Hello Ladies, Gentlemen and those of a non-binary nature, my name is Daibhi and this is the Gamerhub Community. To continue with our horror themes, Galadrius the Mighty and the rest of the staff here at the hub asked me to try a game that is widely considered to be one of the scariest games ever made: “Emily Wants To Play”. I’d seen people play this before, and even played a brief version of this game on PC back in 2015 with my old friend Joey, but that was so long ago, and I’m now older, wiser and easier to terrify than I was back then. So with the lights in my flat turned on and a strong constitution in my stomach prepared, this should be a doddle, right? Right?!

“Emily Wants To Play” first arrived to us on MacOS and Windows in December of 2015, with iOS, Android, PS4 and Xbox One launches hitting our digital stores in 2016. The grand finale of releases also happened in 2016, when this game got launched on the Oculus Rift. For clarity’s sake, I used the Xbox One X, which never lets me down performance-wise. The game and the concept were developed by an indie developer called Shawn Hitchcock and published through his company, Hitchcock Games. I have to say, upon researching this, I wasn’t particularly optimistic on the game’s quality, but I needn’t have worried. Digitally Downloaded, another site that reviews videogames, said that this game was “difficult to get invested in”, but during this review, I’ll explain why they’re both right and wrong.

So, the game starts with you, the protagonist. You’re a pizza delivery guy for Checker’s Pizza (an obvious Domino’s Pizza analogue), who finds themselves trapped in a creepy, dimly-lit house with a sinister set of dolls and a menacing presence only known as Emily. Between the hoursd of 11pm to 6am, you’re trapped in there and must do whatever it takes to survive and make it safely back out. This isn’t a walkthrough though, so I won’t ruin your experience. All I can say to help guide you is that the rough descriptions of your tasks are in the kitchen area. To tell you any more to get through this game would be to ruin the fun, and while this game is a learning curve, it’s also an edge-of-your-seat, nail-biting rollercoaster ride of tension and horror seldom matched in the genre. On the level of scale, this is Five Night’s At Freddy’s levels of jump scares and tension, and I’ll get to that shortly.

Let’s talk about atmosphere, because all the best horror games have this part nailed down sharpish. “Emily Wants To Play” is no exception to the rule, with badly lit areas making you nervous of every shadow. The sound design is some of the creepiest I’ve ever heard, creating a haunting, unnerving ambiance that keeps you on the edge and nervous throughout. I genuinely think this game might have been made and set out to hurt people on a psychological level, because it takes some classic innocent tropes and games from childhood. It twists those into menacing and deadly perversions capable of making even the most seasoned horror gamer scream in a way that not even Five Nights At Freddy’s could achieve. The visuals are equally both gritty and downright unsettling, with the creepy-as-fuck dolls and uneven and inconsistent room layout adding to the sense of foreboding. It’s truly magnificent that in a layout of an American bungalow, Shawn Hitchcock has pulled a “Stanley Kubrick” because just like The Overlook Hotel in The Shining, this bungalow’s layout is impossible.

Gameplay wise, this game is no slouch. In “Emily Wants To Play”, the gameplay is centred around surviving in the confusing mess of a house, and it really does test your nerves. The game introduces a variety of unsettling and downright creepy dolls, each with their own unique personalities, behaviours and mechanics. For example, there’s Kiki, who hides in the shadows and jump-scares you out of your pants when you least expect it. There’s Mr Tatters, who plays a game with you where you have to avoid eye contact in order to survive, and learning how to interact with each of these dolls is key to surviving the game, with each hour getting progressively harder to survive. The core mechanics involve exploring the house from top to bottom, solving the puzzles, exploring the lore, and surviving the encounters with the dolls, and Emily herself if you manage to get to that point. The game brings plenty of jump scares to the table and uses them extremely effectively. Half of this game’s appeal is trying to get this game completed, while expecting to be jump-scared every ten minutes or so. It’s a deeply unsettling game that keeps you on your toes with each playthrough.

While I’ll happily argue with you that this game is sensationally good at scaring you, this isn’t a game I can completely praise from top to bottom, however. There are drawbacks, and one of them is rather major. Firstly, this game can get frustrating to the point where you might want to crack out a walkthrough, as there ostensibly is no hints or tips provided in the game, apart from the notice in the kitchen area. As this game progresses, this game goes from challenging to extremely punishing rather quickly, too. This reduces the chances of gamers such as ourselves wanting to play through this game again, and creates a repetitiveness common to this genre, but disappointing for a game as well-kent (a Scots phrase meaning “well known”) as this one. Also, whilst there is lore to discover in this game, and a lot of this comes in the game’s epilogue once you complete it, there’s an obvious set up for a sequel that feels manufactured and so blunt, it might as well be hitting you over your head with your controller.

Overall, “Emily Wants To Play” is a game that delivers a genuinely scary experience for those playing and those watching alongside. This isn’t a game for the faint of heart, and the scares got me so well during my playthroughs that I thought I was having heart palpitations at one point. If you enjoy survival horror games that focus on atmosphere and deliver superb jump scares, then this game is definitely one for you. It might not be for you, however, if you don’t like difficult gameplay, steep difficulty curves or narratives that are much further in-depth. I’m personally grateful right now to be typing this, safely secure in the knowledge that this review is nearly over and I don’t have to play this game again. Not because it isn’t a good horror game (because it is), but after the jump scares wear off, this game will have you turning the air a shade of sapphire out of frustration. I’m not about that if I can help it.

3.8/5 Joysticks

For the Gamerhub Community, I’ve been Daibhi, and you are all legends.

Don’t deliver pizza to an empty house, whatever you do