Put simply, this game is an experience dictated by extremes - seesawing between a pretty good, worthwhile horror experience that understands how to pull off its genre and a game that struggles to understand basic game design.

For my 'scary game' experience - if you can name a type of horror, I've either played it myself or watched it played, across indies, demos, AA, and AAA alike. My usual recommends being Darkwood, I Remember This Dream, Inscryption (less overtly scary, still amazing) SOMA, and so on.

If you just played through the first 'tape' of The Classrooms, you'd be 10 bucks out and left with a very short but particularly scary experience. It and tape four are, in my opinion, the best of the bunch. The environment is interesting, excels at capturing the liminality of a US school environment that isn't quite right, and while the anomalies to be found here are few, their interacting elements are engaging to learn, contribute to the scare, and straddle the line between easy and overbearing.

What the player is given to understand their environment is delivered in a way that feels baked into the setting - a part of the experience. Finding discarded tapes and papers within desks that deliver in-universe explanations for how certain anomalies operate is great! The style is VERY reminiscent of the SCP Foundation, which is not a bad thing. It delivers a particular feeling quite effectively, like you truly are lost and stumbling upon corpo-sourced papers for just a scrapping chance at survival in this terrible environment.

Details like the door to a fake exit that opens up to a brick wall, making you feel encased and claustrophobic. The flickering/ failing lights as entities make their presence known in a room. Doors flying off their hinges as more violent ghosts float through halls. HEARING these in the distance, SEEING horrid things through those window panels in doors, it contributes greatly to that idea of terror in the face of strange unnatural beings.

But more than that, finding little tricks to deal with entities like the 'doll' by using their main gimmick against them is delightfully satisfying. The basics to their behaviors can be picked out in gameplay, so long as you're paying attention and experimenting - they feel like they have their own rules of behavior that, while obviously NOT human, you can learn intuitively. They don't feel like game mechanics, they feel like anomalies. For the SCP nerd in me, that's utterly wondrous.

Other than your protagonist's own voice-acting (it feels out-of-place, rather monotone, and at odds with the fact that the game uses your own microphone in its stealth system), there's not much I could really say is 'bad' about the first tape - other than I wish there could be more variety to rooms? And possible anomaly spawns?

So you may be wondering why I'm not recommending this game, if all my praise about the first tape is accurate.

That's because the second, third, and fifth tapes throw out most of the positives.

Subtlety is dashed out, as opposed to noticing things within the environment that tell the terrible tale of an entity's presence, like the aforementioned flickering lights and abuse of doors, you're instead put up to chase environments against a singular entity with no issue making itself known by normal means.

Those "normal means" usually involving walking directly towards you will making loud noises, exposing the limitations of the animation quality. The second tape's ear-based monster walks (and looks) like a drunk Zoidberg. You notice it waltzing around with all the skill of someone's first GMod parody. Other anomalies in the game (the doll, the cloaked figure, the face in the dark) have animation that is limited to when you're in the most danger, or when you're not looking. Not so for other creatures like those in tapes 2, 3, and 5.

What was 'less is more' becomes 'standard stealth segment better done in Insomniac's Spider-Man 2'. Avoiding whoopie cushions or broken glass on the ground is mundane - there's no better way to put it. The mechanics become played out and simplistic, overturning what made tape 1 work. Nothing interacts, there's no compounding fear, just a thing you avoid like so many other games.

All the player's focus goes to the puzzle of completing the challenge, directed to noisemakers and HIDE HERE! lockers that fail to be a good Outlast impersonation. The environment follows that same process, losing the quality to the liminal space, and reverting to corridors and sight-obstructing walls. It quickly burns into repetitiveness, especially when the same loop is repeated in tape 2 AND 3 right afterwards.

It boggles my mind how quickly the game cycle goes from understanding horror and how its anomalies and environment contribute to that effect - to not even including so much as a door being thrown open. Nothing that causes you to feel claustrophobic, or dread the dark corners un-illuminated by your flashlight, that makes shivers run up your spine as your mind is allowed to run wild with the thought of how trapped you are in this place. About the most horror I feel throughout tapes 2 and 3 is needing to repeat the "FIND THE EXIT! FIND THE THING THAT OPENS THE EXIT!" process *again*.

At best, its simplistic, at worst, its simplistic AND confusing. I just beat tape 5 and am honestly still unsure as to how the progression of events a) made sense and b) was ever intuited - I stumbled into the solution.

And the jumpscares... it would honestly be far more terrifying to just not have them at all. They're far too in your face, like they WANT you to feel scared, in much the same way as string instruments getting more tense as a character is about to open a door WANTS you to feel scared.

Considering that about 60% of the game, currently, is of worse quality than the other part, I don't want to recommend this for its price.

