nicely realised, even if it turned out to be completely harmless; and there's this thing called "bloodlight", where you can switch between your normal white flashlight beam and a murkier red one, revealing secrets which can't otherwise be seen. Now, sure...for the vast majority of the game you don't really NEED to switch between the two, because the red-tinged flashlight is frankly bright enough to see by at virtually all times...but it's a nice thought/idea, just the same.

Actually, if I'm completely honest, I liked a lot of the "ideas" in this game, so that's definitely not my beef with it. It's the EXECUTION and POLISH of the game which is mostly lacking. All told, there's much, much better horror games out there, and unless you've already played those, there's probably not much point paying fifteen bucks for this one. But hey...there's also far WORSE horror games, especially in the increasingly deep cesspool known as the Steam Store. Only recommended to those who play so many horror games per year that they can no longer tell the ♥♥♥♥ from the shine.

Verdict: 6.5/10.

The first thing I noticed when I started playing the game is that the voiceacting is awful. The cast is very obvious not used to speaking in English because in every sentence the wrong words and syllables are being stressed. And the writing is also strange with sentences containing words that make no sense as if someone translated the script from another language using Google translate or something similar.
The second thing I noticed is that all the games assets are low poly models (like an early nineties 3D game) and that almost all objects have the wrong dimensions. The car that you start the game in is too narrow, benches in the park are too big (as if the protagonist is a toddler), chairs are too big compared to the table they are next to etcetera. Objects look crude and badly designed and hardly resemble the real life thing. According to the developers the game has a comic style graphics but it seems to me as an excuse to hide the fact that every object in the game has low resolution and muddy textures. I've played Erica Reed and that's a game with a proper comic style look to it without looking like it was quickly thrown together. Because of the low polygon models and the muddy textures (it's all browns, reds and greys) the monsters don't look scary at all. In fact monsters don't seem to notice you at all and will only kill you if you practically bump in to them. Quake, released in 1996, had a similar colour palet and low poly models but still managed to look both more realistic and scary than this game.
Early on you get the so called 'bloodlight' which enables you to see objects and messages that are otherwise invisible. In a crawl space I found a secret message on the wall that looked like it was written in blood. Was it a clue or a warning? I have no idea because it was partly obscured by an in game object and written in such an illegible handwriting that it was impossible to read. The first puzzle I had to solve was a set of three rings that I had to rotate in order to restore an image. This was hard for two reasons. First of all the image was badly designed in dark and muddy colours giving me hardly enough details to help me restore the image. Secondly the game constantly selected different rings if I moved the stick up or down even the slightest when I pushed the stick left or right to rotate the rings. I've played a lot of games with similar puzzles and this is the first time I've had to wrestle with the controls in order to solve it. The other 'puzzles' I encountered so far involved picking up and automatically opening doors using different colored keys. Wow, just like I had to do in Doom, way back in 1993. Saying that the puzzles are easy is an understatement, they are predictable and uninspired.
In short: the entire game feels like a first time attempt by a bunch of amateurs. In it's current state I would not recommend it and I doubt if the final result will look and play any better. There are plenty of indy survival horror games on Steam (like Dreadout ) that are superiour to this one and actually fun to play.
In order to make this game appealing they would have to rewrite the script, rerecord all the voices with more experienced actors (preferably ones that can speak proper English), redesign every in game object, redo all the textures and come up with more involved and more original puzzles. That's a bit more than just polishing it and fixing some small mistakes and errors.

Garbage so don't waste your time. Controls don't work properly and there is no way to change from crappy inverted setting. Plus response time is really bad when you can get the camera to move. My time spent messing with this game is about 20 minutes the rest is farming the cards which seems the only thing worthwhile here.

Nightfall Escape looks and plays like a mid-tier PS2/Xbox era horror game. That is either a good or bad thing depending on your personal taste. By modern standards the graphics look dated, gameplay somewhat clunky and the voice acting is a bit cheesy at times. Personally I like traditional style horror games and this is a decent one, worth checking out at least when it is on sale.

https://youtu.be/HUhmdNI8dac

While it is great to see an indy horror that is not a unity asset flip, its very hard to recommend this game.

