Among the Sleep - Toddler horror

Mr_Grinch

I tried to find something about this on here and failed miserably, sorry if this is old news. Straight from Joystiq:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWDQN_X5b-M

The effectiveness of a horror game often hinges on its ability to instill a sense of helplessness. Some do this by limiting the number of offensive options. Others do it by removing offensive options altogether. Among the Sleep, from Norwegian developer Krillbite Studio, ups the ante by putting players in control of a two-year-old.

Among the Sleep is played from a first-person perspective, presenting a world full of childlike imagination and terror, in which a child (accompanied only by his faithful teddy bear) must survive the nightmare happenings around him. We're not sure mysterious is exactly the right word, at least not judging by the spooky happenings in the trailer. Among the Sleep is slated to arrive next year on Mac and PC.

Be sure to check out the Krillbite blog to follow the game's development. We certainly will be.

Blog here

Personally I think it looks awesome and fantastically creepy. Definitely looking forward to giving it a try.

skeldare

That looks very interesting and different. I'll have to give it a shot when it comes out.

Blackjack

Kind of lost me when the supernatural stuff started happening. It'd be cooler if it was more of a Rugrats type thing where the exploration was where all the excitement came from.

Also, two, really? Kid needs to learn to walk already.

Drake

Heh, the kid was walking plenty in that trailer. Climbing and jumping a bit even.

This looks pretty fascinating. I've always been really interested in scary stuff from the perspective of a child, like Grimm's Fairy Tales. Plus teddy bear! Who can resist teddy bears?

Skull2185

Dang, that looks interesting. This poor kid...

I'd have been outta there the second I saw that scary fucking figure move past the glass in the door...

acidlacedpenguin

The scariest part of this game so far? The parents who are so irresponsible that they didn't even bother to toddler-proof the damn house before they seemingly went out to party leaving the toddler home alone without a baby sitter. That coffee table's sharp corners are a disaster just waiting to happen! That kid's going to die from criminal negligence long before any supernatural ghoulies get to him.

anoffday

This looks really interesting. Good for them for coming up with a new original idea.

Klyka

I will do a Let's Play of this entirely in baby speak!

SniperGuy

Intrigued. I wonder what the baddie is. Looks like Amnesia: Rugrats edition.

The Dude With Herpes

Blackjack wrote: »

Kind of lost me when the supernatural stuff started happening. It'd be cooler if it was more of a Rugrats type thing where the exploration was where all the excitement came from.

Also, two, really? Kid needs to learn to walk already.

Yeah the supernatural stuff is stupid.

It's a neat idea and premise, I suppose; but as a parent, a ton of stuff bugged me about the trailer. Aside from the apparently non-parent comment from someone earlier about the "irresponsible parents not babyproofing everything in the house", there was a legitimate point brought up in that the parents are clearly neglecting the kid enough that a 2 year old has free reign of the house at night.

The solution to not putting rubber bumpers on every fucking thing you own, which in of itself idiotic; is watching your damn kid and controlling what the kid has access to in the first place.

I mean, off the bat that'd be one fucking genius of a 2yr old to climb out of their crib and then get out of their room. Telling that they didn't show either thing. A 2yr old can't reach a doorknob, for one; and if they can you either lock the door from the outside or put a safety knob on it so they can't figure it out. And that's assuming a 2yr old can climb over their crib and get out of it without falling on their head and wailing, waking up their parents and putting an end to the premise of the game. And if the parents had the crib bed set so high that the kid could just hop over it, and left the door open, then the game should just be called "Shitty Parents: The Game" and be done with it.

But even looking outside of that, there's enough mystery and wonder to being a kid that they could have had everything be fully explainable by an adult, but seemingly spooky to a kid (which is the entirety of reality since there aren't such things are monsters or boogymen); enough to create tension without having unnecessary supernatural nonsense. There are a plethora of kids books that have this as their premise.

But if you make it all fake and supernatural, then being a toddler is basically a gimmick, as is the setting; it just becomes Amnesia: The Babying.

Ugh.

So yeah, a game like this could be done well, but this obviously won't be it. I cold see how it might be more interesting for someone who hasn't actually raised a kid at that age, who thinks they might have a good guess at what it'd be like...but pretty much everything in that video is just silly, and unrealistic; even supernatural idiocy aside.

EDIT: THe key problem is, that even if you're playing as a toddler, an adult can't see/think like a toddler with the same sense of wonder and misunderstanding. That's why they probably felt they needed to add in the supernatural crap; because as an adult, even if you see something spooky, you know it can be explained. A shadow that looks like a monster? a coat hanger, or something. You couldn't make a game and expect the player to have that level of suspension of disbelief; so they added in overt phantasms and such; which takes away from the core premise of the game. And maybe at the end it'll still be all "look, it can all be explained by your parents! No ghosts!" but then that just makes all the supernatural stuff super contrived to begin with.

