![]() ![]() The puzzles are elementary, giving no challenge to the players at all. When it comes to gameplay, Gylt is a run-of-the mill stealth action game. There’s no motivation to push me to want to find out the small details. You can go around collecting journals, birds, and whatnot, but what’s the point? I won’t collect things in a game if I don’t feel connected to the world in some way. There is no context, exposition, or anything like that. It’s like starting 1/4th through a book and ending at the halfway point. We don’t know anything about the main character or Emily. There’s even a creepy old guy that we never find out what his purpose is or why he’s even present. In the four hours it takes to complete the game, there is zero world-building. Gylt’s short length means there’s pretty much no story or character to capture your interest or care about. You slowly get introduced to new gameplay mechanics and fight a couple of bosses. You play as a little girl trying to save her cousin Emily from monsters in a strange town, and you don’t know where you are on top of all this. But there are other entries in the genre that accomplish more with less, and it makes GYLT - a perfectly functional and overall effective game - pale in comparison.Gylt, a Stadia (RIP) exclusive upon release, is a stealth game in a similar vein to Alan Wake. As it stands, it's a welcome introduction to younger players interested in the horror/survival genre, with an affecting story and a good sense of atmosphere. There's nothing necessarily actively wrong with GYLT, but it lacks the depth that could elevate it to something special. But across the board, there's a somewhat shallow feeling to everything that detracts from the finished product. The soundtrack and the family-friendly horror visuals do a lot of stylistic heavy lifting while players sneak their way through tricky situations. GYLT clearly has something it wants to say about isolation, bullying, and more than anything the guilt that can be felt in surviving - or avoiding - either. The gameplay itself can sometimes fall into that old adventure game trick of just being just broad enough to justify a strategy of just walking in circles and pressing everything the player can get their hands on. The game handles well enough, and the world itself is intuitive enough to keep the players advancing at a decent clip. It's ultimately a somewhat basic survival story, with players given tasks, stealth missions, and environmental puzzles that must be solved to advance the plot. There's a little genuine challenge in GYLT outside of the inherent tension of exploration in a horror game, and this ends up leaving it less frightening and memorable as a result. However, the game's focus on not being too disturbing or difficult ends up undercutting itself, as the challenges aren't that hard, and outright outrunning threats when exposed remains a viable option for much of the game. It's reminiscent of the combat in something like Silent Hill, where the characters' failings come across as a deliberate design choice to reinforce the tension of encounters. It fits within the game's already-established mechanics of exploring darkened hallways with nothing but a flashlight for protection and is a clever way to avoid some of the more questionable aspects of providing a young girl with a lethal weapon. ![]() Although they're dangerous enough to offer a real threat to Sally, players eventually find ways to use her flashlight and fire extinguishers as weapons to overwhelm and even destroy them. The game's neatest tweaks on the mechanics come with the ways players can combat the creatures. The monsters themselves aren't too frightening or grisly, but they add to the game's overall atmosphere of child-friendly horror. Gylt's gameplay is fairly straightforward horror survival, tasking players with exploring dangerous areas and avoiding enemies. The plot is fine enough, if a little underbaked to accommodate the younger players whom the game was clearly designed for. It's effectively a Silent Hill-style adventure for younger audiences, exposing the main character's lingering dark history with a desperate attempt to survive a spooky scenario. The slightly cartoonish art style helps to underscore its youthful perspective. ![]() Sally and Emily's relationship slowly unfolds across the game, revealing a surprisingly heartfelt and somber adolescent story. ![]() From a storytelling perspective, the short but to-the-point GYLT is mainly focused on its titular emotion and the impact it has on its central character. ![]()
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