LogFAQs > #928842899

72. Discomfort (14 points)
Nominated by: Ihatethiscpu (2/5 remaining)
https://mymadnessworks.itch.io/discomfort

Importance: 2
Fear: 5
Snake: 7

This guy sure makes some amazing games. What I think I love most about Discomfort is its startling mundanity. I kind of went in with expectations for this to be like imscared, but it's not really anything like that. The house you inhabit throughout the experience is just a house, in the real world, late at night just like any old typical day you could pick out of a hat. There's a bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, everything you would expect, it's all very unassuming, except for the one little detail of a dead body in the bedroom with some sort of satanic symbol drawn on the floor. The thing about this is that you just stumble upon it; there's no musical stinger, no reaction from your character (in fact, your character kind of seems to know what's up already), no scary thing that jumps out at you. Hell, you can barely even make it out because of the game's draw distance. It's weird and unsettling and gives you an odd pit in your stomach, and that's exactly what the game is going for. Going over to the computer, you can easily piece together what happened for yourself, as messages filled with occult readings, creep images (props for the Lake Mungo shout-out!), and those old cursed chain mails open up to you one-by-one. It's a great storytelling tool that once again plays into the mundanity, as you feel like this is something any old person could stumble upon and want to try for themselves to get a fun, quick scare for yourself. Yet, that dead body lingers in your mind, and all of a sudden you can feel something watching you at all times, the game's presentation making so that any step could lead you directly into something horrifying before you even realize it.

The game's weird control scheme where everything is done on keyboard (certainly atypical of first-person games), makes you feel as if you're not fully in control as well. As you go around the house collecting things to perform the ritual yourself, you will be scared at just how much nothing happens. It's such a breath of fresh air to play a game like this, where it seems like so many modern horror games feel the need to always have to throw something at you to make you engaged. The whole time I was expecting a jump scare or loud noise, conditioned and almost numbed to feel like this, but Discomfort really threw me off guard in a fantastic way. I won't discuss what happens in the end, you should play this for yourself (it's like a 5/10 minute play), but there are multiple endings and I'll just say the final scare definitely matches the game's tone superbly.
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I've decided to put my fears behind me. I'm not going back.
https://i.imgtc.ws/2Q88rI4.gif - https://i.gifer.com/E07R.gif