I commend the developers for trying something new, something different; it just looks to fall flat on its face.

A much better premise for a game about being a 2yr old would be a more bright and happy one where you are a kid and imagine that you can fly or do wild stuff; and you can, but it's all just pretend and your imagination. It could be fun and clever; without resorting to manipulative attempts at scaring that this game is going for. You could still have the bad guy and stuff; but the bad guy would just end up being the cat that the kid is chasing; or the parent trying to get them to eat their food. But the gameplay would have them imagining them as whatever and refusing to eat their corn would be the "heroic" act or something silly. Being a kid should be fun; not terrifying; if you're allowing your 2yr old to run rampant in an environment where they're afraid instead of curious, then the parent needs to reassess the situation.

Lindsay Lohan

I agree with the feedback that maybe they skewed too young for the toddler (I know my son frequently escaped his crib but that was years ago and I can't remember how old he was). With that said, I'll probably try it because I'm an absolute sucker for games that play with scale - like playing as a tiny character in a giant world or vice versa. Now I want to go play Micro Machines or Mister Mosquito.

Turkey

The ghost removed all the child-proofing shit.

Problem solved. :P

SniperGuy

I mean, the kid getting out of the crib is pretty obvious. The kitchen went bonkers when the kid was in there. Presumably, so did the kid's room. Opened the doors, knocked over the crib, etc. The parents aren't there watching because they got eaten by a terrifying ghost creature. Ta da.

Esh

For everyone going on about "OMG! WHY IS THE KID ALONE?!?!", I'm pretty sure that the developers have some sort of plot device explaining this other than "Parents just left the child."

Some of you are reading WAY too much into this. I think it looks fun and I'll definitely check it out come release.

JihadJesus

My daughter was in a toddler bed and potty training not long after she turned 2, so she could leave her room at night if she needed to. If kids weren't capable of not killing themselves on a table edge if left unsupervised for 15 minutes after 2 years of development we would have gone extinct ages ago.

On topic, I think the supernatural stuff could work I you (as an adult playing the game) couldn't be sure if it was 'real' supernatural shit, or just everyday stuff seen through the 'filter' of a toddler. There looks to be NONE of that ambiguity or sense of imagination here, though.

I needed anime to post.

My presumption was that the supernatural stuff was actively making it easier for the kid to get out and around so that it could, you know, kill it or something.

Local H Jay

agreed, looks awesome. not warranting a multi-paragraph dissertation on why the game is implausible.

can't wait to try it. my one complaint about games like dead space is that even with all the scary and gruesome stuff going on, you never are really helpless. this game actually looks to build tension by placing emphasis on how limited you are as this little kid.

testsubject23

Oh. My. God.
I think I actually dreamed of this game... years ago.

I had a very vivid dream where the protagonist was a child capable of seeing supernatural events/creatures that his parents were oblivious to. The dream played out like an adventure game, including needing to pick up items, etc, to solve puzzles.
The whole thing took place in this big house in the countryside. During the day the horrors were understated, except for dark areas like the basement, closets, etc, which were still dangerous. The boogies wouldn't come out in the presence of the parents, but they were often at work, or in the kitchen or something, leaving the main character alone for long enough that spooky things would happen.
At NIGHT it got crazy, with weird shadowy things crawling around, and the physical space of the house would change into a dream-like state, where rooms would come and go and the proportions for everything went all weird. The child could travel through the mirror into another world where everything was wrong, and it was sometimes hard to tell which world he was in.
In the dream I don't think the child spoke at all, and his parents were making him see a psychologist, since he was obviously disturbed by the creepy stuff that happened to him. His parents also seemed very unhappy; the dad was gone a lot, and distant when he was around; the mom spent all her time around the house distracted by other things; they would argue when he was out of the room and stop when he approached, so he couldn't hear what was being said. And in the wrong world, they would sometimes try to murder or eat him.
In the dream it was some form of sinister otherwordly force that was trying to invade our reality, tied to the house or land somehow. The force had been actively eating away at his parents' minds, which was the reason they were so unhappy and neglectful, and was in the process of attempting to physically manifest itself in our world. I got the impression that the enemy creatures weren't necessarily physically dangerous, but would attack the self, turning a person into a miserable or evil shell of their former being, basically a walking repository for spiritual nastyness, like posession but more insidious.
I don't remember a lot of the details, like what he had to do to repell the dark force, but there was also some magic grove with a large tree in the centre which was resisting the pull of the darkness, and he had to somehow assist it to seal off the bad thing.

