In Little Nightmares, you play as 'Six', a hooded figure revealed to be a hungry nine-year-old girl.
In Little Nightmares, you play as 'Six', a hooded figure revealed to be a hungry nine-year-old girl.
Trouble sleeping? Your problems are about to get worse.
A hooded figure emerges from a box in a dimly lit room. There are weird groaning noises, the camera is lurching all over the place, shadows loom everywhere you look and smoke is filling the room.
Walk to the right and you'll quickly find a body hanging from a ceiling. A little further and you'll discover animals with pointy heads and black tar slugs that want to eat you from the inside out.
Did I mention you're a starving 9-year-old girl just trying to find some food? And that things quickly get much, much worse?
In Little Nightmares, you're on a mission to find food.
They're the opening moments of Little Nightmares, a sidescrolling platformer cut from the same cloth as Limbo and Inside that's just become available for about $35 on Xbox and PlayStation.
Go there now. Buy it. It's worth every cent.
Why? Because this is the creepiest of creep fests. In it, you play as a yellow-hooded figure called Six - how very Stranger Things - who is trying to climb her way out of something called The Maw, which is basically a hellhole containing every nightmare you've ever had.
Sinister? You betcha. You haven't experienced horror until you've met The Chefs, a gang of food-obsessed slobbos who look like Jabba the Hutt if he walked on two legs, got a little more chunky and put on a too-tight apron.
Six takes cover in a scene from Little Nightmares.
All this is from Tarsier Studios, the team behind Tearaway Unfolded. Yes, that cutesy adventure puzzler from 2015 with its flowers and paper darts. This is their follow-up, and it has little in common. For one, Tearaway's designed for kids, while Little Nightmares is most definitely not.
What it is, is a short, sharp jolt to the frontal lobes, a dark trip into the heart of horror, and a sinister attempt to scare you silly. Which it will undoubtedly do.
This is a game that can send chills down the spine just by having toilet paper roll across the floor. But it's more than that. It draws you into its woozy world, makes you want to understand it, explore all of its nooks and crannies, and, ultimately, solve its riddles.
Until then, say goodbye to sleep.
Little Nightmares Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC Rating: M Stars: Four Verdict: Platformer will cause cold sweats
