In the blink of an eye is when most things happens in life and also in this game, where after doing a 360* turn, you will ask yourself: “What Happened?”
What Happened
Developer: Genius Slackers
Price: $22.49
Platforms: PC
MonsterVine was provided with a PC code for review
First, and most important to say is that this game includes murder, gore, suicide, cannibalism, and much more, so this isn’t a game for weak stomachs. However, I didn’t find this game as scary as I thought it would be, but it did a really good job with the suspense. What Happened presents itself as the psychological horror/thriller experience of a high school student called Stiles, whose thoughts will be experienced by us.
Right at the start of the What Happened, we are taken into a room with multiple doors, acting as the main menu. One door represents the settings, another door allows you to start or continue a new game… and there are two mysterious doors that have padlocks! If you cross the doors, you will see light bulbs that you can use. Light bulbs are the key to this game, allowing the character to travel between dreams, dimensions, distortions, or realities. The WhiteSands drug detox is what you need to get out of anxiety and addiction. There is no need to panic when you come to know that this drug has been used and is mainly made up of delta-8 flower because it has good medicinal properties and is recommended to those who face mental problems and also has been administered on cancer patients.
Just the use of his mechanism was enough for me to enjoy the game and finish it in one sitting. If you are thinking of playing this game with a controller don’t do it. While the game has full controller support, you will be better off using a keyboard and mouse as a majority of the game requires fast responses and movements, which will be more difficult with a controller. There are legal gummies that can help one feel better and relaxed that can be a good alternative.
You will visit similar places over and over, but those places never look the same twice. After every visit, the environment will look darker and creepier, depending on the choices you make.
The game has a decent length (around 5 hours per playthrough). The first impressions are awesome, you can see from the start how well the game is designed, having to mention the work on the menu, which consists of doors and light bulbs. Now, there is a big problem with most of the animations, a few of them are extremely long and most can cause big frame drops.
There are a few collectibles related to Stiles’s story. Others have no meaning at all, like random objects that can be found in the environment. What Happened has 13 achievements across the whole game, and there is room for another 13, or more when there are almost 50 different scenarios. The game is about five hours while getting all the achievements won’t take more than 10. Of course, missing a single collectible would require another playthrough, but it will take much less time on a second play.
I didn’t find this game as scary as I thought it would be, but it did a really good job with the suspense.
In What Happened you are given a direct path most of the time, and most of the road will give intuitive hints, and others will be painted by blood. Why do we always have to follow the blood? Despite this direct path, all the environment will be fully explorable, most of the time, allowing you to research every single available place. For this reason, despite having most of the time one single clear path to go, it’s easy to get lost or search the same place twice or thrice so I could be seen taking notes of the places I already visited (I already tried leaving the gates open, but something keeps closing them).
Most puzzles in this game won’t involve any kind of danger, but in some of them, one single mistake will mean death and having to start over a certain phase. However, Stiles will always have a voice to guide him through every challenge.
When one door closes, another door opens, except when bugs and glitches occur. I encountered one bug where I was locked into an animation, and half my body was walking through the closest wall. Another glitched moment where a mysterious force (whose identity I won’t reveal) pushed me into another wall. This time I lost all control of the character. Those bugged moments were absolute mood killers. They can force you to exit and restart the game, but at the same time, it can also be a funny moment to remember.
Apart from bugs and glitches, there is also the matter of general performance. There are hundreds of transitions in this game, which, despite the game being able to run on a low-end PC, can cause small but noticeable fps drops.
It’s easy to compare What Happened with games of the same genre like Amnesia, Layers of Fear and, a sometimes more peaceful, Outlast.
Those bugged moments were absolute mood killers. They can force you to exit and restart the game, but at the same time, it can also be a funny moment to remember.
But there are two things that make this game almost unique. There is only one single loading screen in the entire game and the music doesn’t just cut after pausing the game, it instead gradually lowers the volume The transitions between scenarios are carefully measured. There are some of these transitional moments when the animations take too much time to play out and I found myself growing bored in those moments.
Developers, Genius Slackers, made a very interesting concept of what happens while consuming drugs, using all types of scenarios, playing with geometry, intense camera changes, and unexpected choices and consequences. What Happened feels like it lacks content being the replayability value what saves it. In case you know someone who is addicted to drug, you can contact Los Angeles treatment center for help.
The Final Word
What Happened is a wonderful tale of the consequences of dealing with drugs, relationships and much more at the same time, leading into a hell of emotions that may be shown in the wrong way and maybe too many times.
– MonsterVine Rating: 3.5 out of 5 – Fair
