The Stairwell (2025)

Very fun anomaly hunting game. At normal mode, it was just the right amount of spooky, interesting, while keeping me guessing. You can tell love went into the design.

[h1]Is "Anomaly game" a genre now?[/h1] Before [i]FPS[/i] established itself fully as a genre, earlier first person shooters were referred to as "Doom clones". In the same sense, I guess that [i]The Stairwell[/i] is an "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2653790/The_Exit_8/]Exit 8[/url] clone" or part of a broader emergent genre of "Anomaly games", essentially a form of high-stakes spot the difference. To directly compare to another game in the genre, I recently also played [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2911820/The_Stairway_7__Anomaly_Hunt_Loop_Horror_Game/][i]The Stairway 7[/i][/url] another title which wears its inspiration on its sleeve. [table] [tr] [th]The Stairwell[/th] [th]The Stairway 7[/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]GPU intensive[/td] [td]Less GPU intensive[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Randomized anomalies[/td] [td]Fixed anomalies[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Surreal setting[/td] [td]More grounded setting[/td] [/tr] [/table] Both deliver roughly the same product, albeit with minor differences in the way they present their environments. The randomized anomalies in this game definitely edge …

(For disclosure, I helped playtest during early development. Most of my play hours are not represented here since they were on betas.) You're in a museum with an arrangement of strange pieces. It seems to go on up forever into the foggy distance. The base floor is always the same and each successive floor is the same as the previous... or is it? Reportedly this one is inspired by the "Exit 8" game that inspired the "anomaly detection" genre, though I never played it. In this one you need to identify anomalies, which are subtle or obvious changes in the items on the floor. You go upstairs if you think nothing has changed and downstairs if something is "off". If you're right, you get a positive "ding" and the floor number goes up (... even if you went downstairs), else you get an error buzzer and the next floor number can be reset to a lower one in punishment. (And the anomalies change again!) You can take the opportunity to review the floor if you made an error, to double-check to see what you may have missed, though this will not help your score. You win when you get to the top. There are a lot of interesting anomalies to find (the store page screenshots give most of …

I am a BIG fan of horror anomaly games. But picky at the same time. Most of the time its always the same. But then there are a few that can do it right. The fact that its always bright light setting also makes it stand out to me. It doesn't always have to be a horror like setting for it to work. This was really well done. and i plan on going through it again and seeing what others i have yet to experience. great game!

I had a good time with this one and so far one of my favourite anomaly games. The anomalies were creative and I liked how the game kept making me question whether something had actually changed or if I was just going crazy. The difficulty curve was also decent. Normal mode felt like a good introduction, while Nightmare mode made things much more tense and changes harder to spot. It gave me a good reason to keep playing and pay attention to every little detail. Also, huge bonus points for the aquarium. I am a big fan. As a SharkGirl, I fully approve. 🦈 Overall, The Stairwell is a fun, atmospheric, and enjoyable anomaly game. Definitely worth checking out if you like games like this! [spoiler] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NJBLUhHXzk [/spoiler] starts at 1:30:00 yurifinya ♡

Highly recommend. few jump scares that got me lol and defiantly has replay value.