ARAYA

Araya is a game made by a rather exotic studio from Malaysia, which caught my attention. I expected something original in terms of the story and was ready to overlook the shortcomings typical of games made by small independent developers. Unfortunately, the game was rather disappointing. What we get is a typical "walking simulator", offering virtually no interaction apart from collecting a few items that have to be used somewhere else. The story isn't anything special either — we get, as in pretty much every Asian horror, the ghost of a young girl who died and is now seeking revenge. The game takes place over a single night in an abandoned hospital, which is visited by several people for different reasons, and their stories are intertwined in a way. But everything is presented so enigmatically (another common problem with many similar games) that I had to look up the Wikipedia entry just to make some sense of it all. I did make it to the end — although I was driven more by the desire to finish the game than by any actual interest in it. Fortunately, the game isn't long, runs relatively well without any major bugs, and its aesthetics are very loosely reminiscent of the fantastic …

I was optimistic about this game, and I think they've blown those hopes out of the water - sure, some of the scares are simple, but those scares are more effective for it. The creators have a good sense of tension, and while I'm not yet an hour into the game I've had to stop and exit out twice to calm down.

I don't want to criticize the game because criticism is not permissible in Islam, but I have a few simple observations. First, the price is very expensive and exaggerated, and second, the events in the story honestly need better ideas than this. Thank you.

thumb up

I haven't played this much but I feel like that's more because every time I go to play it, it's late at night and I'm not about to purposefully scare the life out of myself at 2am. Okay maybe I would but the build up in the game is intense

Super Spoopy Game! Very good!