Two Days of Darkness: Four Games of Fear

Recently we talked about Two Days of Darkness, an event spread across two days creating various media based on the horror genre hosted by the National Theatre of Scotland. Saturday (18^th May) was the Two Days of Darkness showcase and we thought “who better to send along to a horror showcase and see what it’s all about than the easiest scared member of Amber Glass?

In case you’re unsure, that person is me.

The showcase featured four games created within 48 hours for the Two Days of Darkness event. Luckily enough for me, it was hosted in the Hannah Maclure Centre, more importantly in a well-lit room. Each of the four games had various things in common: they were all horror games and all were a form of puzzle. The first, titled Killing Time, was a point-and-click ‘escape the room’ game where players would have to solve puzzles in order to find clues to help find the killing time. Its main mechanic is what I really enjoyed the concept of. Players were locked in a single room but can teleport to and from this room to the same room in the future. This lets them interact with things in the future that would then give them clues to intractable areas in the past, where there would be mini-puzzles in order to gain the next piece of the story. I feel it was really well put together, considering it was made in two days.

Another that I really enjoyed was FearBox, created by a group of fellow University of Abertay Dundee students - one of which is a member of our very own Amber Glass (Natasha Singh). Think of this as a sort of inverted Rubix cube. You are placed inside a giant cube with coloured spheres and corresponding coloured circles. The objective is simple: manoeuvre the spheres into their opposite circles. The faces of the cube are made up exactly like a Rubix cube and are controlled the same too. As the faces move the spheres are moved with them, while the circles stay where they are. FearBox starts simple and the controls are incredibly easy to pick up. However, as the levels progress it naturally increases in difficulty. We will have more news on FearBox and its development soon, so if interested keep tuned!

The third was Matchstick, a maze game where players would play as a flame and gradually grow dimmer as they lose lives making it more difficult the worse you are at the game. This mechanic fitted nicely in the game, as the flame lost lives, it gets weaker making it harder to see the path. The goal is to navigate your way around a maze searching for a key, once found you would progress to the next level. A great new take on the classic maze genre.

My weakness was with the fourth game. Aptly titled Let the Right One Out, I could not complete it no matter how hard I tried. A first-person adventure where you had to search for large circles in order to open a gate and escape, it in some ways reminded me of Slender (thankfully, without Slenderman). All you have at your disposal is a torch, and a hard one to control at that, which makes you feel somewhat useless if anything did come.

All the games there were highly enjoyable and I was really impressed with the standard, especially considering they were made over a weekend by students at the University of Abertay Dundee and St Johns RC High School.

This event was all part of Other, set up by the National Theatre of Scotland. Other is a free smartphone app developed by award winning Quartic Llama. It is a location-based audio game that takes the player on a journey around other Dundee. Other is also supporting Let The Right One In, a stage adaptation of the novel and film of the same name. Quartic Llama’s Other is due to launch 31^st May, with tours of the route to take place that weekend. Let The Right One Out runs at the Dundee Rep from the 5^th to the 29^th of June.

Be sure to check back for updates as I’m sure we will be covering these closer to the time!

Lee Gillespie

Amber Glass Broadcast