I’ve seen the entirety of No one lives under the lighthouse played 2 years ago out of curiosity and while it seemed like a cute horror title, it wasn’t my cup of tea and some of the questionable late game moments made it so I wasn’t interested in playing it myself. Recently, however, I was reminded of the title and have discovered that since the release the title was updated to the Director’s cut, which almost entirely remade the second half of the title. It got me intrigued enough to give the title a chance and… well, it’s still kinda neat, but I can’t say that it’s much better than it originally was.
As it may be unclear from how the game looks like, it’s a first person perspective horror action adventure with emphasis on story and adventure aspect, but quite a few action segments as well. What you can clearly see from screenshots is that it’s following the trend of Playstation 1 inspired visuals with highly pixelated wobbly visuals optional dithering and low visibility tricks like fog, darkness and just super close render distances for bigger structures. However unlike the approach of David Szymanski, or similarly styled titles from Modus Interactive, or even something like Paratopic or Lost in Vivo the visual style of No one lives under the lighthouse is so over the top that I can’t help but feel that some people will be unable to properly play the game because their eyes will hurt. Sound mixing can also be all over the place making for a title that might be uncomfortable visually and audio-wise not in the good horror way.
That said, it does look cool when you can see things and it has a strong sense of style. Luckily also shared by the storytelling that nicely balances the dream-like atmosphere, madness and eldritch monster horrors. I have to say that it’s very nice to see more titles approaching distorted storytelling chronology via real-time interactive gameplay and not just cutscenes in a cinematic way. Abrupt jump cuts and other cinematic techniques that used to be unique to something like Thirty Flights of Loving used in a game that has more involved gameplay feels great and enhances the horror experience.
The main gameplay loop is rather okay. It’s mostly an on-rails experience with some occasional optional things to look at or do, but it’s done mostly well. And some of the ways how the game uses repetition and daily rituals to the advantage of horror are really nice. Although, there are also countless moments where you understand what you’re supposed to do but cannot either because the game is having a scripted moment that doesn’t start immediately or because the interaction point is so finnicky you have to dance around the spot to find it.
And the director’s cut new content? Well… Gameplay-wise it is a huge improvement, as the original title (still available for those owning the game) had a dreadful maze section near the end and afterwards a cool looking but very confusing and boring extended adventure sequence. While this time the gameplay segments are far better designed and we even get more involved action moments. That said, these moments aren’t particularly great either, feel counter-intuitive occasionally. And the changes to the story, while interesting, ultimately turn a rather simple creepy short tale into a far more complicated messy one that loses a bit of impact as a result of being longer and more complex. I suppose in trying to make the game less one-sidedly monster horror and adding more madness the developers accidentally unbalanced the story in the opposite way instead of finding something in the middle.
Overall, unless you find the title to be physically uncomfortable to play due to its visuals, it’s a neat short horror title that has a lot of really well thought out and delivered moments. It’s also more involved gameplay wise than many such horror titles that usually tend to be more like a story exploration title with just walking around and watching a story unfold. If you’re looking for something like this, definitely check it, especially on sale. Otherwise – yeah, it’s cute, but can’t say that you’re missing out much if you don’t play it.