Recent reviews by Hoady

A thoroughly stunning game from the soundtrack to the ambience, gameplay, story and everything in between. I played this during early access and came back after about 18 months when i found the time after it was finally released. Spent the last week playing it from the beginning and it was an absolute experience that you have to find for yourselves. A steal at it's price as well, I'd pay $50 for this as you would for an AAA game and it still has so much more content than 95% of AAA games released these days.

Cannot recommend enough. If you buy it then you will enjoy it, Survivor.

Layers of fear does exactly what it sets out to do - immerse you in its atmosphere and tell you a story, from the point of view of a twisted painter, making you feel damn uneasy the whole way. I found the game was quite short (Took me about 4 and a half hours one evening) but don't let this put you off trying it, it is still a great experience.

The atmosphere is dark and foreboding and the game still manages to achieve scares even when you know something is about to happen. This is a rare thing to achieve in this day and age as developers struggle to find new ways to trick the player in to feeling safe. This is further aided by the game audio which has been implemented very well (WHAT?? I swear I just heard something behind me...). P.S., I strongly suggest you play with headphones (which should be standard, right?)

The gameplay is relatively simple - you walk through rooms watching the story unfold. Perhaps more engagement with the surroundings and environment would make the game a little bit more interesting but this is a minor point really. The gameplay is rather unique and fits the game very well. There are a few puzzles for us to solve throughout the course of the game but there are not overly difficult for the player.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with this and for the game it is, 4-5 hours is the perfect length. I could see it becoming repetitive if it were any longer, and I don't think the game holds too much replay value other than for achievement hunting. But it is definitely a game that everyone should experience at least once and then you can say you survived Layers of Fear.