The protagonists in horror games are often under-powered individuals, with the scare factor emanating from the fact that these everyday weaklings have to face off against fearsome foes. Well, Krillbite Studio’s went for the jugular when they made the protagonist of their first-person horror game, Among the Sleep, a toddler.

Seeing the world from a toddler’s perspective can make even the most mundane of everyday things seem frightening. The game begins with the toddler being carried by his mother, and looking up at her face, all the player can see is nostrils. A mother, normally the epitome of comfort and safety, appears weird and eerie because of the angle you look at her from.

That is the premise of Among the Sleep summed up in one paragraph. It’s about seeing the ordinary as extra-ordinary when viewed through the eyes of a toddler It’s particularly effective, because it taps into those memories we all have of being a child and being truly terrified of a coat hanging on the back of a door, or a shadow in the hallway.

Among the Sleep‘s story is suitably simple, as a baby wouldn’t understand convoluted concepts involving the after-life or good and evil. The baby is playing with its teddy, which of course is sentient and can talk (the wonder of a child’s imagination!), when they are interrupted by the sound of the baby’s mother crying.

Sensing that mum might be in trouble, the baby and his teddy explore the house. Before long, they find themselves trapped in a dark, confusing world, and the only way back to the house and the mother is by gathering up happy memories to unlock a mysterious door.

As the main character is a baby, the player has a choice between walking and crawling. Crawling is faster and makes it easier to squeeze into small spaces, where as walking is slower but means you can reach higher places and hold your teddy, which also acts as a flash-light. It’s intelligent design because it means the player has to decide whether to sacrifice safety for light, or spend time crawling around frantically in the dark.

Controlled first-person, getting around is easy enough, but handling objects and dealing with the game’s physics engine can be very awkward. This may be because babies are not known to be very dexterous, but it doesn’t make it any less annoying when you constantly close doors by accident, or when it takes you ten minutes to turn a switch.

For the first fifteen minutes, I was completely blown away by Among the Sleep. As the baby explored the dark house, with only the sound of his mum’s cries for guidance, the atmosphere was positively electrifying. It’s no surprise that it couldn’t keep up that level of tension for the full three hours of runtime.

Once the baby reaches the other world, the tension begins to drain and the game becomes a lot less frightening. About half way through, I was 100% certain that there wasn’t going to be any enemies, and that all the footsteps and creaking seemingly surrounding the baby was just soundtrack.

Without wishing to spoil, I was wrong. As a result, the game gets a lot more frightening in the second half. Krillbite did what every developer should do. They nailed the game’s opening, and the ending was superb. Although it lagged a little bit in the middle, it’s the start and the end that the player really remembers.

Talking of lag, I have a laptop that can comfortably run most games on high settings, yet Among the Sleep ran like a bag of gravel even on low. When the game was at its most effective, I could look right past the technical difficulties. However, during its weaker moments, the lag became annoying to the point where I considered stopping.

The game is available on Steam at the moment, but my advise to all of you who own PS4s would be to wait until Among the Sleep is released on the PSN later this year, as I imagine the developer will spend more time optimising it for its console release.

As a horror game, Among the Sleep was scary enough whilst it lasted, with the odd moment of unbearable tension and fear. What was most impressive about Among the Sleep was that it managed to be genuinely upsetting, and continued to weigh on my mind long after it had finished. Perhaps that is testament to effectiveness of the game’s story. Perhaps I’m just a delicate flower.

8/10

© 2014, zero1gaming.com. All rights reserved. On republishing this article your must provide a link to this original post