I have dreams about ideas for stories and games fairly often, though I almost never do anything *with* them, lacking the talent and discipline to actualize them. However, it's surprisingly often that they get made manifest by someone else, eventually... as though the idea itself got let into the world, and was just floating around waiting for someone to make it real, even if I never actually mention it to anyone.

Personally I think this is amazing - I'm glad that people are making this game and I look forward to seeing how closely it matches my own vision of the idea.

Mr_Grinch

Is it necessarily super natural? It does look skewed that way but it would to the kid. The way stuff explodes at the end there could very well be caused by a natural disaster, not so sure about the crib moving though.

Anyway, definitely looks interesting, despite the rather odd lengthy criticism above! Not that I'm proclaiming she was mother of the year, but for a while I dated someone with two kids, one two years old, one five years old and their house certainly wasn't covered in baby proofing stuff.

Kadoken

I'd call it Among the Sheep.

Klyka

I can't believe you guys are having discussions about how to raise a kid in here.
I mean, come on.

Btw if you look at the game's website, you can see that it's actually also about entering a "borderland between dream and reality" and that there won't just be "omg spooky house" in there.

hatedinamerica

Esh wrote: »

Some of you are reading WAY too much into this.

Understatement of the month.

Casually Hardcore

It's a game about a dick fucking ghost tormenting a fucking toddler and all ya'll can say is

'WHERE THE FUCK IS THE PARENTS?!'

Really? Am I the only one who can think beyond that and say to myself "Maybe the Baby is dreaming all this?" or "Maybe the ghost killed the parents?"

Is that really so freaking hard?

Klyka

I say again, look at THE WEBSITE of the game.
The damn kid is exploring a plant place with a glowing mushroom as a lamp and his bear is wandering next to him.
There is a screenshot of a lush green forest area.
"Where are the parents????" does NOT factor into this at all.

Lilnoobs

The Dude With Herpes wrote: »

Blackjack wrote: »

Kind of lost me when the supernatural stuff started happening. It'd be cooler if it was more of a Rugrats type thing where the exploration was where all the excitement came from.

Also, two, really? Kid needs to learn to walk already.

Yeah the supernatural stuff is stupid.

It's a neat idea and premise, I suppose; but as a parent, a ton of stuff bugged me about the trailer. Aside from the apparently non-parent comment from someone earlier about the "irresponsible parents not babyproofing everything in the house", there was a legitimate point brought up in that the parents are clearly neglecting the kid enough that a 2 year old has free reign of the house at night.

The solution to not putting rubber bumpers on every fucking thing you own, which in of itself idiotic; is watching your damn kid and controlling what the kid has access to in the first place.

I mean, off the bat that'd be one fucking genius of a 2yr old to climb out of their crib and then get out of their room. Telling that they didn't show either thing. A 2yr old can't reach a doorknob, for one; and if they can you either lock the door from the outside or put a safety knob on it so they can't figure it out. And that's assuming a 2yr old can climb over their crib and get out of it without falling on their head and wailing, waking up their parents and putting an end to the premise of the game. And if the parents had the crib bed set so high that the kid could just hop over it, and left the door open, then the game should just be called "Shitty Parents: The Game" and be done with it.

But even looking outside of that, there's enough mystery and wonder to being a kid that they could have had everything be fully explainable by an adult, but seemingly spooky to a kid (which is the entirety of reality since there aren't such things are monsters or boogymen); enough to create tension without having unnecessary supernatural nonsense. There are a plethora of kids books that have this as their premise.

But if you make it all fake and supernatural, then being a toddler is basically a gimmick, as is the setting; it just becomes Amnesia: The Babying.

Ugh.

So yeah, a game like this could be done well, but this obviously won't be it. I cold see how it might be more interesting for someone who hasn't actually raised a kid at that age, who thinks they might have a good guess at what it'd be like...but pretty much everything in that video is just silly, and unrealistic; even supernatural idiocy aside.

EDIT: THe key problem is, that even if you're playing as a toddler, an adult can't see/think like a toddler with the same sense of wonder and misunderstanding. That's why they probably felt they needed to add in the supernatural crap; because as an adult, even if you see something spooky, you know it can be explained. A shadow that looks like a monster? a coat hanger, or something. You couldn't make a game and expect the player to have that level of suspension of disbelief; so they added in overt phantasms and such; which takes away from the core premise of the game. And maybe at the end it'll still be all "look, it can all be explained by your parents! No ghosts!" but then that just makes all the supernatural stuff super contrived to begin with.

