[insert The Lighthouse (2019) quote here, haha hehe]

I would recommend obtaining and playing the non-Director's Cut version of this game. It was short, effective and impactful. The game made you spend boring, slow time, before breaking it up with a few spicy scary scenes, before launching you off to an imperfect yet solid Lovecraftian ramp. There was buildup and a proper payoff. The cryptic story made sense in whatever ending you got, explaining enough but leaving aside the stuff that honestly does not matter in a game like this. The original version was very solid, and to repeat myself, definitely one that merited one or a few playthroughs.

Then came the Director's Cut.

I don't know what prompted the devs to make the changes that went into the DC in-betwen its release and the completion of the original version. However, the spirit of these changes is actually well conveyed by the new store image for the game. The original showed the lighthouse, dark, set against a dark sky and completely tinted dark blue. The new image shows a seagull and a barely visible lighthouse, spoils what the big scary monster looks like for some reason, and is tinted sepia.

In a similar way, whereas the original version of the game was a compact horror experience with a slow buildup and tense finales, the Director's Cut stretches the slow buildup through the entire game, even after we've flown off the ramp. This results in an incredibly tedious experience where the game simply doesn't want to end but drags on, and on, and on, and on.
Everything that was subtle in the later parts of the original version is thrown out of the window for story elements such as flashbacks which absolutely make no sense and try to inflate every part of the story that precisely did not matter to the experience of the original. Instead of a tense and almost nightmarish chase sequence in a small, dark underground maze, there's now a sequence where you need to navigate a very complex, bright labyrinth while being chased by the stinky monster which you can see clearly, and to which you're probably going to die a lot. This is an incredibly amateurish mistake and I can't figure out why something like this would be inserted into a game that had wisely avoided it.
Even worse, whereas the original game let you find and use a gun in one sequence in a way that made sense, in one of the updated ending paths you have to play through a full OBJECTIVE: KILL THE MOTHER ♥♥♥♥♥♥ sequence and fight the spooky monster using a shotgun. The monster itself, in turn, etamorphosed from a bizarre, creepy mothman-thing (and other, somehow less easily describable things) to some ridiculous amalgam that looks like the Bat/Rat/Spider monster from The Angry Red Planet (1959).
The incredible convolution of the story is another curious. Perhaps because of the endless comparisons and references made to 2019's The Lighthouse since the game's release, the devs felt that they needed to go big. If that was the case, they went beyond big and landed straight into bloat territory. Not only there is bloat, but at the end of incessant jumps back and forth between sequences where nothing happens and more "action-y" sequences, you're left with absolutely nothing. Incredibly enough, the story is now pretentious and cryptic, where it was adequately cryptic and properly Lovecraftian before.

What a shame. Previous quality disappeared.

First half of the game: great vibe, spooky and isolated atmosphere. I don't like how it turns into a generic surreal/hellish setting halfway through. I wish the entire game stayed with the style of the first part.

in the iconic Family Guy scene where Peter says he doesn't like The Godfather, he says 'It insists upon itself'.
for the first time in my life, i can say that about a piece of media: this game.

please note that this game has apparently undergone numerous reworks of its ending - having played the current(?) version, i would say further iteration is necessary.

what begins as a creepy, atmospheric game quickly descends into a level of beating-a-dead-horse gameplay loops that could, in fact, represent an improvement on any previously used techniques in the manufacture of horse-based glue.

to begin with, the game has too many jumps in its timeline, which i assume are to convey a sense of "madness". one second you're here, next you're there; you complete a task, and now you're over here; you finish a task, and now its gone from day to night. even with higher production values, such repeated abuses of the player's sense of location, time, and objective can be difficult to stay immersed in (see some of the critiques of Layers of Fear). but in the case of a stripped-down PSX game, such "woah what happened??" moments can suck the wind out of the game, and i am reminded, quite forcefully, that i am not tending a lighthouse, but am instead playing a video game that is leaning hard into a cinematic inspiration of structure, to the detriment of immersion.

