Bandai Namco and Little Nightmares III had quite the show at San Diego Comic-Con this year. In addition to a huge wrap along the Hilton Bayfront, they also had a nifty speakeasy and scavenger hunt at the Gaslmap that I heard was pretty cool. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to do that activation, but I did get to play the game for a little bit at their booth, and I wish I had more time to do so!
Here’s a confession: I haven’t played a Little Nightmares game, and now having tried this demo out, I really want to make time for the first two. If you’re lame like me and haven’t tried it Little Nightmares, from what I played it’s pretty much in the vein of other puzzle-platform horror games like Inside or Limbo. In fact, if you mistook them, it wouldn’t surprise me at all.
A bunch of significant factors sets the third entry apart from other games. The first of which is that it’s developed by Supermassive Games, which might be a reason for its rather lengthy development time seeing as how they’ve gone through layoffs twice in as many years. That aside, the game is also a standalone game, so no knowledge of the previous two is required. Lastly, and this is easily the most relevant for this preview, it features co-op play.
The game has two protagonists, but seeing as how this game is a demo, there really isn’t much to say about either’s goals or objectives. Despite being a co-op game, it seems like everything is playable in single player, as the team on the floor made no effort to pair me up with anybody else in line. All I could really gather from gameplay is that they’re just looking for a way out of their predicament, and once they do, they continue a rather morbid journey through a desert and more creepy buildings.
Not exactly the most pleasing sight when you’ve thought you made your escape.
It was probably accentuated among the hustle and bustle of being on the SDCC exhibitor’s hall, but the gameplay in the game is incredibly slow. Along with that, having not played the game before, I was a little confused by the game’s first-time user interface prompts. Seemingly right away, I was using the male character and came across a big gap that neither character can jump over. The game said I can equip a bow, but the objective wasn’t obvious. I’d do things like equip the bow and plunge to my death, or try to randomly shoot over the gap or even shoot back at the entrance to no avail. Eventually, the character aimed at a switch laid into the background, and that’s what unlocked a bridge to open the path forward. I’m not saying bright yellow paint was absolutely necessary, but seeing as how the demo was timed, I lost a lot of time there.
Other puzzles in the game are a little more self explanatory. There are things like carts and blocks your characters can push around to jump to higher ground and get to other paths. The problem is not knowing whether it’s your character’s responsibility to push or crank things, or your partner’s. The AI eventually figures it out, but this kind of thing stalls gameplay. I’m sure playing co-op would immediately solve that problem, but again, when you’re limited to a 10-15 minutes of gameplay, you need these things to happen faster.
All this said, I didn’t actually finish the demo. I just ran out of time. As I mentioned earlier though, I’m definitely interested in continuing the nightmare when the game comes out on October 10 for pretty much every platform.
Bandai Namco and Little Nightmares III had quite the show at San Diego Comic-Con this year. In addition to a huge wrap along the Hilton Bayfront, they also had a nifty speakeasy and scavenger hunt at the Gaslmap that I…
Bandai Namco and Little Nightmares III had quite the show at San Diego Comic-Con this year. In addition to a huge wrap along the Hilton Bayfront, they also had a nifty speakeasy and scavenger hunt at the Gaslmap that I heard was pretty cool. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to do that activation, but I did get to play the game for a little bit at their booth, and I wish I had more time to do so!
Here’s a confession: I haven’t played a Little Nightmares game, and now having tried this demo out, I really want to make time for the first two. If you’re lame like me and haven’t tried it Little Nightmares, from what I played it’s pretty much in the vein of other puzzle-platform horror games like Inside or Limbo. In fact, if you mistook them, it wouldn’t surprise me at all.
A bunch of significant factors sets the third entry apart from other games. The first of which is that it’s developed by Supermassive Games, which might be a reason for its rather lengthy development time seeing as how they’ve gone through layoffs twice in as many years. That aside, the game is also a standalone game, so no knowledge of the previous two is required. Lastly, and this is easily the most relevant for this preview, it features co-op play.
The game has two protagonists, but seeing as how this game is a demo, there really isn’t much to say about either’s goals or objectives. Despite being a co-op game, it seems like everything is playable in single player, as the team on the floor made no effort to pair me up with anybody else in line. All I could really gather from gameplay is that they’re just looking for a way out of their predicament, and once they do, they continue a rather morbid journey through a desert and more creepy buildings.
Not exactly the most pleasing sight when you’ve thought you made your escape.
It was probably accentuated among the hustle and bustle of being on the SDCC exhibitor’s hall, but the gameplay in the game is incredibly slow. Along with that, having not played the game before, I was a little confused by the game’s first-time user interface prompts. Seemingly right away, I was using the male character and came across a big gap that neither character can jump over. The game said I can equip a bow, but the objective wasn’t obvious. I’d do things like equip the bow and plunge to my death, or try to randomly shoot over the gap or even shoot back at the entrance to no avail. Eventually, the character aimed at a switch laid into the background, and that’s what unlocked a bridge to open the path forward. I’m not saying bright yellow paint was absolutely necessary, but seeing as how the demo was timed, I lost a lot of time there.
Other puzzles in the game are a little more self explanatory. There are things like carts and blocks your characters can push around to jump to higher ground and get to other paths. The problem is not knowing whether it’s your character’s responsibility to push or crank things, or your partner’s. The AI eventually figures it out, but this kind of thing stalls gameplay. I’m sure playing co-op would immediately solve that problem, but again, when you’re limited to a 10-15 minutes of gameplay, you need these things to happen faster.
All this said, I didn’t actually finish the demo. I just ran out of time. As I mentioned earlier though, I’m definitely interested in continuing the nightmare when the game comes out on October 10 for pretty much every platform.
by Danreb Victorio
