Ayda

In Ayda, you play as an unnamed woman who wakes up at night and begins exploring her house. When you do, you start discovering bits and pieces of info that give you information as to what is going on, and to who the titular Ayda is. The game is very short. 10 minutes are more than enough to finish the game. The house you can explore is not very big and you can traverse all of the rooms in 3 minutes, provided all rooms are unlocked.

The game is classified as horror, but I feel inclined to say it's more suspense than horror, as there may be perhaps only one or two instances where the game tries to startle the player. What it does instead of horrifying is create an unsettling atmosphere, something has obviously gone wrong and things are eerie and weird. The player character often mentions something about an infection, which could be hinting that the game is set in a zombie apocalypse scenario of some sort.



Soon, you'll find yourself involved in a moral dilemma that you might have seen before in any other media that deals with zombie apocalypses, you might find the dilemma a bit cliche'd if you are used to this kind of material and know a few or all of the tropes usually involved.

There are three possible ways of ending the game, although how you end the game matters little as all three of them end suddenly with a "THE END" screen and no closure, no ending is explored or offers any kind of true ending or resolution to the story (if there is one). However, what little there is kind of helps leave you with an ok aftertaste in your mouth. Considering the lenght of the game, you can get all three endings in under 10 minutes once you know where the things that advance the story are and what you need to do with certain items in order to proceed. It is by no means challenging though, so there is no need to worry for the kind of pressure found in other rpg horror games, you can take things easy here.

The artwork is crispy and different from the RTP, it really makes the house look distinct and there's little repetition from room to room. The audio is a couple of tracks of calming ambience music and unsettling music box themes. There's a couple of sound effects to add little touches here and there although there's not much variety, it seems that fortunately, the developer added only what was needed.

You can save at any point. There are no ways of losing the game, as there are no battles, no health, and barely even a menu, so you can relax and play this game that is more an experience than a game.

All in all, this game is not worth downloading with the RTP included, as you'll probably spend more time waiting for the download to finish than beating the actual game. If you've already installed the RTP because you're playing other games, then go for it and play it. You won't find much of a plot, character development, or action, but for being a first submission it is definitely a step above the average first publication and worthy of a checkout, however brief it is.

Score: 3