Antumbra

Rate it

A surreal nightmare in sepia, made from its maker's own fears.

Platforms: Browser
Price: Free
Rated: 4.00 out of 5 from 684 votes on Newgrounds, with about 244,000 views and 796 favourites; front-paged in March 2015
Players: 1
Controls: Mouse: click on the scenes and on the numbered text choices
Made by: Vilehead
Released: 2015

What frightens In its maker's words, a creepy, scary, very hard horror game built from his own nightmares, fears, anger, sorrow and misery, after Darkseed, Silent Hill, Hellraiser, Event Horizon, Shivers and Lovecraft: a surreal dream of rotting forests, a cottage and corridors of doors, strange beings, sudden deaths and a monster in a dungeon.
Content: violence, blood, sexual references, death.

Antumbra is a free surreal horror point-and-click game by Vilehead, played in the browser on Newgrounds. You wander a rotting dream world of forests, a cottage and endless corridors, answer strange beings, solve hard puzzles and die often, with no saves to fall back on.

About Antumbra

Antumbra is a browser game by Vilehead, released on Newgrounds in March 2015 and front-paged there, with music by DroneLocker. Its maker calls it a very odd game, creepy, scary and incredibly hard, and says you should expect to die dozens of times. He names Darkseed, Silent Hill, Hellraiser, Event Horizon, Shivers and Lovecraft as inspirations, and says he made it mostly for himself during a hard time: he took his nightmares, fears, anger, sorrow and misery and turned them into a game. It was his first finished game, made alone.

The world is a set of still scenes in sepia, built from photographs and drawings: a dark forest, a cottage in the trees, a station, a corridor lined with dozens of doors, a beach. Each scene comes with a short text that tells you what you see, and you play by clicking on the scene and choosing among numbered answers when something speaks to you. Players remember a dungeon monster, a creepy figure by the cottage, a retired tooth fairy and a being that talks of a personal hell.

It is hard on purpose. There is no inventory and no saving; a wrong move can kill you, and players say a death sends them back to the beginning. Many reviewers admit they needed a guide for the hallway, the swamp or the fire, and about two dozen secret medals reward a thorough search. The writing can turn sarcastic and crude between the frightening moments.

It suits players who like old adventure games that punish mistakes, and horror that is strange and personal more than loud. Vilehead later announced a sequel, Antumbra: Vile Shards, on Steam.

How to play Antumbra

Open the game's Newgrounds page and press Play Game; it runs in the browser without Flash.
Read the short text that describes each scene.
Click on the scene to look at things and move on, and click a numbered answer when you are given a choice.
Solve each place's puzzle to go further; a wrong move can kill you.
Start again after a death and use what you learned to get past it.

Tips

Expect to die often, as the maker says: there is no save, so note what killed you.
Not everything is chosen from the text; players say they were stuck until they started clicking the scenes themselves.
Play with sound: players single out its sounds and music as much of the atmosphere.
If you only want to see it through, players say a guide helped them past the hallway, the swamp and the fire.