I commend the developers for trying something new, something different; it just looks to fall flat on its face.

A much better premise for a game about being a 2yr old would be a more bright and happy one where you are a kid and imagine that you can fly or do wild stuff; and you can, but it's all just pretend and your imagination. It could be fun and clever; without resorting to manipulative attempts at scaring that this game is going for. You could still have the bad guy and stuff; but the bad guy would just end up being the cat that the kid is chasing; or the parent trying to get them to eat their food. But the gameplay would have them imagining them as whatever and refusing to eat their corn would be the "heroic" act or something silly. Being a kid should be fun; not terrifying; if you're allowing your 2yr old to run rampant in an environment where they're afraid instead of curious, then the parent needs to reassess the situation.

Are you serious?

I think the bold bothers me the most.

The Dude With Herpes

It bothers you why? Because it's not all grimdark and contrived horror?

Ok.

It's fine; this game clearly isn't for me.

Turkey

It's just weird to come to a horror game thread and complain that it's not cheery enough.

The Dude With Herpes

Turkey wrote: »

It's just weird to come to a horror game thread and complain that it's not cheery enough.

But it's not. At least that's not how the game is presented on their website. It starts out mysterious, sure; but horror doesn't require the supernatural.

The website feels a lot different than the game that trailer implies. So maybe it was just a bad trailer. I don't know.

But yeah, I went overboard with my initial reaction. My bad on that.

EDIT: All I was trying to say at the end is that if you want to portray what it feels like to be a 2yr old; I personally think that if what you're presenting is fear and terror then that's fucked up. My daughter is almost 4 and the idea, to her, that monsters are scary, is a joke; and that has always been the case, because her concept of "monsters" are fuzzy singing creatures, and the only time she is afraid is when someone turns a car on near her or she gets into something she knew she wasn't supposed to.

I just think that representing the view of a 2yr old would more reflect wonder and curiosity; not fear and terror. And honestly, from the website it appears that they're aiming for that too. It's just that trailer makes it appear more Amnesia-ish.

hatedinamerica

No, worries, Dude!

We all do it some time or another. I haven't watched the trailer for this yet, actually, but I will say that I like the idea of it. I've always wanted a game that played up the subjectiveness of childhood experiences and initially this sounded like it could be it, but now I'm not sure. I'll have to check out the trailer and website when I get home from work.

Lilnoobs

I think the implication that children only think about silly things and magical happiness and all children's games must adhere to this notion is what bothers me the most. Do children never have nightmares? Are they never afraid? Your post seems to imply they aren't, and I think it's that idea that bothered me.

Ninja Snarl P

Guys, we're missing the real point here.

The real point is that this is going to make some fantastic news headlines that loudly proclaim "GAME STUDIO DEVELOPS BABY MIND RAPE SIMULATOR" and then we have to hear about how gamers are all psychotic antisocial perverts for 6 months.

Anyway, I actually rather like this as a concept. Can't remember much from being 2, but I definitely remember being afraid of all sorts of things when I was really little. Who knows, they might actually make a game where all the "horror" elements that other games use like scary noises and darkness could actually be creepy for once instead of just trying to make cheap scares. Because at 2, yeah, shadows are scary as hell.

Also, wonder if the teddy bear aspect is gonna work like this:

That could be neat.

Drake

If done right, this game could be like the modern, interactive equivalent of Grimm's Fairy Tales, which is full of all kinds of macabre stuff, but also all kinds of wonder. Kids need this kind of stuff. They need to know that being scared at times isn't unusual, that it's normal, that it's sometimes the proper response. They need the heroes of these stories, that show them how to overcome these feelings and be their own hero. And if this game can deliver on it, if it can take me back to that kind of simpler, open-minded awareness of the possibilities of things, and let me deal with these mysteries, both wondrous and fearful in clever, childlike ways... well, I won't be able to get this game fast enough.

Gyral

Frankly I got a real Echo Night/Amnesia vibe from the trailer. I know from experience that the Echo Night series did the whole first person ghost story with no weapons, but with an adult character.

Rami

This looks kinda cool but to be honest I think they should bump the kids age up to about 4 because a 2 year old doing that stuff is completely implausable to the point where I find the whole thing ridiculous.

Skull2185

Rami wrote: »

This looks kinda cool but to be honest I think they should bump the kids age up to about 4 because a 2 year old doing that stuff is completely implausable to the point where I find the whole thing ridiculous.

There's this documentary called "Rugrats" you should check out. Toddlers get into some shit, man.

