FFor those who remember the dawn of the survival horror genre, its aesthetic rebirth on the indie gaming scene has been a spooky delight. Crow County, The Closing Shift, Murder House – they’re all modern supernatural adventures that use low-poly 3D visuals and blocky textures, not just as a visual hook but as a means to reconnect with what made games like Silent Hill and Clock Tower were scary and terrifying. participate first. Fear the Spotlight, the debut title from Cozy Game Pals and new horror publisher Blumhouse Games, is another wonderfully chilling example.
Two girls break into their high school library late at night, looking for a particular item: a spirit board, locked in a display case as part of an exhibit on the occult. Vivian is something of a nerd, a star volunteer at the library, while Amy is a fascinating outsider, interested in the supernatural. When the two decide to hold a seance in the empty building, they make contact, not only with the dead, but also with a tragic event from the school’s recent past. And then Amy mysteriously disappears.
As Vivian, you must navigate the now horribly altered hallways, searching for your friend and learning more about what happened here 30 years ago. Developer Cozy Game Pals understands that a night school is the perfect horror setting: this game is full of dark hallways full of lockers, disgusting bathrooms, and areas like gyms and swimming pools that take on a creepy atmosphere when they’re quiet and empty. As you explore, the game shows you the little telltale signs of horror conventions; a creaking door, a flickering light, a face glimpsed at the end of a hallway, so you know there’s something out there, watching. There’s also excellent use of ’90s technology (an overhead projector, a TV with a video player, an old PC) that provide puzzle scenarios, but also tell you that you’re not in the 21st century anymore.
Particularly nice are the formal nods to Resident Evil and Silent Hill: important elements of the environment shine for you to notice, and Vivian’s head turns to interesting artifacts as she passes by. The puzzles also use familiar conventions, often involving mechanical objects, whether they be power generators that require fuses or a piano that needs to play a certain tune. The use of vibrant low-poly visuals is exactly retro, but with an artistic, self-aware quality that elevates the look of the game beyond mere nostalgia.
This also applies to the narrative, which surpasses the sometimes silly plots and wooden voice acting of old-school horror titles. Fear the Spotlight is at its core a subtle and emotionally resonant queer love story, through which it explores themes of performance and observation. It’s a game about the roles we play in our lives and the role imagination plays (for better and worse) in love and desire. The focus of the title is literal and figurative, providing a metaphor for the human gaze, which can be adoring or intimidating, desirous or obsessive.
It’s a short game (you can finish it in several hours) and only presents a mild challenge, making it a great entry point into the young adult horror genre. There’s a nice message at the end thanking players for their time and attention and acknowledging that the game isn’t perfect. It’s not, but nothing is, and the time I’ve spent in its company has been fascinating, disturbing, and unexpectedly stimulating. Horror provides a bleak, skewed lens through which we can view our lives and learn new things about ourselves and the world, and it’s been used expertly here. With love as its focus, Fear the Spotlight will do more than scare you.
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