further cinematic conceits are in the cut scenes, which often show things the player character simply wouldn't have observed. this again is the choice of a film-maker, and not a game-maker, and while this can work, i feel it is to the detriment of the game here. i have no justifiable reason to see a hand mysteriously grab a key before i enter a room, or a boat exploding while i am asleep, or any of the other little cutscenes that play to give us information we, as a game protagonist, should not have. these conceits hurt immersion for the sake of replicating a cinematic experience, but it does elevate to the level of art that would justify such an indulgence. instead, i am only reminded that i am playing a walking simulator. had the game oriented itself around making the player character witness these eerie events directly (or observe and speculate on their aftermath), it would have been a better experience.

one particularly annoying perspective jump is when the point of view becomes the monster's, and the player (in front of the monster) is meant to run away while viewing out of the monster's perspective. this immediately gave away the "twist" of the game for me, and, worse, it wasn't fun or interesting. the developer seems aware this is not a good section of gameplay, as you have a Continue point right when it happens, allowing you to endlessly replay this perspective until you do the right sequence of events to conclude it get into a building. unfortunately, having these repeatable sections of chase sequences also remove all stakes from the chase, once again undermining the gameplay in service of "the cinematic narrative".

i would have taken my licks and given this a wary Recommended, but Not For Everyone review if it weren't for the abysmal final half of the game. the game forces you to go through the entire narrative again as the monster that was previously annoying you, intercut with very dry "you're stuck in a time loop btw" dialogue scenes. just in case you didn't understand that the game is some purgatory time loop of self-harassment, you spend the next 40 or so minutes getting it bashed into your gamer brain. i'm not sure who is supposed to enjoy replaying the minutiae of the earlier run of the game intercut with weird pseudo-religious babble, monster scuttling, door-knocking, and talking to stiff NPCs who are there to make sure it's very clear to you that you are going crazy stuck in some purgatory time loop, but i certainly didn't.

several comments on my twitch stream said the game was previously much better before the ending got extended, and i will say: the game would be much better if it didn't stretch on and become so tedious. whether the point of the ending section was to prevent refund abuse or to "help" the narrative, i can't say. but at any rate, i did not much care for no one lives under the lighthouse.

why?
it insists upon itself, Lois.

How do you improve a gloomy, slow, atmospheric game with its central theme being loneliness, and whose gameplay centers around repeating the same few actions over and over again, with each repetition bringing in new creepy anomalies, with the aim to make you worried, not so much about what is happening, but moreso about what *could* happen? If your answer to that question is "Add a big scary spider and a dungeon with lots of blood and stuff", then yeah, maybe you'll enjoy this game.

I have to say, the first few days in this game were absolutely fantastic. To begin with, the early game atmosphere is top notch. The barren island with its three cramped structures and the overcast sky creates such an inescapable sense of abandonement, isolation and mystery. The repetition of the same three or four tasks with a few new spooky obstacles each day gives ample room for terror. Seeing the ink splattered all over the walls and floors while returning from atop the tower, the moths surronding the glass ceiling of the lighthouse, returning to the beach only to see an overturned boat with a cryptic puzzle piece in the middle; events such as those tease the player's mind, forcing it to fill in all the gaps. Even the first full appearance of the aforementionned big scary spider was done well, in my opinion, even if it came too early. It was truly unexpected, and the chosen point of view obscures just enough of it to let one's imagination complete the monster with what they would fear the most.

So, imagine my disappointment, when just a few days in, every single good idea I brought up here had gotten thrown out the window. And in their place? A generic blood-caked dungeon-like arena, a half-baked attempt at a backstory, our boring spider thing in full view, and some the most tedious "hold shift to run" chace sequences I've seen in a while. This isn't just a let down, this basically a whole different game, that somehow got crammed in the middle of something else entirely. The spider sections (both as it and against it) are such enormous chores that it's like the devs were trying to make the game as unenjoyable as possible. The story on the other hand, apart from completely betraying the early game's focus on intrigue, feels utterly shoehorned. A feeling which is amplified tenfold by the complete lack of the mechanical repetition that we saw in the beginning. Those two things are entirely detached from one another.

Overall, this game is a confusing mess, and not in a good way, The developpers had a very faint idea of what they wanted to say, and an ever fainter idea of how they wanted to say it. A shame, because if they had capitalised more on the parts of it that worked, they might have made a truly great horror experience.

