Completely baffled.

I'm gonna put this as simply as I can: Five Nights at Freddy's was by-and-largely successful because it started out easy on the player, and provided a clear tutorial. This game does neither.

The ten-odd times I tried to get through the first night I attempted a myriad of "strategies", and completely failed to confirm a single one as viable. My progress towards that ever-elusive 6am goal wasn't gradual; it was all over the shop. I even appeared to scrape it to 6am once, and still managed to "fail". Then proceeded to not even make it to 4am on the next couple of attempts.

The premise is this (and prepare yourself, 'cause it's an even sillier one than FNAF)! You have eight hotel rooms (and one hall) to monitor, via security cameras. Each room has a guest staying in it; all of whom spend the entire night pacing the floor and sleeping not a wink, until Death turns up to methodically scythe them one by one. Like FNAF, it's all about conserving power, so while turning a room's light on will keep Death away and/or dispel him temporarily to the hall, you can't just have all the lights burning away at once. Sounds simple enough, eh?

Except that it all seems so utterly unpredictable. One time I even had THREE PEOPLE IN THREE DIFFERENT ROOMS DIE WITHIN THE SPACE OF THREE SECONDS. Literally "aaargh", "aaargh", "aaargh" on the soundtrack. How the heck was I meant to keep tabs on that? And that was on "Easy" difficulty: I can't begin to fathom what "Hard" is like.

I see the devs have been doing the rounds, trying to explain the game mechanics to people who post negative reviews. I can only presume they'll do the same to me. And while I appreciate the customer service they're providing, it doesn't change the fact that the game itself is highly unintuitive and in dire need of a much better tutorial; and a much, much easier first level. It's just not fun having to perform this much trial-and-error to get the basic "gist" of a game, and for this reason I'm going to have to thumb it down.

I will, however, give the same proposition to these devs that I've given to a few others: I would be happy to come back in six or more months' time and see if anything's changed, 'cause I can see potential here (even if this will never be the next FNAF). For now, though, I can't imagine too many people persevering for longer than I did. Human beings like games that reward them for their efforts; not just laugh in their faces over and over again, 'cause they're failing to fathom whatever in-joke the product appears to be playing on them.

For the time being, at least, I recommend staying out of the light.

Verdict: 4/10.

(PS If you enjoyed this review, feel free to check out my two Curator pages: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/9284586-ReviewsJustfortheHELLofit/
http://store.steampowered.com/curator/10868048-Truly-Horrible-Horror-Games/?appid=398210
Cheers!)

Completely baffled. I'm gonna put this as simply as I can: Five Nights at Freddy's was by-and-largely successful because it started out easy on the player, and provided a clear tutorial. This game does neither. The ten-odd times I tried to get through the first night I attempted a myriad of "strategies", and completely failed to confirm a single one as viable. My progress towards that ever-elusive 6am goal wasn't gradual; it was all over the shop. I even appeared to [i]scrape[/i] it to 6am once, and still managed to "fail". Then proceeded to not even make it to 4am on the next couple of attempts. The premise is this (and prepare yourself, 'cause it's an even sillier one than FNAF)! You have eight hotel rooms (and one hall) to monitor, via security cameras. Each room has a guest staying in it; all of whom spend the entire night pacing the floor and sleeping not a wink, until Death turns up to methodically scythe them one by one. Like FNAF, it's all about conserving power, so while turning a room's light on will keep Death away and/or dispel him temporarily to the hall, you can't just have all the lights burning away at once. Sounds simple enough, eh? Except that it all seems so utterly unpredictable. One time I even had THREE PEOPLE IN THREE DIFFERENT ROOMS DIE WITHIN THE SPACE OF THREE SECONDS. Literally "aaargh", "aaargh", "aaargh" on the soundtrack. How the heck was I meant to keep tabs on [i]that[/i]? And that was on "Easy" difficulty: I can't begin to fathom what "Hard" is like. I see the devs have been doing the rounds, trying to explain the game mechanics to people who post negative reviews. I can only presume they'll do the same to me. And while I appreciate the customer service they're providing, it doesn't change the fact that the game itself is highly unintuitive and in dire need of a much better tutorial; and a much, [i]much[/i] easier first level. It's just not fun having to perform [i]this[/i] much trial-and-error to get the basic "gist" of a game, and for this reason I'm going to have to thumb it down. I will, however, give the same proposition to these devs that I've given to a few others: I would be happy to come back in six or more months' time and see if anything's changed, 'cause I can see potential here (even if this will never be the next FNAF). For now, though, I can't imagine too many people persevering for longer than I did. Human beings like games that [i]reward[/i] them for their efforts; not just laugh in their faces over and over again, 'cause they're failing to fathom whatever in-joke the product appears to be playing on them. For the time being, at least, I recommend staying [i]out[/i] of the light. Verdict: 4/10. (PS If you enjoyed this review, feel free to check out my two Curator pages: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/9284586-ReviewsJustfortheHELLofit/ http://store.steampowered.com/curator/10868048-Truly-Horrible-Horror-Games/?appid=398210 Cheers!)