It's short, it's sweet, it's sharp, and it's certainly worth the price of admission.

Late Homework (stylized as 遅れた宿題 | Late Homework in-game) is a bite-sized horror title by the ever-talented Sodaraptor. Players join the unlucky high school girl, a cat named Haneko, as she braves her school after-hours to retrieve her lost homework. However, sinister things lurk the halls at Fushigina High School, and in her efforts to be a better student, Haneko stumbles across something decidedly more sinister.

The elephant in the room for Lost Homework is that it's a more fleshed out version of an earlier prototype of the game, available on Itch.io. At first, I was under the impression that it was much the same game but cleaned up a tad, but this couldn't be further from the truth. In this paid release version, not only is the game longer and full of more puzzles, but Sodaraptor has layered in a surprisingly compelling plot that reeks of Silent Hill in the best possible ways. Without spoiling anything, suffice it to say that the visual homages to the classic survival-horror series aren't merely surface-level.

On that note, the game has to commended on its presentation. Done up to the nines in beautiful PSX-adjacent visuals and dripping with menacing atmosphere, Lost Homework is a deeply oppressive experience. Disinclined to fall back on jump-scares, the game instead treats the player like a frog in a boiling pot, content to leave them squirm in the shadowy hallways. Even if the gameplay is primarily inventory puzzles mixed with some light stealth gameplay, the sheer atmosphere and brisk pace of the game keep the experience tight.

Ultimately, Lost Homework is a great example of a small game that accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do - and, in its unlockable costumes and ranking system, arguably more. It's available for the price of a sandwich and is a frightful delight - certainly enough to make it easy to recommend.