And there are plenty of vents which Sally can duck into, usually leaving a silhouette - the enemy's last betraying sighting of her - in her wake. There's a handy detection meter that's fab for when you're attempting to scrabble through without daring to look back. There's a lot of: find this key, get that valve, reach this vent, in between combat or stealth sequences. There's not much variation in the gameplay at all. Sally's nightmare is focused chiefly on a twisted facsimile of the school both she and Emily attended, although you'll sometimes venture outdoors towards other kid-centric places such as an arcade or local arts centre. With their taunts echoing around her, she grabs the posters, leaves her mangled bike where it fell and heads for home - only she never gets there. After plastering posters around the place to keep Emily's name in the town's consciousness, Sally is pursued by school bullies, forcing her bike off the road and into a ravine. You follow Sally, a young girl trying to locate her missing cousin, Emily. Gylt's surprisingly light on story, though. The more you play, the more you'll encounter. Occasionally, you'll stumble upon a mannequin or two, some posed, some not, assembling in classrooms and corridors and toilet stalls. You'll spend a lot of time creeping through Bachman School - a nod to Stephen King, Silent Hill, or both, perhaps? - its walls scratched and clawed with spiteful insults and childish name-calling. You'll see echoes of the seminal psychological horror Silent Hill flickering throughout much of the game, from the splintered dead-end roads to the main character Sally's surname, Kauffman. Boasting a tense atmosphere, a striking style and a sublime score that recalls Danny Elfman's work with Tim Burton, Gylt has the power to be deeply unsettling. You're not ever going to mistake Gylt for P.T., but don't let that mislead you. Even the enemies seemed a little unremarkable to start with. The cutesy design and uncomplicated mechanics lulled me into a false sense of security. But developer Tequila Works has done a number on me. The trailers had us thinking the game, which is exclusive to Google's Stadia streaming service, was a horror-lite title, something for kids and the easily spooked. I'd glanced over the game's bumf and screenshots with curiosity but met its Teen rating with a derisory chuckle. I'm ashamed to say I came into Gylt a little smug. This world may look sweet and innocent with its Play-Doh colours and cartoonish aesthetics, but - as I'm belatedly realising - it's anything but. Not for the first time, I realise I'm not entirely sure what's going on. I realise there's nowhere else to go, and the panic intensifies.

I grab my flashlight and wave it vaguely in its direction - I say vaguely because it's leaping about a lot and I'm panicking here - but it's ineffectual. Screeching with delight, it launches itself at me, face splitting in two to reveal a horrifying, pulsing void as it scurries after me, trying to suck me in. I risk peering over the top and instantly regret it: I've been spotted. 'Come here,' it adds in its sweet, musical voice. It lurches drunkenly from side to side, eyes glowing in the inky blackness of the room, head spinning at unnatural angles as it scans the space, primed for the slightest flicker of movement. 'You can trust me,' it says, as I tip-toe as swiftly as I dare into a dark corner, concealing myself - I hope - against a pile of damp, forgotten boxes. It is, however, a little expensive for such a brief, if atmospheric, experience.Tequila Works' teen-rated horror might surprise you with its shocks and creepy atmosphere, but it's a little thin. And while there's not much here for the hardcore horror fan, don't be deceived into thinking the eerie, tense Gylt is just for kids: it's really not. 'It's these flashes of inspiration that can make Gylt's gentle puzzling such a joy, so it's frustrating we don't see more of them. 'While playing it safe and a tad predictable, Tequila Works carefully layers on new gimmicks and mechanics as you progress through Gylt, allowing you to organically build on your knowledge and start experimenting,' I wrote in Eurogamer's Gylt review. I enjoyed my time with Gylt, calling it 'genuinely unsettling lite horror'. We still don't have a release date or any indication of what those other platforms just may be, but at least we know the Stadia-exclusive won't die alongside the platform it launched upon. S👀N /ehUbYKTI0N- Song of Nunu ❄️ | Coming soon JanuTo see this content please enable targeting cookies.

Stadia gylt