The Exit 8 is my first foray into a genre that I pray will become more aptly named than 'Spot the Difference’. Very short and fairly sweet, The Exit 8 gives you a binary choice. Forwards or backwards. Either everything is fine, or there is an anomaly. Horror feels like the natural next step for the genre, satisfying a-ha moments are swapped with eye-widening oh-nos as you realise something is off. The game is cheap and the spartan game design served it well. And now I’m finally interested in playing Papers Please.

Maybe you also imagined the surprisingly common "Parkour Guy" as a kid. When you were safe and warm in the back seat of the car, gazing out the window, He would run parallel, hopping and vaulting over buildings, trees, cars or any other obstacle your sugar-addled mind would deem "Cool to jump on". Please, Don't Touch Anything evoked those fierce sparks of imagination only present in a child.

On launching the game, you're asked by a buddy to guard this Big Red Button while they take a leak. Its pushable face leers up at you. An agreement is made between you and the game; you will push this button. A corkboard of clues later, you’re scratching your head at a The Room-style panel of paranoia. The entire board cleverly funnels you into progress. There is no fail state. You’re given all the time in the world to figure out codes and symbols that let you achieve one of many endings, some so complex I wistfully yearned to find a playground and discuss the game with friends rather than look up hints on the internet, like the goblin that I am.

A few puzzles were unfair, boring or tedious, sometimes all three, but all in all, this game really charmed me and I’m shocked it isn’t more respected, at the very least for its perfect, time-capsule depiction of daydreaming at your school desk.

In the last few years, survival horror games haven't scared me. They've become a series of equations. A series of maps to clear. How many resources am I willing to spend on this threat? Have I got all the items in this location? This is not the case with Silent Hill. When outside, a wall of impenetrable fog clouds your vision, only allowing you to see a few metres ahead of you at any time. While a technical limitation, your poor range of vision supports the game’s main vehicle of fear. You.

Silent Hill’s horror is what you see in the corner of your mind's eye. It is what’s behind the locked door. Silent Hill delves into what could be. Whatever is scariest to you. The low resolution of the game’s textures and environments confuse you as to whether the walls are rusting or bleeding. You hear a monster before you see it, through the crackling static of a radio. An air raid siren blares as your role changes from explorer to intruder and the town morphs into a twisted facsimile.

The game’s initially opaque plot mirrors how the town treats you, something is going on and you are not a part of it. It’s arguable whether you even drive the plot forward outside of a single specific moment, most of the game, you’re doing your best just to find a plot thread and hold onto it. The locations you explore are reminiscent of childhood, a school, an amusement park, a hospital, places where core memories are formed. Eventually, the geometry of the world begins to break down, familiar doors lead to unfamiliar rooms. It all becomes ethereal. Silent Hill is not a town; Silent Hill is a dream. Sorry for being pretentious.

The sound design and soundtrack harmonise perfectly with the game’s aged visuals, you can never quite tell what makes the sounds you’re hearing, they seem to permeate through the walls, always slightly out of vision. Devil’s Lyric, a track on the game, still haunts me even after finishing it. An almost melodic synthetic cry is soon drowned out by the metallic clanging of an unidentifiable machine or monster, ramping in volume and tempo and rhythm, suffocating your eardrums until you’re sure that whatever it may be, it is definitely behind you.

I wish more praise could be given to the game’s combat. It feels shallow and uninteresting, I found myself simply running away from enemies in the final hours, out of mild disinterest rather than abject terror; it was a shame to zip past the nightmarishly designed enemies. There just isn’t much to say about the Resident Evil-inspired gunplay, it felt like a means to an end, the bland satisfaction of clearing a room, rather than winning a fight for my life. I enjoyed the game’s six bosses, one of which is skippable in its entirety, and two more which are five minutes apart from each other. They all felt unique and pushed me to master the 1999 tank controls to overcome them, even though mastery of tank controls looks like an unenthusiastic dad playing Dance Dance Revolution.

Silent Hill is considered a totemic figure in the wider game-o-sphere for good reason. I’m looking forward to playing the rest and seeing how the series develops and evolves.