The final instalment of the Deep Sleep series opens with the character lying in bed, when someone or something enters the room. You can try clicking it but nothing helpful will happen, you can’t move or do anything to stop it. Everything just goes black, so some grade A fear material right there. Anyway, when you come too you’re in an empty room with a door….and so begins…Deepest Sleep.
I mentioned in a review of one of the previous games in the series, which you can check out here that the graphics at different times make or break this game, but Deepest Sleep is a true return to form, the heavy corridors don’t seem badly rendered but rather like they are closing in on you which helps to set the mood perfectly.
And also like the last game this uses notes the player finds to build the lore of the world around them. Despite it being a direct form of exposition it really doesn’t feel like you as a player are being spoon fed the back story but instead it feels like you are gathering it yourself piece by piece. It makes you a different influence on whether you are part of the story because it’s up to you whether you find things.
With the previous games it felt like you stumbled into this strange dream world and at times things felt real, felt like they were happening, it felt like a dream because rarely while dreaming are you aware enough to question the reality around you. This one shifts tones a little, right about the time you see all the macabre skulls and Gothic statues which don’t fit quite as well, but do bring a certain level of terror to the proceedings.
However despite the shift in tone things suddenly do get far more surreal and sinister, the puzzles are deceptively simple, you feel like you’re being led somewhere, and the game builds this false sense of security, so that something can tear it away from you? Deepest Sleep is easily the equal of the original game in terms of fear. The most impressive thing is that it turns what could have been the most boring or tedious part of the game, just going between rooms and swapping items till a door unlocks, into something suspenseful. And more importantly you can die during this section if you take too long, but it doesn’t even use that to build a false sense of suspense because you have more than enough time, I only really died because I was writing notes for the review. Instead it uses simple things like sounds and visuals to lead you through and keep you gripped.
Speaking of visuals at some point you’ll come across a clown hanging from the ceiling, it’s a little overstated compared to what I’ve come to expect from the game but despite being a bit graphic it compliments the darker and less subtle route this final game takes.
Something else that’s different is that you meet an antagonist before the end of the game, it stops you in your tracks and you really need to work to get past it. It was quite intimidating, although personally I’m more afraid of the shadow people than a giant chomping mouth filled with massive sharp teeth, sure the mouth presents an actual threat but you can’t kill a shadow…well apparently you can with light but I still think the looming, silent shadow people are far more terror inspiring.
So all in all, Deepest Sleep is a spooky game and a more than satisfactory end to a great series. It’s short but not too short and without ruining things, other than to expect a big surprise, it has a twist that flips the whole story on its head. So with that mind I give this game a 9/10 and thank indie developer Scriptwelder for creating the series. If you want to check the game out for yourself then head on over to armour games by clicking this link.
First Published on: https://offtherecordblog.org/
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