Welcome to The Attic, will you save your friends?

Left Alone is the latest horror Steam discovery I have made, and I am so glad I gave it a shot. Made by indie developer Volumetric Games, with a team of only two people based out of England, my hopes weren’t too high going into this, but man was I surprised. Left Alone was one of the most enjoyable horror experiences I have had this year. You play Joel Dent, a very successful former Marine, who is suffering through a recent divorce following a massive injury and medically induced coma. His two old squad mates invite him to go camping in the Wisconsin forest, and even though he is still suffering from blackouts and disorientation after his head injury, he decides to meet up with them in hopes of lifting his spirits.

You start off the game in the woods near the campsite, and are greeted with a text from one of Joel’s friends telling you to set up your camp and get a fire going. They are out fishing and will come back to greet you soon. Two hours later it has grown dark, and you receive more texts from them saying they decided to explore an old school nearby and are not trapped inside. They believe they are not alone, and need your help to get out. On your way, you explore an old cabin with a blood-stained floor, and discover newspaper clippings on the wall of a local janitor being accused of kidnapping and killing children that attended the school.

You come across a power station and must get it running again in order to enter the school’s front gate. This requires some back and forth between the cabin, surrounding woods, and power station, but it’s not so repetitive that you won’t be nervously looking over your shoulder the whole time. As fun as it is wandering around in the forest, and a bloody cabin, the game really hits its stride when you enter the old school. The atmosphere that Volumetric Games created here is superb. The old banners and signs scattered around the darkened hallways are like echoes of the innocence that used to roam the grounds. You also find old notes written by a journalist, and the more you read them the more you realize that what they went through exactly matches what you are going through now. It seems whatever is chasing you was after them as well, but what happened to this reporter?

You begin to realize that you are most certainly not alone, and yet you must press on to help save your friends. Someone taunts you with note after note on easels that pop up out of nowhere left and right. They question if your friends would be willing to risk it all to save you in return? They dare you to turn around, and even commend you for getting so far. These sometimes silly comments increase the tension. Is this person only out to mess with your head? Or are the causal notes left behind by a madman set out to kill you and your friends? Is it the janitor that hurt those poor children years ago? You must press on until the end to see what is going on, and the answers will surprise you.

I don’t want to rave on about my favorite parts, because I want people to go into Left Alone as blind as possible. You can purchase the game on Steam for $6.99 USD regular price, and I highly recommend you do so.

Stay scared,
Dark Princess