WRITTEN REVIEW: Stranger (2022)

Written by Randalf

This article is a transcript from the video review of the game stranger, if you want to watch it instead, link will be at the bottom

At Horrify.world we’ve made it our mission to promote indie horror games the best way we can, because the more eyes we get on indie games, the more money they bring in, and the more talented creators they attract, and we need talented creators to breathe new life into the gaming industry, and especially when it comes to horror, which is unfortunately at the moment, a little dominated by the streamer screamers.

Stranger is part of a genre that I have begun calling short form horror games like Yakyosho which we looked at a couple of weeks ago. It’s the sophomore project by developer Will Codes, who has previous experience in VR, and that background makes a lot of sense when playing Stranger.

In the game, there is a serial killer loose in your neighborhood, and you have to keep them out of your house until your alarm clock goes off at 6 am because that’s apparently the serial killers bed time or something.

You’re armed with only 2 padlocks and a flash light, and you must walk from window to window and make sure that the serial killer isn’t trying to get in, and put a padlock on whatever window he’s trying to get through, and move them around as he moves around.

Before the serial killer had even showed up, the game had scared the piss out of me. It is a masterclass in executing what I called earned jumpscares.

As I was walking around the house and keeping an eye out for the killer, I was also keeping an ear out, and every lightning strike spooked me.

And every time the TV went off it spooked me.

And Everytime the boiler made a sound, it spooked me.

And so on and so on and so on. So by the time the killer did show up, he scared the absolute piss out of me, because I had wound myself up so much and frayed my nerves so much that he could get a scare from me, and games like these normally can’t do that.

But then the experience unfortunately started to fall apart.

The masterfully crafted atmosphere the game creates is a little less powerful the second time around, as it plays out exactly like it did the first time, and you need to wait exactly as many minutes as you did last time for the killer to show up, and he seems to show up from the same window every time at the same time during the night.

He's also supposed to move faster and faster as the night progresses, but in the version I played, he was either outside at a manageable distance or had me by my throat with no in between…

I genuinely couldn’t get through the first level no matter how many times I tried and no matter what I did… but I found an exploit…. And it’s a bit of an obvious one.

So I have not played Five Nights at Freddy’s, but apparently this game works like it.

When you spot the killer through the window, he will not move, like in that game.

To deter you from just locking eyes with him and running out the timer until it’s 6 am, your screen fades to black…. But that’s all it does.

The screen fading to black comes with no penalty, so you can just lock eyes with him, let the screen fade to black, and then let the timer run out…. Which I did, and that’s how I beat every level in the game, and I don’t know, something seems off.

The playtime for each level is very long given that you have to replay them over and over and over again because they require very precise timing and good memorization of what steps the killer will take to get in, and you end up seeing a lot of the same shit over and over and over again, and I don’t see how anyone can both beat and enjoy the game beyond the first level, which is a bit more manageable in terms of difficulty.

It's a shame, I can see this game being a good walking simulator that tells an interesting story about a man trying to keep an intruder out, and I can see the would be scathing commentary of the American law enforcement system and emergency response system, or lack there of…

But unfortunately it’s not that, each level ends with a short cut scene that doesn’t give any real plot about anything, and as of writing this, the Thursday chapter doesn’t have any cutscene, and the Friday chapter isn’t out yet.

But I guess it doesn’t have to be a thought-provoking commentary on the fall of American society or something like that. Because the game is a VR game, and it’s a Streamer Screamer. It’s either something you play for 5 minutes and then never touch again until you talk a friend into playing it, or it’s something you watch some neckbeard in a gamer chair play while he screams like a fucking idiot at the screen.

And I’m not the audience for that, I live in a house and I don’t have 5 roommates, my car isn’t older than me, my clothes don’t have drawings on them, and my chair… is just a regular office chair.

But I can see how this game can be of value to someone that isn’t me, someone that either is one of those screamer streamers, or likes watching them… And I think the game is available for free, and if you think it sounds cool… Go download it and play it and support the developer that way.

I’m off to play something else that’s more my speed…. Like some shitty walking simulator about being a depressed pregnant Russian grandmother who just committed murder or whatever the fuck it is that I’m playing these days.

From all of us here at horrify.world, take care and goodnight!

Review by Randalf

-Site founder and self proclaimed horror game historian