Things Too Ugly

I really wanted to like Things Too Ugly more than I did. The 1986 office setting is brilliant, and sitting at an old terminal decoding files, reading documents and slowly working out what is going on creates a really strong atmosphere at the start. It feels like it is setting you up for something much deeper and more unsettling. Unfortunately, it never really gets there. I expected the investigation to require more actual deduction, and for the psychological horror to build as you uncovered more of the story. Instead, most of it is just reading documents and piecing together a fairly familiar corporate horror conspiracy. There are some good ideas, but it never becomes as clever or as unsettling as the setup suggests it is going to be. The biggest issue for me is the ending. You spend the whole game investigating, decoding files and trying to understand what happened, only for the finale to basically come down to a simple binary choice. It makes all the work you have done beforehand feel a bit pointless. The ending is also really abrupt. After spending so much time slowly uncovering everything, I expected some kind of proper payoff or moment where what I had discovered actuall…

Things Too Ugly feels like an interactive short radio drama filled with puzzles and a bit of horror. While I've read some reviews complaining about not having a save system, I don't feel like it's needed. The game itself is about 2 hours long, but once you grasp the puzzle system it can be pretty quick. One suggestion for anyone starting out is to play with the radio. There's a few radio stations with great music for the game. I totally missed this until the end of my first playthrough which meant I didn't get to enjoy most of the music. Even during my second playthrough I didn't leave a lot of time to listen since I wasn't spending time scouring files for clues. Overall definitely worth picking up, especially if it's on sale!

I had a nice bit of fun with this game.

Interesting little short game - some of the files took me a bit to figure out but I may have been overthinking.

Fun short game. Puzzles are challenging, but not terribly so. Decent creep factor that won't put off people who aren't into to horror but enough to whet a horror fan's taste. Voice acting was a little off-putting but not terrible.

Cool short mystery game with hint of horror themes. The radio having different ost and radio jockey voices is a very nice touch of detail. Only downside I do wish you can shift between screens with mouse via clicking by the border or something. Due to being so honed into the docs I tend to forget to utilizes the GPS for some puzzles [this could just be a me issue tho]