Tweet
Krillbite Studio took this idea and ran with it for Among the Sleep. You are placed into the padded PJ's of a toddler. Your reach is short, your speed is slow, but your imagination is at an all time high. The basic idea behind the game is that it's supposed to be a first-person horror adventure. You, as the toddler, wake up in the middle of the night to some spooky sounds and as one tends to do when they hear something mysterious, you set forth to investigate the source. At its core, it's a very solid premise for a horror title. It's original yet immediately familiar to anybody who has been a toddler, which I'm assuming is most of you reading this. It's kind of hard to screw something like this up but unfortunately there are quite a few sharp corners here that you will want to watch out for as you stumble around towards the unknown.
Despite your tiny stature, you are not completely useless. It seems as though this toddler ate his spinich as he is able to push and pull objects such as chairs in order to solve puzzles or to reach higher areas. You can make use of a variety of colorful shapes as keys to progress further into the story or access new areas. While you are able to walk it really isn't particularly useful in most cases since crawling is still faster for this particular toddler. You will make use of these various abilities to find your talking teddy and then eventually to find your mom.
As your crawl is your best defense against the very real monster of this game, you will spend various parts of this game franticly crawling towards what you hope is a safe spot where the monster cannot get to you. Between this and the rather simplistic puzzle solving skills, there really isn't too much more going on the gameplay side of things. It's actually quite standard as far as these horror titles go these days, featuring fairly limited gameplay with hopes that the atmosphere, scares, story, and setting will propel it above the rest.
Unfortunately, while a lot of the setting and even a good number of scares are worthy of some high praise, the rest just falls flat. I went into this game with high hopes but came away feeling unfulfilled. There could have been more chills but opportunities were wasted. The story was fairly engaging until you quickly figure out the twist and the ultimate reveal early on. As the monster is capable of ending the game when it catches up to you, I understand why the creators didn't want to have more of that thrown at the player but that feels like a weak reason as to why there weren't more high tension scenarios. Part of the thrill in horror games is the chance that you will get caught, or you will have to restart at a checkpoint but a lot of that tension is removed when those situations are just so few and far between. I will concede that too many of the stealth sections would push many gamers away, so perhaps Krillbite tried to reach a happy middle ground that would make the game more accessible to more people.
Sadly, for as much hope as I had for Among the Sleep, that hope quickly turned to disappointment and indifference towards the title. It attempts a few new ideas while keeping the horror game formula almost untouched. The game world is beautiful but empty of any real substance. The idea of being a small child is a premise that should bust open the doors of creativity as nothing is really off limits due to the boundless nature of a child's imagination, but Krillbite decided to play it safe. I was left asking a lot of “why” questions upon completion of the game. Among the Sleep answers the “what” quite clearly, but there's a rather large hole in the story that I wish were fleshed out far more than it was.
Among the Sleep is a “safe” horror title. It sticks to the established formula of other modern horror titles without taking too many risks. The only thing that really sets Among the Sleep apart from its competitors is the unique point of view and the often gorgeous settings. It is just a shame that these really aren't enough to set the game on a level higher than the rest. I would not be against seeing another entry in the series, however. With the knowledge gained from their first outing with Among the Sleep, I would be quite interested to see where the team will go from here.
Overall: 6/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Audio: 7/10
Visuals: 7/10
Value: 5/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Audio: 7/10
Visuals: 7/10
Value: 5/10
Related Information
Title: Among the Sleep
Platforms: PC, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 4
Website: http://www.krillbite.com/ats/