Blackjack

Lilnoobs wrote: »

The Dude With Herpes wrote: »

Blackjack wrote: »

Kind of lost me when the supernatural stuff started happening. It'd be cooler if it was more of a Rugrats type thing where the exploration was where all the excitement came from.

Also, two, really? Kid needs to learn to walk already.

Yeah the supernatural stuff is stupid.

It's a neat idea and premise, I suppose; but as a parent, a ton of stuff bugged me about the trailer. Aside from the apparently non-parent comment from someone earlier about the "irresponsible parents not babyproofing everything in the house", there was a legitimate point brought up in that the parents are clearly neglecting the kid enough that a 2 year old has free reign of the house at night.

The solution to not putting rubber bumpers on every fucking thing you own, which in of itself idiotic; is watching your damn kid and controlling what the kid has access to in the first place.

I mean, off the bat that'd be one fucking genius of a 2yr old to climb out of their crib and then get out of their room. Telling that they didn't show either thing. A 2yr old can't reach a doorknob, for one; and if they can you either lock the door from the outside or put a safety knob on it so they can't figure it out. And that's assuming a 2yr old can climb over their crib and get out of it without falling on their head and wailing, waking up their parents and putting an end to the premise of the game. And if the parents had the crib bed set so high that the kid could just hop over it, and left the door open, then the game should just be called "Shitty Parents: The Game" and be done with it.

But even looking outside of that, there's enough mystery and wonder to being a kid that they could have had everything be fully explainable by an adult, but seemingly spooky to a kid (which is the entirety of reality since there aren't such things are monsters or boogymen); enough to create tension without having unnecessary supernatural nonsense. There are a plethora of kids books that have this as their premise.

But if you make it all fake and supernatural, then being a toddler is basically a gimmick, as is the setting; it just becomes Amnesia: The Babying.

Ugh.

So yeah, a game like this could be done well, but this obviously won't be it. I cold see how it might be more interesting for someone who hasn't actually raised a kid at that age, who thinks they might have a good guess at what it'd be like...but pretty much everything in that video is just silly, and unrealistic; even supernatural idiocy aside.

EDIT: THe key problem is, that even if you're playing as a toddler, an adult can't see/think like a toddler with the same sense of wonder and misunderstanding. That's why they probably felt they needed to add in the supernatural crap; because as an adult, even if you see something spooky, you know it can be explained. A shadow that looks like a monster? a coat hanger, or something. You couldn't make a game and expect the player to have that level of suspension of disbelief; so they added in overt phantasms and such; which takes away from the core premise of the game. And maybe at the end it'll still be all "look, it can all be explained by your parents! No ghosts!" but then that just makes all the supernatural stuff super contrived to begin with.

I commend the developers for trying something new, something different; it just looks to fall flat on its face.

A much better premise for a game about being a 2yr old would be a more bright and happy one where you are a kid and imagine that you can fly or do wild stuff; and you can, but it's all just pretend and your imagination. It could be fun and clever; without resorting to manipulative attempts at scaring that this game is going for. You could still have the bad guy and stuff; but the bad guy would just end up being the cat that the kid is chasing; or the parent trying to get them to eat their food. But the gameplay would have them imagining them as whatever and refusing to eat their corn would be the "heroic" act or something silly. Being a kid should be fun; not terrifying; if you're allowing your 2yr old to run rampant in an environment where they're afraid instead of curious, then the parent needs to reassess the situation.

Are you serious?

I think the bold bothers me the most.

If Calvin & Hobbes: The Video Game bothers you, then you are dead to me, sir.

B:L

What we really need is a new Little Nemo.

Klyka

Man if I was the developer of this game and was thinking "boy, i wonder if people like the idea of playing as a 2 year old, this hasn't really been done like this before, let's check out reactions!" and then saw gigantic posts about "WHERE ARE THE PARENTS???" and "WHY IS THAT SHARP TABLE NOT BABY PROOF????" I would probably just pack up and leave for a different industry.

Local H Jay

B:L wrote: »

What we really need is a new Little Nemo.

this movie gave little kid me a fucking panic attack

Machismo

This looks quite neat. I love the idea of perceiving the world as a two year old. Kinda neat since my son is two. He can't handle steps that quickly. Also he'd run away screaming at the lightning or the shadow dude.

Skull2185

Machismo wrote: »

This looks quite neat. I love the idea of perceiving the world as a two year old. Kinda neat since my son is two. He can't handle steps that quickly. Also he'd run away screaming at the lightning or the shadow dude.

I'm 27 and I would have punched a hole through the wall and gotten the fuck outta there when I saw the shadow dude. No way man... just keep my house or whatever, I'll send for my things.