Little Nightmares conveys a unique experience which for me surpasses Limbo by a wide margin. Horror not forged by cheap scares but serious commitment to a believable, scary and especially surreal world.

Being a child is extremely difficult. You do not have much influence over anything really and everything is dangerously looming over you. Little Nightmares captures the magic of this idea really well. The main character Six is just a little child that can and will try to survive by your hand, but everything feels impossibly large to stop. You do not beat or even survive encounters, Six only escapes from one danger to the next.
The creativity of the developers is admirable: The dark places and visual design in Little Nightmares are extremely coherent and the worlds make sense in a messed up kind of way. Tarsier Studios took a lot of time to make this believable and it shows.
Every place in Little Nightmares is somewhat unique and follows a distinctive style.

The gameplay of Little Nightmares is extremely simple: Running, jumping, climbing and lifting small objects. Six is small. That means the actions Six can take are also small in effect. Only by using smart moves and interacting with the world around, the chance to see another minute becomes possible. The level design itself carries the game and Six itself is just a vessel for the experience of playing Little Nightmares.

An air of mystery brushes every aspect of Little Nightmares that is difficult to convey. The world design is grotesque and visually mostly unpleasing. The other entities in the game naturally convey the feeling of bending nature, their bodies are deformed and express their qualities with hyperbolic visual components. Not only makes this characters believable (which is the basis for good horror), it also makes exploring ideas interesting: What do these characters mean, what is this place and how can I interpret all of this on a meta level. While there is no definitive answer, it is not directly a time waste to use your brain cells to find some connections and maybe reverse engineer the thoughts of the developers of the game.

Little Nightmares is not scary in any way. It does not use jumpscares and death is more or less meaningless. The hardest punishment is “wasting” time which destroys any form of intensity, but creates frustration.
The controls themselves are fine, but the platforming can become egregious, because it lacks depth perspective. A game that would have profited from 3D software is rare these days, but LN firmly belongs in this category. Sometimes I also wished for more intuitive solution for certain problem. I have watched multiple people play through this game, but they all struggled with the same things:
Not realizing how pulling works, how and what you can climb and some more little tasks. Player direction is certainly something that could and should be improved with the sequel.

Little Nightmares is a gem of a game. While the horror genre never quite appealed to me, I only secretly wanted a more secretive approach. I absolutely got what I wanted and I am happy and content to express my interest for the second game. Rough around the edges. But the charm and uniqueness made me have a good time.

Originally posted by author:

As of now, meme curators dominate Steam. So consider following me for reviews that actually cost me some time (and effort) to create. I don't think this will change much, but the majority of my readers are not followers. I am still going to pump my heart into these reviews.
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/31884377-If-It-Is-Insane/

[h1]TL;DR[/h1] Little Nightmares conveys a unique experience which for me surpasses Limbo by a wide margin. Horror not forged by cheap scares but serious commitment to a believable, scary and especially surreal world. [h1]A Child Fears[/h1] Being a child is extremely difficult. You do not have much influence over anything really and everything is dangerously looming over you. Little Nightmares captures the magic of this idea really well. The main character Six is just a little child that can and will try to survive by your hand, but everything feels impossibly large to stop. You do not beat or even survive encounters, Six only escapes from one danger to the next. The creativity of the developers is admirable: The dark places and visual design in Little Nightmares are extremely coherent and the worlds make sense in a messed up kind of way. Tarsier Studios took a lot of time to make this believable and it shows. Every place in Little Nightmares is somewhat unique and follows a distinctive style. [h1]An Adult Controls[/h1] The gameplay of Little Nightmares is extremely simple: Running, jumping, climbing and lifting small objects. Six is small. That means the actions Six can take are also small in effect. Only by using smart moves and interacting with the world around, the chance to see another minute becomes possible. The level design itself carries the game and Six itself is just a vessel for the experience of playing Little Nightmares. [h1]The Speculation Continues[/h1] An air of mystery brushes every aspect of Little Nightmares that is difficult to convey. The world design is grotesque and visually mostly unpleasing. The other entities in the game naturally convey the feeling of bending nature, their bodies are deformed and express their qualities with hyperbolic visual components. Not only makes this characters believable (which is the basis for good horror), it also makes exploring ideas interesting: What do these characters mean, what is this place and how can I interpret all of this on a meta level. While there is no definitive answer, it is not directly a time waste to use your brain cells to find some connections and maybe reverse engineer the thoughts of the developers of the game. [h1]A Lack In Variance[/h1] Little Nightmares is not scary in any way. It does not use jumpscares and death is more or less meaningless. The hardest punishment is “wasting” time which destroys any form of intensity, but creates frustration. The controls themselves are fine, but the platforming can become egregious, because it lacks depth perspective. A game that would have profited from 3D software is rare these days, but LN firmly belongs in this category. Sometimes I also wished for more intuitive solution for certain problem. I have watched multiple people play through this game, but they all struggled with the same things: Not realizing how pulling works, how and what you can climb and some more little tasks. Player direction is certainly something that could and should be improved with the sequel. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] Little Nightmares is a gem of a game. While the horror genre never quite appealed to me, I only secretly wanted a more secretive approach. I absolutely got what I wanted and I am happy and content to express my interest for the second game. Rough around the edges. But the charm and uniqueness made me have a good time. [quote=author] As of now, meme curators dominate Steam. So consider following me for reviews that actually cost me some time (and effort) to create. I don't think this will change much, but the majority of my readers are not followers. I am still going to pump my heart into these reviews. https://store.steampowered.com/curator/31884377-If-It-Is-Insane/ [/quote]