Welcome to The Attic.  We’ll be working late tonight.

Locked Fears. The title of this indie horror game conjures up such gloriously creepy thoughts and ideas. Is it set in an abandoned asylum? Or a prison? Maybe it’s about the deep, dark secrets hidden in someone’s basement? No, Locked Fears is set in an even more terrifying location: an office building. What’s scarier than working late while everyone else has already gone home? In all seriousness, though, this can be a great setting for a horror game.

If you’ve ever played One Late Night, then you’ll know what I’m talking about. This free indie horror game did such a great job at building tension. I was on the edge of my seat, and the progression of it all just felt right at first. But unfortunately Locked Fears took another route. Within a few short minutes I was running circles around cubicles trying to get away from this black smoke coming at me. This should have felt scary, but I found it more frustrating than anything else. I think it would have been better to hold off a bit on the scares. Let me learn the controls and get my bearings before the smoke monster from LOST comes barreling down on me at full speed. Sometimes pacing is everything in a video game, and this one would have benefited from some adjustments.

Speaking of adjustments, or lack thereof, your eyes will take a beating here. I had to slide the gamma bar all the way over, and I still struggled to see down the extremely dark hallways. That’s all fine and dandy in a horror situation, but not so much when you’re frantically running around an office trying to find a good place to hide. The game provides you with a flashlight, but it takes way too long for you to acquire it. One thing I did love, however, was how they give it to you. That was my favorite moment in the whole game, so I won’t ruin it, but it was fantastic and very creepy.

I do have one question though: Why doesn’t our genius character use his smartphone? You see, for the entirety of the game you have a cellphone in hand. Early on in the game, you hear a ringing, and answer a text from a (friendly?) person who seems to want to help us. There are suspicious events that have taken place in this office, and they want you to help them get some answers while helping you escape in return. I know it’s just one of those video game decisions about which we can’t ask too many questions, but darn it, sometimes I want to scream, “Use your phone! It’s too dark!” While these tips in the form of text messages sort of help guide you along, they really don’t explain what you are supposed to do very well.

Perhaps the most frustrating part of the whole game was the smoke monster itself. It is one of the most inconsistent enemies I have ever encountered, and I almost rage-quit numerous times because of it. There is no way to attack this monster, and your only choice is to hide when you see or hear it coming. Unfortunately, even when you do crouch underneath a desk that doesn’t mean it’s going to leave. I had a few times where I sat in this spot for a good 10 minutes while the monster just camped right over me like that sniper in Call of Duty multiplayer that everyone hates. I was never attacked while under a desk, but sitting there for ages gets highly annoying, so a couple of times I gave up and left my safe place so the monster could just get it over with. But there are other times it left my area within a minute with no good explanation as to why. If you do allow yourself to be enveloped by it for too long you will die, and getting away isn’t always easy. Thankfully there are health packs you can collect, so if you take a minor beating, you can heal yourself.

As I said before, running around frantically trying to find a door that will open, while others slam shut in your face, is incredibly frustrating. Imagine this: You’re walking down a hallway, and suddenly you hear the roar of the monster. It’s closing in on you, so you run. Left down this hallway, then right down this one, then a filing cabinet gets hurled into your face. You stagger back as the monster gets closer behind you. You make another turn as you regain your speed, but suddenly doors slam shut in front of you, forcing you to double back. At this point the monster is right on your tail, and the next set of doors you come to are locked. You barely even notice a side door before you’re dead, but it probably won’t open anyway. After dying a few times before you can even try to open this barely-lit door, you finally reach it, and the door opens.

That’s what Locked Fears is like. Many, many, many attempts at frantically trying to open doors that will let you interact with them, but will never open, while items are being flung at you is beyond frustrating. It really takes away any tension that the game could (and should) have had. There was definitely potential here, as I loved the setting and atmosphere. I just really wish it had been executed differently. It’s also quite buggy. I tried to interact with something a few times before I could get it to work. Locked Fears is seemingly one annoying situation after another.

I was really hoping that where it lacked in mechanics, it would flourish in story. There are hints at something supernatural in the emails you are able to read early on, which is great. But the game quickly lets go of those, and it’s a real shame. You don’t get to read many more notes, and you never get to learn anything about what has been going on. Your final text from the “aide” is very cryptic, and right after that you’re met with the credits and a “thank you for playing” message. I wanted to rip my hair out when I saw that. I have no idea what was going on or what the smoke monster was.

Locked Fears is available on Steam for $3.99 USD, but honestly I can’t even recommend your hard-earned bucks on this. If you think it looks good, play One Late Night instead. It’s free, and does the “creepy late night office” setting way better.

Stay scared,
Dark Princess