Issue 20 | August 13,2012 | critic.co.nz

gAmEs
THE HORROR ... THE HORROR
Hide
Platform: Mac, PC | Developer: Andrew Shouldice
Hide opens with a spacebar-shaped
rectangle next to four typical directional
buttons. The spacebar is labelled as
allowing the player to “hide”, but really it’s an
utterly useless crouch button. Squatting slightly
closer to the freezing snow that makes up the
game’s environment does not fool the stalking,
blinking lights.
The game is part of a recent fad of free-to-play,
independently developed, very short horror
games. Hide, for example, claims to 10 minutes
40
maC / PC | Free & inDePently DevelOPeD
long. It isn’t. The labeled plaques you need to find
are easy to miss, nailed to one tree in a forest of
dozens. Finding them all is especially tedious
because you stumble along, panting heavily, at
the pace of someone who is utterly exhausted.
The aesthetic, at least, is evocative. The game
almost looks like television static, your vision
constantly blurred by single pixel snowflakes.
Buildings are vague shadows until you approach
them, at which point they loom out of the blizzard
revealing their true structure.
Games Editor | Toby Hills | gaming@critic.co.nz
It’s an interesting game that reveals nothing
explicit about its background story. Clues are
sporadically doled out to you in the form of the
writing on the plaques and the nature of the
lights that stalk you.
Is it scary? It could be. In the dark, alone, very
few games that disempower you aren’t. It’s a
noble game because the foes never jump out
at you unexpected. You can always sense them
edging slowly towards you.