Even if we ignore the ugly graphics that look like a PS2 era game. The big problems are all game design related. From terrible performance issues, to bugs and glitches. Several of the puzzles are bugged leading to frustration. And the save system is a pain, meaning you end up retreading large sections of the game you have already completed.

The controls feel floaty and imprecise making boss battles a chore. And even the AI can end up killing you even when they really should not be able to.

Still on the positive side, the hand drawn cutscenes are well done, the audio is decent and the voice acting okay. Also the monster designs are nice, and the death scenes very well done.

Sadly it's not enough to really salvage this game overall. Maybe if you see it on sale and want to know more about the phillipnes ghost lore. Otherwise you may want to save your money for something better.

Nightfall is overall an okay game Id say, but it sadly suffers from bad design choices that will never be fixed. There was an attempt at making something unique, but the studio was seemingly not professional enough to pull it off, resulting in a bunch of problems without much quality control. The last boss is totally glitched and some of the chasers AI is awful, I died so many times because of bs that wasnt my fault.

Horror/Surrealist centered Curator: KuriKuration

Boy, I remember buying this and really, really, really wanting to like it when I tried to play through it. I was fairly fresh off the first Dreadout (which I enjoyed) and was hoping for more of the same in a first person perspective when I grabbed this up.

The lore is strong with Nightfall: Escape and the explanation of the stories behind each demon that you encounter are well-done for certain, conjuring up atmosphere and really getting you into the vibe of this mystery set in the Philippines. There's even a lot of work put into the cartoonish, slideshow style cut scenes that felt like some sort of Max Payne nicked living comicbook aesthetic but man...this game is a broken mess with an initial set-up so bad that it kicks you right out of the atmosphere.

You play as jouranlist Ara Cruz who is hellbent on getting the dirt about this begotten mansion of legend where some horrific insanity went down in the late 1800s. Being driven by yourself useless sidekick JoJo down a wooded road in the middle of nowhere, things take a turn for the worse when JoJo's narcolepsy kicks in and he takes a nap at the wheel. Hey, at least this dope managed to put the car in park before he starts an obnoxious barrage of snores. I mean, this idiot can't even be woken up, so Ara hikes to the mansion and gets in and then the true nonsense begins. Seriously, this is how you get in the trouble that you get. Your driver falls asleep and you couldn't wake him up with an atomic bomb detonation. As much as I liked the possibilities of the game from there, it sets a very dire scene.

So, in theory, there's a lot of great ideas here but bad game design will quickly cut you down to size. You'll get upgrades for your flashlight turning it into a bloodlight which you'll use to solve riddles, ward off enemies (from giant centipedes to creepy demons) and find your way around the mansion's secrets. It's so cool in theory but it turns out using something as complicated sounding as the bloodlight is easy and moving around is like driving a Sherman tank through the tight halls and rooms of the mansion.

Prepare to get stuck on furniture and one hit killed, fall through the map fighting the first big boss, insane graphical glitches, enemies fighting the environment as hard as you are, the final boss battle breaking and not allowing you to complete the game and every other facet of bad game design and poor playtesting coming into play to completely destroy your resolve. It's such a shame because even a couple years later I still remember the strong points of the atmosphere, the lore, the unique cutscenes and the use of bloodlight like it was yesterday. I also remember every awful thing about this game too. If this thing was ever patched and fixed the way it should have been, Nightfall: Escape would have been a fantastic horror game. As is though, this is a clogged toilet that no plumber can conquer even with an arsenal of the most high-tech plumbing tools known to man. I'm talking about plungers with computerized screens that show the inside of the toilet and do a sounding for clog depth and an automated toilet snake that does the work on its own. God almighty is this game bad and broken.

While the traditions of horror are adhered to throughout (notes, puzzles, chases, "combat," boss battles, etc.), they are handed with a leadfoot that wrecks into the nearest wall and incinerates everyone in the car. You can't even sue anyone if you survive because you're so mortally wounded that you'll never make it to court.

Graphically, its a mixed bag but the graininess does work in its favor. I enjoyed (in theory) the design of the mansion, the different areas that you uncover within and the overall filthy look of the locations and monsters. Animation is pretty terrible but there's still an eye for SOMETHING going on here. Sound is another thing with abysmal voice-acting and this atmosphere of dead nothingness that does nothing to enhance the experience. It's unremarkable and as broken as the gameplay at times with voices vanishing and ambient sounds feeling as if they were sent by snail mail and arrived long after the moment when they happened. No tracking # included.

