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Being Her Darkest Friend: Selina stands on a rock ledge in the dark as a grey figure with red eyes sits above her, with the line 'Tomoko?!'

Psychological horrorHorror puzzleShort horrorPS1 horror

Being Her Darkest Friend

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An art student wakes inside her own nightmare and has to find a way out.

Platforms
Browser, PC, Mac, Linux
Price
Free
Rated
About 85,000 page views and 843 followers on Game Jolt (Game Jolt shows no ratings now); 3rd of 89 at AdventureJam 2015; 4.2 of 5 in the JayIsGames review
Length
about 40 minutes (the makers' figure)
Players
1
Controls
Mouse only: left click to walk, look and talk, and drag an item from your inventory onto a person or object to use it.
Made by
chronerion interactive
Released
2015
Visit the game's site

What frightens Selina, an art student, falls into one of her nightmares: a dark, surreal world in grey where figures from her waking life return with red eyes and staring faces. The makers promise an unsettling, mature story and a dense nightmarish atmosphere, and JayIsGames calls it much more unsettling and creepy than the first part.

Content: sexual assault (themes, from the first part), suicide themes.

A free pixel-art point-and-click horror game by chronerion interactive, the second part of the Fragments of Being Her Demise trilogy. Selina is trapped in one of her nightmares, a grey world where people from her life return as something else, and she has to solve its puzzles to wake up. It plays in the browser on Game Jolt and takes about 40 minutes.

About Being Her Darkest Friend

Being Her Darkest Friend was made by the small Austrian team chronerion interactive for AdventureJam in April 2015, where it placed 3rd of 89 entries. It follows A Fragment of Her, a short story game about Selina, a young art student who has just moved to the city to study under a famous and arrogant professor. That first part sets up her life and its mature themes; this second part turns to horror.

Here Selina is inside one of her nightmares. The world is drained to grey and black, ledges of rock float in the dark, and figures she knows from waking life appear with red eyes and stony faces. You move her with the mouse, read what she thinks of each thing, talk to the shapes of the dream and drag items onto people and places to move on, with the aim of finding a way to wake up.

The fear is quiet rather than sudden. The makers describe an unsettling and mature story and a dense, intense nightmarish atmosphere, and the JayIsGames review found it much more unsettling than the first part, while noting that the puzzle hints are easy to read. It deals with the aftermath of a sexual assault from the first game and touches on suicide.

The art is hand-drawn pixel art in the style of VGA adventure games from the early 1990s, with original music and English and German text. It is free: play it in the browser on its Game Jolt page or download it there for Windows, Mac or Linux. It suits players who like story-led point-and-click horror in one short sitting, and it leads into the final part, Ceasing to be Her Demise.

How to play Being Her Darkest Friend

  1. Open the game's Game Jolt page and press Play to start the browser version, or download the Windows, Mac or Linux build there.
  2. Choose the language (English or German) and start a new game.
  3. Click on the ground to walk Selina through the nightmare and click on people and objects to look at them or talk.
  4. Pick up what you find, then drag it from the inventory onto a person or place to use it.
  5. Follow the clues in Selina's comments to work out each puzzle and find the way to wake up.

Screenshots

Being Her Darkest Friend title screen: the title in white letters on black beside a grey statue of a woman
Selina in a grey art studio of the nightmare, a man with glowing red eyes standing behind her
Close-up of a grey, frowning face with red pupils from Selina's nightmare

Tips

  • Read every description: the text usually says plainly what an item is for.
  • Play A Fragment of Her first if you want to know who Selina and the people in her dream are; the makers recommend it.
  • The game saves automatically, so you can stop and come back.
  • Play with sound on: the music and sound carry much of the mood.

Questions

Is Being Her Darkest Friend free?

Yes. It is free to play in the browser on Game Jolt, and the Windows, Mac and Linux downloads there are free too.

How long is Being Her Darkest Friend?

Its makers give about 40 minutes of play.

Do I need to play A Fragment of Her first?

It is not required, but the makers recommend playing the trilogy in order, and the story follows on from the first part.

Is it scary?

It is unsettling rather than full of jumpscares: a grey dream world, figures with red eyes and heavy themes, including sexual assault and suicide.

  • point and click
  • pixel art
  • 2d
  • nightmare
  • dreams
  • female protagonist
  • mouse only
  • game jam
  • sequel
  • trilogy

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Being Her Darkest Friend is played on gamejolt.com and its makers' stores; this page links to them and is not part of it. Pictures are from the game's own pages and remain its owner's. Terms and pictures.

Sources: gamejolt.com, jayisgames.com, thegg.net