Don't Look

It’s not difficult to scare people in a video game, especially with a few monsters and a dark room. However, it is significantly more difficult to leave a mark on their memory, because zombies are easily forgettable and not at all traumatizing anymore. In fact, you do not even have to feature any gruesome monsters on the screen in order to cause terror, as long as the atmosphere has the proper ingredients.

Don't Look is a first-person horror game in which you play the role of a little girl trying to survive by herself in a dark forest haunted by zombies. Although it tries to be atmospheric and creepy, the game feels like a SCP/Slender mashup, yet a lot less scary. Most of it is because of the early development stage, but it’s difficult to imagine how the core concept is going to improve later on.

You play the role of a little girl waking up in the middle of the night and realizing that some of her things are missing. Against all reason or logic, she decides to go outside and look for them in the forest, with only a flashlight. In fact, she even uses the window to get out of the house, to avoid waking her parents. When the plot is this ludicrous, it’s pretty difficult to get in the proper mood and feel anything, let alone fear.

Since you do not have any weapons, the only thing you can do when you come face-to-face with a monster is close your eyes and wait for it to go away. However, you’ll definitely have a hard time stumbling into any zombies, because it’s possible to wander for minutes on end without seeing anything other than trees. There are no instructions regarding what you should be doing, at least not yet.

The forest is quite empty and featureless, except for the trees, so everything looks the same no matter where you go. To top things off, there’s no collision system in place for the trees, so you can just keep sprinting forward through them and not worry about a thing. The graphics are pretty nice, at least inside, but it’s tough to judge them properly when there’s nothing to look at. As a bonus, it’s funny to see how both of your hands flap around when you run, yet the flashlight is on, lighting your path anyway.

In the end, maybe Don't Look is going to change completely by the time the game is complete, but it’s a mystery why would it be released to the public so soon. There’s nothing scary or interesting about it at the moment, which makes it hard to believe that anyone is going to be impressed or feel compelled to find out more about the game.

Note: You can support the developer by participating in the official Kickstarter campaign.