Name: Forgotten Water's Silent Voice

Developer: CrazyBabi

Story: When Alice was a child, her twin sister, Ellis, drowns. But nobody except Alice remembers Ellis. Coming back to that place, she sees Ellis's ghost fleeing into the woods. Intent on pursuing, Alice gets her smartwatch and flashlight from the car. Finding her way into an old building that wasn't there before, Alice finds herself a prisoner in a decrepit maze filled with cryptic puzzles and ruled by a creature that will brutally kill her if it finds her.



Atmosphere and Writing: So much is achieved with so little. In only a few lines, we've learned Alice and Ellis's relationship, the struggle Alice has faced since her death, and we've learned what Alice wants to achieve. Next, the atmosphere is magnificently established, but so much of gameplay goes into that. The mystery presented by the spirits, the oppressive environment, and the menace come together beautifully. This may be the only non-gimmicky horror game on RMN that I actually, genuinely like, and it really scares the crap out of you!

Gameplay: This game succeeds where most other horror games fail. So, this dips a little into graphics, but the one thing horror games do in RPG Maker that I absolutely hate is dim the overall lighting of the scene, straining your eyes. This game doesn't! If you look at the screencap, there is a dimming effect, but it's very minor and it's only there to create a sense of there being a light source, in the middle. The dimming is very faint and barely affects the light levels. No! When the light is just off where there are no lamps and the flashlight isn't looking, and when the flashlight is out, the only illumination are in the tiles immediately surrounding the protagonist. This game doesn't stab you in the eyes with its lighting effects and manages to do a far better job scaring you than the ten dozen RM games trying to pretend they have Silent Hill lighting effects.

When there are no lamps, you have to rely on your flashlight, which takes batteries. For some reason, there are fresh batteries scattered all over this place so it won't be TOO much of a problem, but the real issue is, there is a creature stalking you and you won't be able to see it without the flashlight, and the flashlight doesn't illuminate enough when it's working, and this effect on gameplay is perfect. You can barely see where it's coming from, and you can barely see where it's going, and you have to remember where the last hiding place you could use was, and the whole situation is very stressful.

Then, when you're not dealing with the creature, you are dealing with some really challenging puzzles, many of which have to be constantly be reset by leaving the room and coming back because you keep messing up, and you don't have all the light you'd like for them, and every time you have to leave is another opportunity to trigger that creature spotting you. What's really great is that that creature won't necessarily spot you. If you can spot it first and hide your flashlight in time, it can completely miss you, which I managed to pull off a couple of times.

There are wardrobes you can flee to and hide in to evade the creature's wrath, but as I said above, you have to remember where they were, and if you take a wrong turn, you get to bear witness to the creature murdering you horribly...although it lacks a gory animation for the sprite. This game manages to achieve a constant level of stress and fear and the developer makes it look easy.

Graphics: Graphics are a mix of several styles, though the developer manages to match them pretty well. At least, while playing, I thought it was all RTP and then I saw tiles that looked RTP but definitely weren't. The car and character sprites are a different style, but I like the taller sprites anyway.

Music and Sound: Used to fantastic effect. It adds tremendously to the atmosphere. I thought the noisy footsteps would start to annoy me but they didn't. They actually added to the atmosphere of the game very nicely. You're really afraid the creature is going to hear you.

Conclusion: Yes! 100 percent! Play this game! This game actually manages to pull atmospheric horror off in RPG Maker! That, in and of itself, is an achievement! I don't know if this is a masterpiece, but it's definitely a fine template for any developer who wants an example of good horror and how to do it right.