Creepy Tale (2020) [Switch]

“You’re lost, you’re angry in the woods, and no one is here to help you.”

-Joshua Leonard, The Blair Witch Project (1999)

The descriptively titled Creepy Tale is the latest game from indie developer Deqaf Studio and publisher No Gravity Games and follows the story of a young boy in search of his brother. The game opens up as the two boys are collecting mushrooms in the eerie forest when one of them is suddenly kidnapped by a horrifying creature.

Creepy Tale is a 2D side-scrolling adventure that features light platforming and puzzles with rather obscure solutions. Half of the puzzles involve finding random items throughout the level and figuring out how or where to use them in order to proceed to the next screen. This task can be both frustrating and rewarding. For most of these puzzles, it’s not immediately apparent what must be done, so I was often left pressing the Y button repeatedly in every inch of the room to either pick up an item I haven’t yet or use one in my inventory. The other half of the puzzles involve using environmental hints to figure out what to do, these are the ones that were the most enjoyable to solve.

There is a hint system you could enable in the settings, though the only thing it does is point out items that can be picked up or things that can be interacted with. This is handy for finding items that you wouldn’t even know could be picked up. For example, there is one specific branch that needs be picked up in a particular level that I wouldn’t even have found had I not been spamming the Y button. I played through the whole game without this hint system thinking it would make the game too easy. It does not, however, offer any hints towards actually solving the puzzles so expect to struggle a bit.

Creepy Tale features hand-drawn art that is both charming and unnerving. The drab environments and eerie atmosphere do a good job of making the player feel uneasy. However, the fact that there are checkpoints often, and the game puts you right back in the action quickly after dying, greatly reduced the sense of danger that I felt in the beginning. This is not necessarily a bad thing since there were a few segments where I found myself dying often.

The 8-Bit Review

Visuals: 7/10

The beautiful hand-drawn art looks great but it is lightly hindered by some of the animations, which I found were a bit lacking. This was created by a very small indie team so it’s forgivable. The creature designs are excellent as they’re not exactly ‘scary’ but they are creepy enough to make you feel uncomfortable around them. Creepy Tale also features a surprising amount of blood and some gruesome scenes that I did not expect. The fact that these scenes involve children made them even more jarring, despite still maintaining its T rating.

Audio: 9/10

There’s not much music to be heard here. In fact, when you’re outside walking around the forest all you’ll mostly get is environmental sounds and your own footsteps. Then tidbits of music or other instrumental cues will suddenly appear at pivotal moments. This works to its benefit as it does a good job of immersing the player in the somber atmosphere through sound. While you’re indoors is when you get music that fits the gloomy mood of the adventure.

Gameplay: 6/10

The controls feel a bit floaty, but once I got used to the odd jump everything felt great. Like I previously stated, half of the puzzles are fun to figure out but the other half are too abstruse. There’s even a few that I had no idea what the solution was even after I solved it. But there was a point in the game where I was actually really enjoying solving the puzzles. Unfortunately, that’s when the game came to an end, which brings me to my next topic…

Replayability: 3/10

This is a very short game. I put about 2 hours into this game, including a chapter that I replayed just to see if there was something different I could do with a certain puzzle (the answer was no). After you finish it, there’s not really any reason to go back. After knowing the solutions to all the puzzles, the game becomes beatable in around 30 mins. I’ll leave it up to you if you think the price is worth the admission.

Accessibility: 5/10

If you’re having trouble figuring out what can be picked up in the environment, I would recommend turning on the hints. However, if you need help figuring out what to do next, don’t expect the game to help you much. There are few environmental clues to be found but for the most part you’re pretty much on your own.

Challenge: 8/10

Creepy Tale is at its best when the puzzles are tough but are able to be solved using logic. I just wish that all of the puzzles were on the same level. That being said, I do appreciate the variety they tried to apply from screen to screen. I think that it just needs a better hint system if the player spends just a little too long on a single puzzle.

Uniqueness: 9/10

There are quite a few 2D puzzle adventures on the market but Creepy Tale does a solid job of setting itself apart with the hand-drawn art style that adds both charm and dread to the scenes and monsters. If you’re into these types of games, I believe there are enough unique elements here

Personal: 7/10

Although I had my share of frustrations with Creepy Tale, I still found enjoyed my playthrough. I hope that they choose to make a sequel or similarly styled game where they are able to further flesh out these ideas to create a more complete experience. The art kept me interested, the puzzles challenged me and the audio immersed me into the creepy forest. Unfortunately, I felt that the ending wasn’t fulfilling and it’s a shame it was over so soon. Still, if the price doesn’t sounds right to you it is still worth a look.

Aggregated Score: 6.8

Kalas, aspiring content creator (but failing horribly at it) has found a wonderful community of friends to share his love of games through Twitch, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube.