Quick Review: Layers of Fear

Man, I didn’t know making art tortured people so much.

....do I actually want to see under the tarp...

A creation of Bloober Team SA, published by Aspyr and released on February 15th, 2016, Layers of Fear tells the story of an artist lost within the daedalus of his own mind. This perfectionist painter, in his search for inspiration in making his masterpiece, encounters scraps and scenes telling his story, what led to his predicament.

This is an environmental narrative title, so gameplay is fairly minimal; aside from walking around and seeing things happen around the character, you can often pick up items to observe them in more detail, interact with items you find (opening drawers, but also playing music boxes, etc.), and pick up papers to read them. And, as you explore, the details get clearer, although never enough to get a definitive answer as to what’s going on, leaving a lot to interpretation.

Okay. Before I turned my back, I swear this
painting was a peaceful scene in a prairie.

The game begins on a stormy evening, as the painter, in first-person view, explores his house that contains more booze than anything else of sustenance. He is being reminded of his current work, which has gone down the drain; among other things, he illustrated a version of Little Red Riding Hood… and his pictures turned to unsettling gore. Geez, was he making the art for the Brothers Grimm version? He seems unable to obtain a satisfying result with his newest work of art, which waits in the office, covered by a tarp. One look at it, and everything changes.

He steps out of his office and into a hall that wasn’t there before, to a room that also didn’t exist a minute ago. A lot of effects in this game utilize the technique of "behind the black", meaning that they happen outside of the first-person camera's field of vision while your attention is elsewhere. Another common trick is to disorient the player by changing where doors lead, as another example.

Or the clean room you left through a mirror
reveals itself to be completely thrashed.

As you approach the painting of a dog, the
happy barking stops... and is replaced by whines
and the crackling of a fire...

It’s unclear if all this is hallucinations fueled by the artist’s own mental issues or if there are genuine supernatural forces at play. And through this, we learn about the painter’s wife, her accident and passing, and the daughter he had with her. In the painter’s mental state spiraling out of control, paintings become Hellish. Rooms are clean one second and thrashed the next. Things move on their own as if they were haunted. And something seems to be patrolling the impossible halls of this ever-changing place… Will the painter ever complete his magnum opus?

Meh, they don't even have Dark Side of the
Moon in that household.

This is either gonna turn the picture into that of
a monster once my back is turned, or it will
do something else... or nothing and I am just
getting paranoid...

A genuine love for art can be felt through this game; beyond the set-up of the story, there are plenty of nods to classical art, especially the works of several other painters that pop up in the décor. The scares cannot actually hurt the player character, there is no life bar or Game Over screen, but they're still very effective nonetheless. Imagine: You open a door into a dead end. No door in front of you, no door either side. Turn around... The door you came in from has also disappeared. Another example: Look at a painting of a gentleman. Move to look at another painting. A windy whoosh later, the first painting now depicts a monster, the paint bleeding out of the frame. There are so many more examples, I cannot list them, but believe me – it’s effective.

Combine that with effective sound and lighting work, and you’ve got a state of constant disorientation. The changes are like the world pulling you deeper into that insanity, whether you want to or not. And since these effects rely on camera tricks, I can’t properly show them with still images.

Geez, I hope I won't have to clean that up.

WHAT THE FLYING FUCK-
Of all the freaky imagery in the game, who
would think the child's bedroom would house
the freakiest of the lot?

The environmental narrative means that there isn’t much to the gameplay, but each chapter tends to contain a basic puzzle to solve – in one, you work a gramophone; in another, you find the missing pieces of a checker game; in another, you wind up the daughter’s music box. Don't be fooled; that last one is the creepiest of the lot. While there is some voice acting whenever you reach a plot-relevant object, detailing more of the Artist’s life, a lot of it is also delivered through the objects you inspect and the scenes put in front of you. A highly effective sequence involves the Daughter’s drawings on the walls evolving to show her growing disillusionment towards her dad, as an example. Finally, there’s a collection side-quest that involves finding mementos of the family, and there are three different endings to the story. In short, the Painter clinging on to his past keeps his mind a little saner.

A genuinely fantastic game, and one that ranks among the best visual experiences I’ve had all year. A definite recommendation. Look this game up, it’s worth it. You might also enjoy the game’s DLC, Inheritance, which takes place a few decades later and features the Daughter. It also has special events around Halloween. Layers of Fear is available on Steam for 21.99$.