Unfortunately, I'm going to tell horror fans to skip this one unless they can get it for $2 or less. If you got pennies to burn without jeopardizing paying your mortgage, it might be worth checking out Nightfall: Infernal to see just what great ideas the developers' had, in addition to how hilariously botched the presentation of said ideas came to fruition. I do hope these cats can improve on the design perspective if they make a future game because if the intricate lore and story here can be combined into something playable with a better set-up than someone taking a nap while driving and stranding you like a sorry idiot, then there is certainly going to be something worthwhile in their next game. As it stands...this is a no, don't and absolutely not of a horror game. Idea: 9/10. Execution: 2.5/10.

Nightfall: Escape is a really badly made first person horror adventure game where you basically go through a delapidated house and get jumpscared. I will say I think this was a sincere attempt at making a game by a production team who had no idea how to go about doing it properly, but at least it's not an asset flip scam. Unfortunately as always, good intentions alone are not enough to create a brilliant gaming experience.

Also, it's important to note the game is so riddled with bugs and defects that it's proven unplayable for many players. For me, the mouse control simply didn't work, and there's no keyboard controls for turning or looking around... that made the game unplayable for me.

This game has been translated from some other language into English... badly. If this was done through Google Translate, Google Translate should feel ashamed of itself. Regardless, the language in this game is broken and will put off a lot of gamers. "Hello, hunted house!!!"

From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.

The game features lazy low-polygon "retro" assets, making this look like a barely functional 3D game from the mid 2000s. Notably the textures are extremely low resolution. It's unclear why the developers weren't able to arrange high quality, high polygon count contemporary assets for the game, and also irrelevant... what matters is that this looks bad as a result of their decisions, a compromise PC gamers shouldn't have to put up with.

Bewilderingly, the game doesn't include proper audio controls, so you can't turn off the annoying background music, you'll need to alt+tab out and stop the music using the Windows sound mixer. This is obviously not okay and it's unclear why the developers chose not to include this basic feature.

The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers, left handed gamers or gamers using AZERTY or other international keyboard layouts.

These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.

Nightfall: Escape didn't appeal much to the people who own a copy of the game, either. It has achievements, and they show us a very clear picture that the game didn't really capture any interest from gamers. The most commonly and easily attained achievement is for getting out of your car, the first thing you do after the game starts, trivial to get, but less than 11 percent of players bothered to get that far before uninstalling the game. Hardly a success story, gamers just weren't all that interested in the game.

The game never really caught on with the millions of gamers on Steam, with a very low peak player count close to launch, and then just a handful of players launching this game every couple of days. This is undoubtedly caused by factors such as those raised in this review. It's always helpful with buying decisions to consider how popular and successful the product is, and unfortunately while this did accumulate a few participation trophy reviews, overall, people just aren't using it.

So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam?

No, and not just because it's probably not even going to work properly for you.

Nightfall: Escape has the almost comically optimistic (if it wasn't so sad) price of $9 USD, for which you could easily get any number of older AAA games. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend. For comparison, the $9 asking price for this game could get you games like "Hellblade: Sensua's Sacrifice", "Battlefield V" or "Civilization VI". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this.

Well, this could've been a good game if it weren't for a bug making it impossible for me to complete like the last 10% of the game. I placed an object at a certain place (not going to spoil anything here), but the game still behaved as if I needed to place something there. So, object gone, game incompletable, five hours of my life wasted. The game also has a really annoying portal labyrinth which can take you quite some time if you're as unlucky as me. Furthermore, I had to play this on my Windows box as the Linux version would freeze when loading the first level. Posted at the board about this, no answer. So you get a severly broken game with no bug fixes in sight. This means? Right, 0/10 points. Don't get this.

Very harsh game! Its very hard to progress continuously on it, there’s no auto save which consequently makes you lose progress a lot of times on certain levels. You have to strugle to keep going with the game till the very end, its quite challenging to say the least.

Despite of that, Visuals are very neat, lots of characters very well designed, with pretty decent cut scenes.
I love the extras of the game, there’s a gallery where you can pay attention to the details of the monsters more closely, its a nice detail to have in such a game.