Little Nightmares tells the story of a six, a young girl dressed in a characteristic yellow raincoat, who, for unexplained reasons, found herself on a huge, mysteriously horrifying ship called the Peacock. Armed only with a cigarette lighter, the heroine tries to leave this filthy place, which is not an easy task, because many dangers await her on the road.
The construction of the story resembles a peculiar fairy tale with a moral. And it's one that scares naughty children. The script is short and simple, there are no dialogues, and the main emphasis is on the dark climate and metaphorical depiction of reality. It works well. The dense atmosphere is captivating, and the world presented is intriguing, disturbing and encourages reflection. The end of the story is a bit unclear. Evidently, he expects his interpretation from the player and may cause a feeling of confusion.
The production has been kept in the horror convention, although I would not call it very terrible. Instead of feeding the player every now and then with jumpscare, it focuses on maintaining the feeling of anxiety and danger in the player. In particular, it emanates darkness and corruption, it is inhabited by terrible creatures, cruel things happen on it, but the grotesque audiovisual setting, by the way very nice and perfectly matching the story of a child's nightmare, makes the whole look softer in its own way. Additionally, the side view of the camera reduces a little bit of immersion between the heroine and the player. It makes him more of a spectator than a participant in the events and thus creates a certain protective layer between him and the darkness of the Lizard.
The game itself also does its own thing. In this respect Little Nightmares is the closest to the logical game with platform and sneaky elements. The mechanics of the game is not a complex one, although it works on a quite good physical engine. Arrows move the character to the sides, and for this we have buttons for sprint, jump and grip, allowing interaction with the environment, moving small objects and basic climbing. Based on these skills, we travel around the ship and overcome the environmental riddles.
Sometimes there will also be monsters on our way, against which the Six are completely defenseless. Usually, however, they are part of a given puzzle, we have to figure out how to divert the attention of the creature and sneak safely next to it. Unfortunately, they rely too much on the method of rehearsals and errors, thus forcing the player to repeat them several times. Typically escape sequences happen rarely, and as it is already short and easy.
The game is not too long, enough for about three hours, maybe a bit longer if we decide to look for a finder. It is also quite casual. At least in the assumptions. Because while logic puzzles are rather not very complicated and pleasant, at the platform and sneaking sequences I had a chance to get a little irritated, mainly for technical reasons.
Despite the location of the camera on the side of the stage, the gameplay takes place on a fully three-dimensional plane. The perspective sometimes plays tricks, which in combination with not entirely precise, especially on the keyboard, control, can occasionally lead to stupid, undeserved deaths. Moreover, artificial intelligence deceives. I had the impression that in a few situations, if we don't hide where the creators have planned, the monster will see us through the wall. There are also other, minor mistakes, e.g. characters can be permeated by the objects around them, which spoils the charm of the graphic design.
To sum up, Little Nightmares is a very peculiar and atmospheric story, in an equally unusual and atmospheric audiovisual setting, seasoned with a relatively simple, but rather pleasant gameplay. The impression is disturbed by various errors, which may not be particularly harmful, but they cannot be ignored and the need to repeat some sequences a few times. The title could also be a bit longer and have a more understandable ending. However, it is worthwhile to devote this evening or two to it anyway.
