Among The Sleep Demo

Horror games do not necessarily have to display huge amounts of gore and terrible monsters in order to scare the players, because you can do a lot more with far less. Hence, games like Amnesia and Penumbra managed to leave an imprint on those who tried them by barely featuring any kind of abominations. Instead, a really pressing atmosphere was created and it proved enough to be far scarier than any zombie.

Among The Sleep’s greatest feat is the fact that it basically puts you in the skin of a toddler, and you must explore the environment while keeping in mind the fact that certain things are not as easy to realize when you are only two feet tall. Not only that, but toddlers also experience the world differently, because most of it is unknown to them and they might misinterpret a lot of things.

Story-wise, it all starts with the child’s birthday and the present he receives from his mother, namely a teddy bear simply called Teddy. However, things get a tad more disturbing and creepy not long after, when strange noises start coming from the mother’s room and someone knocks over the crib, which in turn sets the child free. Thus, with a bit of assistance from Teddy, you must find your mother and try to survive the perils you stumble into as well.

Besides being scared by every strange noise out there, the gameplay challenges you to solve a few puzzles as well. Most of them are not difficult at all, while the ones toward the end get pretty frustrating and require a bit of tinkering before you are able to get them right. The horror elements never fade away, on the other hand, so you should always be on the lookout for a jump scare.

Thanks to the state-of-the-art graphics engine capabilities, the environments look very detailed and convincing, although the post-processing can be a little bit too much from time to time. However, everything is made better again by the sturdy level design, because both the house and the surreal places you get to visit look fantastic.

Among The Sleep is the kind of game that keeps you on edge at all times, yet it never truly impresses at any point. Hence, while you’ll definitely have a lot of fun playing it and watching the story unfold, this is not the type of adventure you’ll remember forever, regardless of how good it looks.