Among the Sleep

The novelty of controlling a child - particularly in a horror game - was lost for me almost as soon as the environments became unreal. Anybody would be discombobulated and afraid in those places, chased by those things, and I felt like my character had become 'anybody'. There's plenty to admire in Krillbite's debut but, like a child itself, it's messy, loud, confusing and it grows up far too quickly. The length is the key isssue. For all its efforts to get inside both the player and the characters' heads, Among The Sleep doesn't linger long enough to leave a mark or more than a fleeting memory...

Childlike imagination is generally considered a happy, wondrous thing. Krillbite's first-person horror game turns this expectation on its head, tossing players into the psyche of a child coping with a turbulent family life. Among the Sleep packs fewer scares and puzzles than I traditionally enjoy in horror games, but its surprising storytelling helps it succeed despite these shortcomings.

Although light in content and devoid of any real scares, Among the Sleep is a curious little game with a great deal of charm. If you go into it expecting cutting edge graphics and P.T. levels of atmosphere then you’ll be woefully disappointed, but enter with an open mind and you’ll find a surprisingly refreshing experience with a genuinely impactful story. Sometimes a game doesn’t have to have riveting gameplay to make it worthwhile, it just has to have a good payoff, and Krillbite Studio’s Among the Sleep is a fine example of one of those games. If you’re after something a little out of the o...

Step into the pajamas of this 2-year-old protagonist on his adventure to find his missing mother. This first-person survival horror game, seen through the abstract mind of an infant, takes on a new approach to the genre. Crawl, walk, and sprint your way through this story with your stuffed bear named Teddy, and discover why these strange events are happening to you. Everything you need to know about this game can be found here!

A quick journey, around three to four hours, Among the Sleep does its job in presenting a powerful message, one that seems all too familiar in today's world of emotional video games, one that many of us may have experienced firsthand. However strong this life lesson is, Among the Sleep lacks solid gameplay and only presents brief challenges, quickly solved with a bit of logic and thought.

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Among the Sleep benefits from a fresh setting and the odd spooky set-piece, but it's let down by disappointingly generic puzzles and stilted gameplay. It takes a number of baby steps in the direction of Firewatch and Gone Home, but it's got a lot of growing up to do before it deserves to be mentioned in the same breath.

Among the Sleep marks the first full-sized title from Norwegian developer Krillbite Studio. While it released on PC last May, the title has finally worked its way over to Sony's marquee machine. A first-person horror game, the title brings with it a very interesting perspective: you assume the role of a toddler – footie pyjamas and all. This allows for a very interesting perspective of the world, where everyday normal items can fuel the nightmares of your imagination. And it works quite well – at first, anyway.

At times, Among the Sleep feels as lightly-developed as the lead character's subconscious. There's not much game to the game, and what is there isn't terribly polished. But what's implied in the environments and sound design is as big a part of the experience as what's actually there. I never did much beyond walking or crawling from one cool visual setpiece to the next, but these terrifying mindscapes carried Among the Sleep and transformed it into something I'm glad I experienced.

The way we perceive reality is an interesting subject, for the mind unable to cope we create a brand new reality that handles our own traumatic past and gives it a new face. This is simply the power of the human mind, when there is no other way to face these issues it makes for a great coping mechanism even if the world suddenly becomes darker. We all have a tendency to do this when necessary, but how does a child react to such events? We can’t ask them at all but I imagine they experience a much darker and scary experience as they try to make sense of the truth, something that I feel Krillbit...

Krillbite get a lot of things right in Among The Sleep. Their use of graphics, sound and level design to build tension and create a creepy atmosphere is second to none, and I was genuinely on the edge of my seat for almost all the time I spent playing. Unfortunately the tension builds to nothing, the monsters aren’t involved enough and the game’s over and done with in no time at all. With a bit more time and cash or just a more solid plan of how to make their creatures scary Krillbite cou...