Among the Sleep

On your 2nd birthday, whilst your mother is feeding you birthday cake, there’s a knock on the door. You hear the start of an argument with a man, but the sound and visuals become distorted like there is a sinister force at play. When your mother comes back, she has a present from the visitor, and takes you to your room. Placed in a playpen, it seems that the Teddy that was in the box can walk and talk. At night, Teddy is whisked away by a force and your crib is overturned, leading you to search for him. You are then on a quest to find your mother and need to explore four creepy areas and locate some memories.

In the Museum mode, you can explore the concept art and cut content. Teddy was originally the main antagonist, but the team changed direction to focus on the family dynamic. He still seems a combination of sinister but somewhat comforting - at the same time. He doesn’t speak much in the main levels, but does quip lines telling you that you are not safe, and need to keep moving forward.

Since you are a toddler, you are low to the ground, and there is an intentionally limited depth of field which makes your eyes feel weird after a while. The movement is also strange because you can crawl fast, and have a slow walk. You can run, but will fall after several seconds.

You often have to climb onto small objects which means the camera is shaking around. I also found the baby’s breathing/grunts unsettling whilst he was doing this. Much of the horror is delivered through the music, ambience and sound effects, and that sound always made me think there was a threat nearby.

You often open cupboard draws to create stairs, or move objects such as chairs- in order to reach door handles to progress. In the final stage, you are introduced to throwing and need to throw a ball to knock down a couple of objects.

The only other gameplay element is to avoid monsters that appear in 2 levels, then if you play the bonus Prologue, there is one there too. You can sometimes see or hear when the monster is coming, but then there’s the distorted visuals/sound when it is too close. You need to scramble under a table or find a cupboard to avoid. The first is Hyda in the forest, a tall banshee that stomps and shrieks. The second is the Heap, a coat monster that is attracted to sound and will come when you smash the glass bottles scattered around the floor.

The level design is pretty linear, although there’s a few areas with branching paths but you need to visit each of them.

The game is played at night and features dark areas. You can cuddle Teddy to emit some light, but it doesn’t really produce much. It’s useful in a couple of areas though.

Aside from the darkness, although the game looks childish, it's not a game for kids due to these horror moments. The story is a bit underdeveloped but the idea is that his parent’s have gone through a divorce and these memories and perceptions are his interpretation of it. The Prologue was an extra addition, but it doesn't reveal too much. The main game lasts around 2.5 hours.

An ambitious idea terribly executed, Krillbite Studio released Among The Sleep to immerse players in the hyperactive imagination of a child lost in the dark of his home.
The gameplay is similar to Amnesia at first glance-- first person, explore strange and dark settings, solve puzzles, run and hide from monsters because you are bereft of a weapon. (Yet in Amnesia you held a lantern for light; in Among The Sleep you hug a teddy bear...of all things. The former was restricted to the player's stock of oil; here you can hug the bear for unlimited time.)
What is also different from Amnesia is that the camerawork didn't leave the player's belly nauseous and their head aching. In Among The Sleep the developers were so set on making the game "realistic" they designed your toddler-character's vision to bob with every step and flail with every climb. This sounds like no big deal on paper but if you've played through this you know just how much of this story involves climbing, walking, and more climbing.
Puzzles are insulting simple-- at least in Amnesia one had to be attentive to a few notes and narrations before completing some of the intellectual obstacles; here we have mostly just "find this and bring it there" complexity in levels that could last an hour; there are deviations from this sometimes, but these deviant "puzzles" last mere seconds. (IE One of the final levels where you learn to pick up and throw things to knock a bottle down).
The animation for 2014 standards is pitiful, though this can be excused given that a portion of Among The Sleep's funding was made via Kickstarter-- then again, I know I'm not the only one repulsed by the face of your character's mother. Maybe it's just the unusual space between her eyes, but aside from that, there is a critical flaw in the game if I find her discomforting when you can tell her presence in the story is meant to be playful and comforting (at least, for a time).
The vast majority of Among The Sleep's "horror" is nothing but jump-scares -- a horror trope that's been tasteless and tiring for years now. At least the tension builds up when you begin hiding and running from the game's antagonist (a monster inspired by the Japanese witch Yokai who morphed into a black being with long legs and spiky hair after drinking from a well), but because this is the only monster in the game, most of the atmosphere is too safe, slow and easy to be scary.
Only at the story's twist ending does the game start hinting at any redemptive ambition: the revelation that the monster was the ugly mother drunk and frustrated out of her mind, taking out her rage on your player-character, a sad infant.
Such a shame then that what built up to this was mostly boring exploration and puzzle-solving; ruined further by the pretentious expository dialogue of the creepy bear you hug, Teddy, whose vague lines desperately try to make you scared in every level: "Something's not right", "We're not safe here", etc...

A 2 hour horror game in which you play as a child. You have a companion bear which directs you what to do, but unfortunatly he literally treats you as a baby which gets annoying pretty fast. It makes it seem that the game was intended for children as its may audience, but who would allow a child to play any sort of horror game is beyond me.

It has a couple of jump scares, but the atmosphere is kinda weak and not very memorable. It is played in the first person perspective, and you essencially move the story forward by fetching determined items from each level. The levels dont have anything extra to them except those items, so its not even worth exploring.

Overal not scary at all, but i do like the ending twist of the story (reminds me of Papo Y Yo). Cant really recommend it though.