Among the Sleep: a first person horror game starring a toddler

Slumbering topic, I summon you from the pit!

Uh, so this is supposed to be released in about a week. And I still haven't played the new Walking Dead episode, so I guess next week is going to be "playing a child trying to avoid terrible things" week.

Has there been any new updates on game mechanics, storyline, etc.?

Apparently, there's issues sending the keys out, but if you use Humble Bundle's key resender, you can get it. I've only played the intro tutorial, which leads into the action of the demo. Still very creepy and atmospheric. I think that hugging Teddy for light is a new mechanic...

As regards storyline, it is established that Teddy is a 2nd year birthday present and that the child was well aware of Teddy's animate capacities before the events of the demo. Plot developments, there's no sign of a father, the mother has a faded band of flesh on her righthand ring finger, and during the birthday party, there's some sort of yelling thing at the door while the baby's vision fuzzes out. So, I'm thinking that the horror aspects are going to be implied to be the result of the baby trying to understand all of this anger around him.

edited 30th May '14 4:23:45 AM by FuzzyBoots

Abusive father being made into a nightmare reality by the baby's imagination?

edited 30th May '14 1:05:30 PM by theLibrarian

It sounds unique. Adult Fear, Child Fear, Nightmare Fuel.

Can't wait to see how the hardcore survival horror fans rip it apart though. Maybe it is Dancing Bear, but come on, how many video games can you list where you played as a very small child, that weren't 2D beat'em ups or platformers of some sort?

Well, there's The Binding Of Isaac, of course...

So, I played this game.

First off, I want to point out that I'm not a fan of horror games. I never saw the appeal of playing or watching something that is meant to scare you. However, I stumbled across this title accidentally, and the premise made me interested enough to try it.

I am not good at making reviews, so I'm just going to shortly sum up the good and the bad:

First off, the atmosphere. Oh yeah. This game has it. The environments are creepy and imaginative, the sound effects keep you on your toes, and you can't help it but be interested in what happens next. Easily the strongest part of the game. Second, the game looks pretty great, what you probably noticed from the screenshots; my favourite was the area with the owls (it looks really pretty with all those shiny flowers). The swamp was pretty good too. And I liked the puzzles, although they got a little old after a while.

The story, there isn't much to say. Your mom is abusive. You overreact to it through creepy imagery. End of story. It's very nicely portrayed, though.

The controls are a little annoying at times. It's difficult to move objects around, and sometimes it takes several tries before the toddler finally climbs up what I'm trying to climb. The game is very short (around 3-4 hours of gameplay at absolute most), and considering that at the time it costs 20 EUR, it feels like a bit of a ripoff. I recommend waiting until it goes below 10$. The game is pretty much meant for a single playthrough, with not much replay value. There's no exploration either - you're on a pretty tight railroad throughout the entire game.

And here's the biggest problem I have with the game: despite the creepy atmosphere that kept me on my toes, I just kept remembering that this is just a game.

Whenever I was starting to get into the experience and feel like I'm actually there, something was brutally reminding me that yes, this is a game, with scripted events and bugs and stuff. The animation of the characters was a bit unpolished, with them clipping through stuff and the movement feeling a little awkward at times. There was once a moment where I encountered a bug that forced me to go back to the last checkpoint to fix it.

Also, at first, while the atmosphere had me creeped out a bit, I progressively started being a bit bored at times, since during the first half, there's literally nothing to hurt you, except for environmental hazards that you pretty much must walk into on purpose to get yourself killed. The game shook me a bit when a monster showed up; after a few moments of not much happening I was starting to think that this isn't an actual threat and it's there just to scare you, but when he killed me for the first time, I realized that yes, this IS finally an actual threat, and from there, the scariness went up a few levels, with me being genuinely terrified of the monsters (the Scare Chord effect wasn't helping here either).

So, in the end, I have a bit mixed feelings about this game. On one hand, the atmosphere is great and the environments are imaginative, but the gameplay didn't feel particularly great and got a little boring at times. There's also this noticeable lack of polish around the edges, not to mention the short length and way too high price.

Maybe I would have liked this better if I was a fan of the game trying to scare me. I dunno.

Personally, I enjoyed it. I was genuinely surprised that the mother was the alcoholic who represented the monster in the child's dream, and given that the same person voices both Teddy and the dad, that would seem to imply the dad is an alright guy.

And while the storyline is fairly simple, I liked it for what it was, though as you said, it's quite short for its price. I'd recommend it for fans of the genre, though some might want to wait for a price drop to purchase it.

edited 31st May '14 5:25:38 PM by Archereon

Haven't beaten the game yet (I'm pretty scared of the point I'm at now!), but I agree very much with your review, especially this part right here. I too thought "yeah, another dumb fake-out scare", then it killed me. That's when I realized there were legitimate threats, and was pretty damn scared of them, hiding from one that patrolled a certain area, and holy shit I got killed by one at the point I'm at now. I stopped playing for now, but will finish later.