Fear the Spotlight is the first of the announced Blumhouse slate of indie horror games that were announced at Summer Game Fest. Developed by the married partners dev team of Cozy Game Pals and originally released on Steam, Fear the Spotlight has actually experienced quite a Cinderella story in the way that Blumhouse discovered them.
Fear the Spotlight is part of a new wave of indie horror that uses retro styled graphics to build atmosphere and suspense. The idea is that where the graphics may lack, your mind fills in the blanks. With this hands on demo, I got to play as the main character Amy, a bookworm who befriends the local goth kid in class Vivian and together they break into the school after hours to perform a seance, which of course goes horribly wrong. Post seance, you are left roaming the school as apparitions haunt you just out of sight, with some really cool visual effects. The Summer Game Fest demo closes on an escape sequence, but I was left intrigued.
The gameplay will revolve around survival horror elements with puzzle sequences. I was also assured that the game will still also have a cozy vibe with no combat to speak of despite being reminiscent of the original Resident Evil. Especially in its menus that allow you to rotate and analyze every item for clues. One of the unique twists the game takes is, instead of the health EKG pips from Resident Evil, now it’s Amy’s lung color, as she has asthma and needs inhalers to heal. It’s a charming bit of flavor that the Cozy Game Pals bring to the table.
Speaking to the developers, they were able to give me more insight into the game’s development, including how the game was originally released on Steam, but then Blumhouse approached them about improving the game with time and money. It was here that the couple made the decision to pull the game from Steam, and improve on it, adding in bonus content, and setting a new re-release date of July 25th. The game will also be on all platforms including mobile, with ports done by the 22nd Century Toys team who worked on Untitled Goose Game and Pikuniku.
