This is a really tough one to rate. On one hand, the story is engaging and I really appreciate all the unique ways it is told throughout, and on the other hand there are some glaring flaws that ultimately had a somewhat negative impact on my immersion, without ruining it outright. Here are just some of my scattered thoughts on this wild ride of a game.

- Love when something in-game causes something else to happen on your computer or outside the parameters of the game window, such as opening up tabs, launching videos and even downloads, and even going as far as to send you a friend request on the Epic Game Store. Original, and honestly pretty terrifying.

- Forces you to lose mini games in order to progress the story, which I thought was cool.

- Scares run the gamut from simple atmospheric horror, to over-the-top jump scares. It's all over the place, and I love that.

- Use of the otherwise empty black bars on the sides of the screen is really creative and spooky.

But there are some downsides.

- Platforming can be annoying at times, especially wall jumping. Needs a little more polish.

- Most of the gameplay is more or less finding passcodes and inputting them correctly to progress, yet some of the solutions to these are SUPER convoluted (which I guess is the point, but ruins momentum).

- Probably my biggest gripe comes in the later layers of the game, when you are tasked with outmaneuvering and sneaking by the monsters. What starts as a genuinely creepy part loses its charm when hiding from the monsters, which can be for MINUTES at a time in one spot. Like I'll hide in a tube and wait for them to disappear which can literally take up to 5 minutes. Makes my mentality go from "oh this is scary, let me avoid them" to "I don't care if I get jump-scared I just want to progress." Really this can be fixed to be slightly more forgiving for a better overall experience.

Overall, despite these flaws, I would recommend this for anyone interested in a horror game that takes an unusual approach to storytelling.