We’ve got another free horror game to discuss today, this time an adventure game called Elevator Hitch.
It’s your first day of work, but when you get into the elevator with one of your new co-workers, it gets stuck before you can reach your destination.
What follows is a highly surreal and often unsettling horror experience.
It’s a point-and-click adventure game, although the controls are a little unusual, using a combination of keys and the mouse. (I also spent several minutes at the start trying to figure out how to move the camera up and down, since the instructions said to use the Fn key and I thought my keyboard didn’t have one. It turns out it does, but anyway, PgUp and PgDn also work.)
The first thing I discovered once I figured out the controls was that I could call for help with the elevator. They said help would arrive, and a countdown appeared. Curious, I let the countdown run out, at which point help arrived… and killed me. Game over within minutes of starting. I then clicked “New Game” and found myself already in the elevator, with the protagonist struggling to come to grips with the memory of dying.
That sets the tone for Elevator Hitch. There are numerous ways to die, each of which counts as a separate ending, but anything you’ve picked up or unlocked before your death stays with you when you start again.
Beyond that unique approach, the gameplay is standard enough for an adventure game. As you check each floor the elevator can reach, you’ll encounter puzzles to solve and obstacles to overcome. Little by little, you uncover more secrets of this definitely-100%-normal elevator and office building.
Elevator Hitch only takes about an hour to complete, but it’s a surreal and inventive horror game well worth experiencing.
