A very short indie game, and by that I really mean very short. My first run took probably around 15 to 20 minutes, and getting all achievements took me yet another 30 minutes or so. It's really cheap too, so it's not anything bad here.

The game is essentially a game of can you spot the difference as you travel through this underground train station corridor on your way to exit 8. The rules are simple: If you spot any anomaly in the corridor return from where you came from, if everything is ok, proceed. Your goal is it to reach corridor 8 and find the exit. Each time you reach the main corridor, it will randomly pick any anomaly... Or not! And yes, this can even happen when you reached corridor 8 and are trying to get to the god-damn exit. Some anomalies are quite easy to spot, like the whole hallway being clustered with no smoking signs, and sometimes the changes might be quite small and make you question if there was always a camera in the corner. The punishment for not spotting any anomaly that is there or returning when there wasn't any anomaly is that you return to corridor 0. Other than that, there aren't really any dangers. You can 'die' from some anomalies (the actual fate in interacting with some of those anomalies is actually pretty open to one own's imagination), but it's not really worse than getting the state of the corridor wrong.

The simple idea paired with it's rather short playtime is the ideal combination for some quick in between game to fill some time, while making you question your own perception.

What if spot the difference made your bladder stop working? Alternatively, what if PT but much less subtle?

The Exit 8 is a very short game. To beat it took me less than twenty minutes, and then fully completing it was an hour tops. This isn't a negative statement, just a factual one. If anything, it's a positive, as the Exit 8's concept would likely have become stale before much more time could pass, in fact, it does start to grate just before it runs out of new things to show you, which I'm choosing to see as evidence of the developer's restraint more than anything else.

In recent years we've seen a rise in miniature horror games. With things like the Dread X Collections and PS1/VHS style horror experiences, it is now easier than ever to find an immense variety of shortform scares, even before digging into the weird and wondrous bounties of Itch. This is a trend I'm glad to see, as it has long been my belief that all horror has a maximum limit on its effectiveness. Horror movies should not be longer than ninenty minutes, short stories are scarier than novels and demo length games are often far spookier than sprawling, ten hour AAA behemoths like most Resident Evil games. When a developer only needs to fill thirty minutes, then they can pace and polish that half hour to a mirror sheen, till it's the most anxiety inducing lunch break you've ever experienced. No chaff, no filler, just "here's my trick, my big twist, and no bullshit burying it".

The Exit 8 does this masterfully. Subtlety is largely absent, in exchange though, the concept is concisely explained. Here is a corridor: it loops forever and you are stuck here. Sometimes weird shit will happen, if you spot it, then do exactly as your instincts demand and fuck off in the opposite direction. Repeat successfully eight times and you win. Bish, bosh. Perfect.

Within two minutes of launching the game (and fiddling with the settings to quickly tell the motion blur to piss off), I had a stress headache. When thinking about the Exit 8's gameplay loop, it almost sounds like a detective roguelike (or roguelite if you're a pedant). You start each 'run' of the hell corridor, walk slowly along it and see if you can spot anything wrong. Most of the anomalies don't require much careful observation and will make themselves very known to you whether you want them to or not. However, enough of them are easily missable that you have to pay as much attention as possible. This is the true genius of the Exit 8. Where normally you'd play a horror game leaning as far back from the monitor as possible, ready to disappear into your jumper and turn away the second a threat appears, here you are absolutely required to study the screen. You must be on the edge of your seat, scanning every pixel, and it's in this state you'll be when something horrendous happens and you absolutely shit yourself. Sure, the lights going out or a creepy monster running at you is usually hackneyed and cliche, but here they are rendered infinitely more effective by the requirements of the gameplay.

It's not perfect though. As I said before, it does start to wear out its welcome, though only if you're seeking out every single anomaly in the game. While I said its length is a good thing, I couldn't help but find myself wishing the concept could be expanded, perhaps more levels or more slotted in with other, similar micro-experiences. However, it's very cheap and very pretty (Unreal Engine 5 isn't so bad it seems), and very, very scary for a good twenty to thirty minutes, which is more than be said of a lot of horror games.