[h3]TLDR[/h3] Put simply, this game is an experience dictated by extremes - seesawing between a pretty good, worthwhile horror experience that understands how to pull off its genre and a game that struggles to understand basic game design. [h3]Preface[/h3] For my 'scary game' experience - if you can name a type of horror, I've either played it myself or watched it played, across indies, demos, AA, and AAA alike. My usual recommends being Darkwood, I Remember This Dream, Inscryption (less overtly scary, still amazing) SOMA, and so on. [h3]Actual Review[/h3] [b] If you just played through the first 'tape' of The Classrooms[/b], you'd be 10 bucks out and left with a very short but particularly scary experience. It and tape four are, in my opinion, the best of the bunch. The environment is interesting, excels at capturing the liminality of a US school environment that isn't quite right, and while the anomalies to be found here are few, their interacting elements are engaging to learn, contribute to the scare, and straddle the line between easy and overbearing. What the player is given to understand their environment is delivered in a way that feels baked into the setting - a part of the experience. Finding discarded tapes and papers within desks that deliver in-universe explanations for how certain anomalies operate is great! The style is VERY reminiscent of the SCP Foundation, [b]which is not a bad thing[/b]. It delivers a particular feeling quite effectively, like you truly are lost and stumbling upon corpo-sourced papers for just a scrapping chance at survival in this terrible environment. Details like the door to a fake exit that opens up to a brick wall, making you feel encased and claustrophobic. The flickering/ failing lights as entities make their presence known in a room. Doors flying off their hinges as more violent ghosts float through halls. HEARING these in the distance, SEEING horrid things through those window panels in doors, it contributes greatly to that idea of terror in the face of strange unnatural beings. [i]But more than that[/i], finding little tricks to deal with entities like the 'doll' by using their main gimmick against them is delightfully satisfying. The basics to their behaviors can be picked out in gameplay, so long as you're paying attention and experimenting - they feel like they have their own rules of behavior that, while obviously NOT human, you can learn intuitively. They don't feel like game mechanics, they feel like [b]anomalies[/b]. For the SCP nerd in me, that's utterly wondrous. Other than your protagonist's own voice-acting (it feels out-of-place, rather monotone, and at odds with the fact that the game uses your own microphone in its stealth system), there's not much I could really say is 'bad' about the first tape - other than I wish there could be more variety to rooms? And possible anomaly spawns? [b]So you may be wondering why I'm not recommending this game[/b], if all my praise about the first tape is accurate. That's because the second, third, and fifth tapes throw out most of the positives. Subtlety is dashed out, as opposed to noticing things within the environment that tell the terrible tale of an entity's presence, like the aforementioned flickering lights and abuse of doors, you're instead put up to chase environments against a singular entity with no issue making itself known by normal means. Those "normal means" usually involving walking directly towards you will making loud noises, exposing the limitations of the animation quality. The second tape's ear-based monster walks (and looks) [b]like a drunk Zoidberg[/b]. You notice it waltzing around with all the skill of someone's first GMod parody. Other anomalies in the game (the doll, the cloaked figure, the face in the dark) have animation that is limited to when you're in the most danger, or when you're not looking. Not so for other creatures like those in tapes 2, 3, and 5. What was 'less is more' becomes 'standard stealth segment better done in Insomniac's Spider-Man 2'. Avoiding whoopie cushions or broken glass on the ground is mundane - there's no better way to put it. The mechanics become played out and simplistic, overturning what made tape 1 work. Nothing interacts, there's no compounding fear, just a thing you avoid like so many other games. All the player's focus goes to the puzzle of completing the challenge, directed to noisemakers and HIDE HERE! lockers that fail to be a good Outlast impersonation. The environment follows that same process, losing the quality to the liminal space, and reverting to corridors and sight-obstructing walls. It quickly burns into repetitiveness, especially when the same loop is repeated in tape 2 AND 3 right afterwards. It boggles my mind how quickly the game cycle goes from understanding horror and how its anomalies and environment contribute to that effect - to not even including so much as a door being thrown open. Nothing that causes you to feel claustrophobic, or dread the dark corners un-illuminated by your flashlight, that makes shivers run up your spine as your mind is allowed to run wild with the thought of how trapped you are in this place. About the most horror I feel throughout tapes 2 and 3 is needing to repeat the "FIND THE EXIT! FIND THE THING THAT OPENS THE EXIT!" process *again*. At best, its simplistic, at worst, its simplistic AND confusing. I just beat tape 5 and am honestly still unsure as to how the progression of events a) made sense and b) was ever intuited - I stumbled into the solution. And the jumpscares... it would honestly be far more terrifying to just not have them at all. They're far too in your face, like they WANT you to feel scared, in much the same way as string instruments getting more tense as a character is about to open a door WANTS you to feel scared. Considering that about 60% of the game, currently, is of worse quality than the other part, I don't want to recommend this for its price.