Talking with the married couple making horror film juggernaut Blumhouse’s first published game, you almost immediately understand why they named their collaboration “Cozy Game Pals.” Crista Castro and Bryan Singh are both warm, friendly people beyond excited that attendees of Summer Game Fest 2024 played and liked Fear the Spotlight, a true throwback to mid-90s horror surging in popularity right now.
I got my hands on the game in a scheduled demo lasting roughly twenty minutes and came away feeling good not only about Cozy Game Pals’ sensibilities as developers but also about Blumhouse’s strategy as they move into the world of games.
Just Breathe
Fear the Spotlight puts you in the shoes of Vivian, a bookish, overachieving high schooler exploring her mischievous side at the insistence of rebel friend Amy. The demo had me sneaking around their school after hours, introducing me to breezy stealth mechanics and an expected (but appreciated) Use/Examine inventory system you know and probably love from survival horror classics of the past.
A deeper inspection of the inventory screen hints ever so slightly at a winking lightness underneath the low-poly horror trappings in the form of a lung-status indicator rather than a traditional health bar. You’ll be able to take hits of disposable inhalers during gameplay, which spoke to me on a fundamental level. Audio cues also clue you into Vivian’s condition, but it’s as of yet unclear about what part of gameplay actually affects your breathing status.
Amy wants to use the library’s spirit board (every library has one!) to commune with the dead but it’s behind lock and key, starting the demo’s first simple task of finding the key but wait the key is in another room but wait the keycard to get into that room is in another area, etc.
Everything I needed was actually within steps of the locked cabinet, but I took the opportunity to explore the stacks presumably before something wild happened and I was glad I did! In the back of the library was a plaque memorializing those lost in a fire that broke out in the school long ago. Their pleasant, blurry-textured faces did not stop me from beginning to ruminate on what was on the other side of Amy’s plans.
After fetching a keycard and then a physical key for the cabinet, I helped Amy set up the board by lighting two candles as only 1990s survival horror games allow: agonizingly slowly. There’s a hand cursor then there’s a new cursor icon then then the game asks you if you want to interact with the icon then the you open the menu then you choose an item then you use the item AND THEN you repeat the process for the second candle.
These interaction decisions are charming, but I was also left with the quiet hope that the team will err on the side of restraint when it comes to the full release. What happened next was expected but still eerie: the crumbling of reality around us, Amy disappearing, and Vivian left to explore the school through the looking glass.
I won’t spoil the nature of the demo’s climax, but it’s clear that the school fire is going to be a recurring theme in the full game.
Sound effects and nice lighting contrasts helped elevate the final section, while the subtle texture work did some heavy lifting in the vibes department when revisiting the memorial. The pleasant faces that once looked back at me were replaced with white-eyed, twisted visages that sent a little chill up my spine even though I was surrounded by thirty people.
The low-poly graphical work is immediately impressive but veers in a totally different direction than this year’s Crow Country (one of my favorites of 2024), which actually got closer to the pre-rendered look of Final Fantasy VII than something like Silent Hill. I love the opaque textures on Vivian’s glasses and how the VHS filter is implemented. There’s an additional polygon jiggle filter layered on top of the game that I actually did not enjoy as it made me kind of queazy after a while, but I’m happy to report you can turn that (and the VHS filter) down or completely off if you please.
Big Bet on Small Horror
Crista Castro noted in our brief post-demo conversation that she wants people who don’t think they like horror to play Fear the Spotlight as a kind of starter game in the genre. I can see why! Though I wouldn’t say the game is devoid of jumpscares like their website says, the demo I played was atmospheric and moody more than terrifying.
Vivian is in pursuit of something and is not the pursued, at least in what I played. I think with recent survival horror, the feeling that you’re being hunted is one of the most unnerving playing experiences in the overall genre. Unraveling a spooky mystery does feel like a good start for someone who doesn’t want to blast their way out of a haunted flesh hospital.
Still, Fear the Spotlight is a horror game being brought to a wider public by a horror label. Blumhouse Games’ first slate does call back to their ethos at the beginning of their film production arm – many small bets that add up to a big bet. The big bet is that players are craving more games that lean into horror as a jumping off point rather than a gameplay type.
Although we’re already in the midst of a low-poly horror renaissance, the connections and pathways afforded to a company like Blumhouse is a fascinating wrinkle. It helps that, if Fear the Spotlight is any indication, Blumhouse has good taste, which counts for a lot in games publishing.
Fear the Spotlight is out later this year for Steam, Switch, Xbox, & PlayStation. You can wishlist it now.
