Team Horror: Labyrinthine and Phasmophobia

Recently my horror gaming crew and I got to check out Labyrinthine, and it was quite spooky! Labyrinthine is a short, early access game from Valko Game Studios with some great scares, and loads of potential!

Since the explosion of Kinetic Games' Phasmophobia last year, I have really enjoyed playing co-op horror games with friends online. I have always loved horror as a genre, but because of my jumpy nature playing horror games has always been a challenge for me. I think the antidote to this has been friends!

The asylum is the creepiest map in Phasmophobia. Brrr!

Last year, when we were all burrowed in our homes for the long dark winter my friend Michael suggested we try out Phasmophobia, the new and extremely popular ghost hunting game for teams of up to four. I was hooked instantly, and we would spend whole weekends playing, along with his boyfriend Tyler, and sometimes my wife, Maddie. Brave Maddie would don the VR headset, and fully immerse herself, while Tyler would tease us with quiet ghost songs, or his spooky child giggle. I still don't know if there is a creepy giggle in that game, or if it was Tyler every time.

I learned those maps inside and out (except the asylum, which I will never understand), and I still remember my first time in the prison, when it was brand new. I was so aware of every sound, and each new item, the first hunt we experienced there was truly scary. That was the amazing thing, the game was scary, I have jumped and screamed during matches many times, but it wasn't scary in a way that made me fail. When I jumped it was recoverable, or in the worst case I was killed by the ghost, and spent the rest of the match in a dead state, following my friends invisibly around the map, and throwing coffee cups at them to try and get their attention.

One of the sillier parts of Phasmophobia - weird VR glitching!

In Phasmophobia death is not a big deal, so while the game is scary, it also lets you get scared. There is a feeling of creeping dread in the game, that is effective in very different way from other types of horror. While there are jump scare elements to the game, they aren't the driving fear factor, instead letting your mind fill in the blanks. Could a ghost be in that room? Is there a demon nearby? Is a banshee tracking me right now? Any of these could be true, so even when the house seems perfectly calm, and ordinary, you know it could take a turn at any moment. You've seen it happen before.

In much the same way, I enjoyed playing Labyrinthine. The game generates a sense of dread very effectively. You start off with your group of up to four headed out to a work site, and a series of cryptic messages and clues send you deeper and deeper into an old maze. After a while you find yourself trapped, where you must solve puzzles and avoid the monsters that might be lurking nearby if you hope to survive.

Labyrinthine is really on point with their lighting here.

The game has low stakes if you are caught, you reset to the last spawn point, so you won't end up banging your head against the wall if you jump away from your keyboard at a critical moment. Reading over a recent post from the developers, it does look like the death mechanic will be adapted over time, changing to something with a limited number of "revives" for the team as a whole, but they have acknowledged that folks enjoy playing the way they are now, and plan to keep an option for folks like me, granting us unlimited lives for a low stress experience.

Like Phasmophobia the in game voice chat is proximity based, so when you wander away from your friends you will find yourself alone in a scary maze. If you try calling out you might hear each other through the walls of the maze, but you might attract something else to you as well...(I don't know how the monsters work! Are they attracted to sound? Who knows!) The proximity chat gives a really fun sense of space to the game, and while sure you could all log into Discord and keep in contact wherever you are, but then you would miss out on some of the more unique and memorable moments in the game. When Maddie and I were separated from the guys we were creeping through the maze quietly, learning how to avoid the monsters by standing still, and backing into the trees. Suddenly, Michael charged around the corner, a monster hot on his tail! We helped him hide, and survived the encounter, laughing over our fear, and entering the labyrinth together again.

Labyrinthine plays into the jump scares more than Phasmophobia does, and does fit the bill of a more traditional indie horror game, but I found that that didn't spoil the fun for me! In fact, I enjoyed the jump scares, because I was surrounded by friends who were jumping and laughing right along with me.

If you like horror as a genre, but like me you have struggled to play horror games due to jumpiness, grab a few friends and give one of these games a try! You might just surprise yourself.