GROWN-UPS ARE MONSTERS
They’re everywhere these days, these side-scrolling puzzle platformers. Reportedly quick and easy to produce, they appeal to first-time developers and small studios that can’t afford to gamble on massive projects. In search of inspiration, many look deep into gaming history for timeless mechanics, adding a few idiosyncrasies through their own design quirks.
In the case of Little Nightmares (developed by the Swedish studio Tarsier Studios), the lineage is clear. Its narrative restraint and gameplay sensibilities trace a direct line from Another World (1991), by way of Limbo (2010). The influence is so textbook that it almost feels redundant to point it out.
Yet while the mechanics are familiar, they share the screen with a remarkably rich visual language. Little Nightmares relies on evocative, wordless storytelling and grotesque enemy design to carve out its identity. Yes, this is a horror game—but mostly in theme. The fixed, side-on perspective places a slight emotional distance between the player and the character, muting outright fear. Instead, the game cultivates a persistent sense of unease: the stress of being trapped somewhere you don’t belong, witnessing things you were never meant to see.
The story is an enigma wrapped in shadows. You play as Six, a tiny girl in a yellow hooded raincoat, who awakens from a nightmare in a dim, metallic room. Your lighter barely cuts through the darkness. As you move to the right, small creatures with pointy hats—called Nomes—scatter out of sight. A few rooms later, the game delivers its first explicit omen: a corpse hanging from a noose above a chair, with what appears to be a suicide note lying on the floor beneath it.
The tension lingers, thick in the air. You soon learn that you’re aboard a ship called The Maw, and you feel as intrusive as a rat loose in a private residence. You don’t belong here. Progress is blocked by locked doors, wide gaps, and high ledges, and in the darkness the solution is rarely obvious.
After several minutes of experimenting with the game’s weighty physics, you may finally piece together a solution—only to miss the final jump and be sent back by an unforgiving checkpoint system. Retreading an entire sequence of challenges, sometimes only to fail again on the same jump, can be infuriating. These moments occasionally fracture the atmosphere, though the game’s confident handling of pacing, sound design, and visual composition quickly restores it.
The controls are simple and generally responsive, pairing well with Six’s fluid animations. Still, they occasionally betray the player. At times Six refuses to jump and instead attempts to duck beneath a table she can’t fit under, buying an enemy just enough time to grab her. The interact button can also be finicky, demanding very specific positioning to latch onto objects.
The absence of tutorials or explicit direction reinforces the game’s themes of uncertainty and alienation. While the linear design makes it clear that progress usually lies to the right—a gamer’s instinct—the path there often involves long detours up, down and sometimes even to the left. The addition of depth to the playing field introduces a third dimension that can wreak havoc on platforming. The distant perspective distorts depth perception, and without clear visual reference points it’s easy to misjudge a leap and fall to your death.
Ironically, that same depth works beautifully in stealth segments. The grotesque adult figures that roam The Maw are enemies you cannot fight. You must crawl through shadows, hide under tables, climb shelves, or slip beneath floor grates. When discovered—accompanied by a piercing shriek—all you can do is scramble for cover or, on rare occasions, flee. Their labored breathing and grinding teeth are nightmare fuel, and that’s before you see them eat.
In the creature design and the final levels especially, I sense echoes of Japanese cinema—Spirited Away foremost, with a touch of Ringu. These adults might represent how humans appear to small creatures: long-armed, bloated, and grotesque. It raises the possibility that Six herself isn’t entirely human, despite her otherwise childlike appearance. I couldn’t help but laugh at the thought: is this how rats see us?
Above all, Little Nightmares revels in its imagery. Each new area is foreshadowed by a brief, unsettling glimpse of its dominant threat: obese passengers lining up along the gangway, a geisha observing them from a balcony, a long-armed figure tucking children into bed.
Little Nightmares is brief—two to four hours—but well suited for repeat playthroughs, if only to search for added meaning. And whatever its symbolism ultimately amounts to, its emotional truth is evident from the start. This is a tragic story, because its world is relentlessly somber. Though the monsters resemble exaggerated horror puppets and sometimes behave almost comically, the experience is far too oppressive to invite laughter.
Instead, Little Nightmares points an accusatory finger at gluttony, excess, and obsession with appearance—at big, bloated people who hide their true nature behind masks. It almost sounds political.
Comments
Post a Comment