Little Nightmares (game) : Beautiful, creepy, and too short

I think that this is probably my favorite style of game at the moment - the puzzle platformer. Although I get scoffed at by the hardcore gamers over there on their first-person-shooter games (FPS) that multiplayer genre has never really appealed to me and I think the last one I played with any level of seriousness was likely Call of Duty or Medal of Honor... I honestly don't remember.

Anyway, Little Nightmares has lovely animation and the soundtrack and ambiance is super creepy. I can see why they chose the title because the characters that you encounter in this game certainly has the opportunity to cause nightmares.

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The game begins in a very familiar way with no story, no idea given as to where you are or even who you are. In this way it is very similar to "Limbo" and also "Inside" (which i consider to be one of the best games made in the past several years.) You just start walking and the story unfolds for you and a lot of what the actual story is - is kind of left up to the player to piece together.

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There are a number of very creepy enemies that pursue you such as this fella, who has no vision but is very sensitive to sound so it becomes very quickly evident that it is necessary to remain very very quiet around him. At times you have to lure him to one side of the room by intentionally making a noise by throwing an object of some sort.

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The game functions in a very similar manor to "Inside" in that you don't use a great many buttons. However, the game is somewhat 3-d as you can and do walk to the front and back of the scene on a regular basis. For the most part during "Inside" and "Limbo" it is merely a left-to-right type situation. The game stays dark and you are always struggling for light. You have a lighter to illuminate your immediate surroundings but can only use that if holding nothing.

The gameplay is simple and the game is just lovely. Now for some negative criticism: The game is too short and I don't think I have to say anything more about that. For the near $25 that this game costs it really aught to be full-length but they went and did the dirty DLC trick and I can never applaud a developer for this. Also, sometimes the checkpoints are really far apart and this results in tedious sections of the game where you are forced to run a long ways (often with no challenges along the way) just to have another crack at a long jump or something. I have never liked when any game makes you return to far back into something in order to progress.

Overall this game is really good and has just a few flaws. Seeing as how the game is nearly a year old I don't see the price dropping anytime soon but perhaps I am wrong about that. They recently appeared on the first page of Steam (the other one) and developers pay for this to occur. It has been my experience that after this phase, they normally enter the "discount" phase shortly thereafter. Perhaps wait a month and see if the price drops. It is a great game, but due to the length, I don't believe it is worth $25.