Oct 082025
A few days ago, I saw an article about a newly-released free horror game called The Night is Long, so I decided to check it out.
The Night is Long begins with a fairly stylized opening cutscene in which a man suffering from grief sees a woman in the road and follows her into a strange mansion.
The rest has a more standard graphical style, and you play in the first-person as you explore the mansion.
Exploration has a somewhat linear approach, as most parts of the mansion are locked until you follow the path the game wants you to follow. This was most noticeable in the second that gives you a series of keys, most right ahead of reaching the door each unlocked. There are a handful of puzzles, however, and I did spend a little while wandering around trying to figure out what I’d missed.
There is a sanity system, although it only affects the number of supernatural incidents you encounter. While nothing stood out too much, it has some nicely atmospheric creepy moments and a couple of well-timed jumpscares.
It describes itself as having Lovecraftian inspirations, but it felt more like general supernatural horror to me. I enjoyed the story’s gradual development through discovered notes, even if the plot itself didn’t stand out much.
The Night is Long is a short horror game that takes under an hour to finish, and while it might not do too much to stand out from the genre, for a free game it’s an enjoyable enough addition to this year’s October lineup.
Amnesia probably wasn’t the first game to have a sanity system but when I see one mentioned it’s the game I always think of. On October 16th Amnesia: The Bunker is going free on Epic Games.
I always think of Eternal Darkness, since the sanity system there was so inventive. And oh, that’s good to know. I’ll keep my eye out for that.
I didn’t remember Eternal Darkness having one. I’ll just have to play it again. Shame we’ll probably never seen an updated version since Silicon Knights is gone. Then again, Denis Dyack is working on Deadhaus Sontana so…maybe?
It’s a great one, because it messes with the player when the volume is low, like changing the volume or pretending to delete your save files.
I lost hope in getting a new one when Shadow of the Eternals went nowhere. All I hope for now is that Nintendo will someday port the original.
That’s evil but amazing, haha.
It is a shame about Shadow of the Eternals. I thought Eternal Darkness had a big following, it’s surprising they couldn’t get enough on Kickstarter for it.
I think the main reason it failed was because there were too many questionable points that made people worry it was shady or at the very least wouldn’t result in a good game being made.
I like those sort of pranks in that era of gaming. Reminds me of Psycho Mantis where he would read your memory card and do all kinds of stuff to mess with you.
I’d welcome a sequel or something that does stuff like that again.
Oh yeah, Psycho Mantis is right in line with the sort of stuff Eternal Darkness does.
Is it me or is “Lovecraftion inspiration” so watered down these days that it just means anything vaguely creepy or unexplainable, or explicity has Chtulhu in there, with almost nothing inbetween?
It does seem that way sometimes.
I do think that kind of adjective is sprinkled into things way too often nowadays when it’s just *extra* creepy I agree.
Of course something like Baldur’s Gate 3 can do it well, where it’s not necessary scary but unsettling and otherworldly.
‘Lovecraftian inspirations’ The magic key words!
So, for the sanity system here, is it just like Amnesia where you see visual hallucinations and audio or creepy imagery and stuff? I know you said supernatural incidents but sounds similar to Amnesia.
Yeah, pretty much, except in Amnesia sanity loss can be dangerous to you, while here it’s more for effect.
Ah right right. I guess I forgot you actually took damage in the Amnesia game from that.
But the effect of it is still neat!