Well worth a look

LOOK OUTSIDE
From: Francis Coulombe/Devolver
For: PC
★★★★+

REVIEWED BY MICHAEL ROBERTSON

Look Outside is a turn-based RPG survival horror game created in the ever beloved RPG Maker engine. You play as Sam, just your average unemployed guy living in an apartment building, waking up at home after a dream with a voice whispering to look outside.

Now, you could look outside, but I’m far more interested in that eyeball, peeking through a crack in the wall. The eye is the one whispering to you, but she seems to shake herself out of it and warns you that looking outside is very dangerous and you probably shouldn’t. Her name is Sybil and she explains that you have to survive for 15 days.

The game runs on an in-game time system, where basically every action you do will pass time. From playing video games, to exploring outside your apartment, you only have so much time per day. Passing time inside the apartment will give a chance for someone to knock at your door, and you can let them in or send them away. They can range from a pizza guy to a cleaver-wielding, hockey-mask-wearing maniac.

The main gameplay occurs when you leave the safety of your apartment. Outside is where you can find items and enemies. Enemies wander in a random pattern and when you venture too close they give chase, forcing you to fight or run away for a bit. Combat is a turn-based affair, but given enemies can be extremely dangerous or draining, choosing to run is often a better choice.

Look Outside draws from other survival horror games by being a resource management nightmare. Getting into fights will slowly but surely drain you of resources, and there are very few full restores in the game. You have your health and mana like other RPGs but you also have to worry about your money, food supplies, weapons and weapon durability, ammo, crafting materials and, most importantly, time. You also have hidden stats such as hygiene. Being smelly, for example, attracts monsters from further away.

The time system affects you outside your apartment as well. The longer you venture outside and look into new areas, the more time that passes, the more dangerous it gets, and the more bonus experience you gain when you return. Sybil will be available if you have gained enough experience from this, and she acts as the game’s save system. On each trip outside you could lose an hour or more if you die, making it a thrilling press-your-luck experience, especially as you explore the more dangerous parts of the apartment complex.

While the gameplay is excellent, it’s only half the fun. Look Outside is an incredible mystery horror story about trying to piece together what is really happening. The game doesn’t really hold your hand, instead placing little clues and visual storytelling to help you figure out puzzles and progress. You meet some fun and likeable characters, some of whom can join you and become party members.

There’s nothing that shows the horror aspect of the game quite as well as the art, which provides an amazing level of body horror.

The enemies you fight are rendered in an almost uncomfortable level of detail.

Teeth completely covering a person’s arm. Mounds of flesh and bone that used to be people. Someone in a cloak who is growing more and more faces, all of them whispering something different. What probably disturbed me the most was how a lot of people seem to be happy — joyously so — at their monstrous transformation.

I really appreciate that the game doesn’t jump-scare you, but instead allows the disturbing imagery and implications to weigh on you.

My main issue with the game was how difficult it was to regain health. This makes things tense, but can lead to some really brutal moments where you fight the wrong thing and limp away with basically no health. You then have to either get a ridiculous amount of food or waste time in the apartment sleeping to regain some health, which grinds the pace to a halt.

The difficulty of the game is daunting, but it has an easy mode, which adds autosaves and makes life far simpler.

Overall, I absolutely adored this game. Survival horror games have always been a fave and I think Look Outside has the potential to become a classic. Great story, great gameplay, punishing and, best of all, replayable.

It begs to be played and replayed in a hunt for new sprites, new dialogue, better and better paths, and the satisfaction of using your hard-won knowledge to master it. If you have the slightest interest in horror and don’t mind something that’s harder than it seems, I can wholeheartedly recommend this one.