Definitely not for me. At first I thought it was interesting, but it became quite boring after a while. Very convoluted, I'm not quite sure I got the story, even after playing it twice and seeing all three endings (I think you need more than one playthrough to get them all). I was expecting something better, the setting seemed great for a lovecraftian game, but I wouldn't really call it that (having read everything Lovecraft, this didn't seem to fit, it felt more kafkian really). I still planned to get all of the achievements, but then I found out that you had to do animal cruelty to get one, and that's not really fun for me, so that was that (I also apparently messed my progress for one achievement and would have to go through yet another playthrough to get it; not happening). It definitely left me disappointed and so I can't recommend it.

It was clunky, but good before all the updates


Tons of boring / bad lore added and cheap jumpscares (with goofy sound?) all the subtlety or cryptic vibe removed

In the best part of the originall, they had to add smearing tracks to your steps as you walk in the monster view because they thought you won't get that you are actually the monster that you saw before, which smeared the walls

And that (best) part now comes way too late, when you have already seen the monster way too many times and are bored by having stuff overexplained to you... it leaves zero impact


The game begs you to replay it, there is even an orb at the end (not) subtly telling you what to do / what achivements to get in the next run.
But the mundane gameplay you can suffer in the first playthrough (multiple days of walking simulator that work only when you experience it for the first time) will become really tideous, especially when the game doesn't even have a reload/save system that would let you skip the first half of the game on second playthrough

And the jumpscares... in the end, you walk SLOWLY to some usless item you CAN'T even use/inspect so you know when you turn around you are gonna get jumpscared, and it's the most boring jumpscare, they didn't even bother do add any sounds to it, and it disapears before you're able to see how dumb the monster-father mishmash model looks

Somebody looking at you through the window and then disapearing in the most goofy and somehow still generic way, when they could just make him walk 2 steps to get him out of the window, making you question if he is still there



Director's cut added TONS of plot/time jumping to the point that you are not even sure who are we playing as or what is happening, and the light keeper changes 4-5 TIMES during the game while still having 15-ish time jumps...

The only thing it improves are the textures, not the graphic itself, because they messed up the contrast and darkness levels, the game lost its vibe. But the house / grass / light house have better textures.

I guess the game was accidentally good and then the devs got excited that their project got popular added lots of sh1tty / filler lore, bad + obvious jumpscares and changed / overexplained a lot of good stuff from the originall

I hate to thumb's down this game because it was really unique but... The story is confusing, there's no direction, gameplay is tedious and mostly spent running back and forth trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do to end the level. After watching some videos about the older version of the game, I thought: that looks a lot cooler and possibly made more sense. The Director's Cut looked like a downgrade from what I could see, but I dunno. It just didn't work for me.

An atmospheric, stylish, and intriguing game that unfortunately I can't recommend.

As a big fan of retro horror, Lynchian weirdness, and subtle, slow-burning mystery, I LOVED the graphics, atmosphere, and gently-surreal, dreamlike vibe. I also really appreciated the lack of cheap jumpscares or other tedious tropes - knowing this going in allowed me to really get lost in the vibe from the start.

However, the plot, gameplay, and mood become frustratingly disjointed and tedious halfway through. I eventually quit out of frustration possibly moments from the end (the fight where you're being shot at). Honestly, if the game had just consisted of the first 3/4 days (they were dripping with tension and atmosphere for me - almost unbearably so!) I would be giving a thumbs up here.

I really appreciate what the devs have created and they seem genuinely interested, responsive, and kind on the forums here. I hope this isn't disappointing for them to read. The game starts so beautifully, but ultimately it wasn't for me.

Someone lived under the lighthouse

It always pains me to leave a negative review for an indie game, but I can't recommend this one.

The premise is great, but whatever tension the game builds up in the first few minutes is completely destroyed by the generic chase sequences that start on day 2. Then, the game spirals off into generic spooky pseudo-ps1 dungeon crawling with bad combat.

I made it to one of the endings, which didn't clarify much of the story at all.
Then I tried to go for the others, but got stuck on a seam on a wall and can't be bothered to start over.