Search a nightmarish, monster-ridden town for your missing cousin in this short horror game arriving on PC and consoles for the first time.
GYLT
Developer: Tequila Works, Parallel Circles
Price: TBA
Platform: PC (reviewed), PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One
MonsterVine was supplied with a PC code for review.
Originally released for Google Stadia in 2019, Gylt is a survival horror game that has now been brought to PC and consoles. You play Sally, a young girl who begins the story putting up posters for her missing cousin Emily and avoiding school bullies. However, when she takes an old cable car back into town, she finds herself in a twisted version of the town she once knew. In this monster-infested town, Sally spots Emily hiding in the school–and so she begins to search for a way to reach her while avoiding the numerous dangers around her.
While illustrated cutscenes tell key moments of the story, the majority of the game is presented through 3D graphics that look quite nice, with monster designs that are suitably creepy. Gylt is fully voice acted, and it also has a good soundtrack that complements the spooky atmosphere.
The story has two major aspects that come into play. Most obvious is the bullying story. Sally’s cousin was bullied in school, and paying attention to the environment and the diary entries you find shows how the twisted world reflects what she went through. However, the horror is not purely symbolic. Other diary entries shed more light on the town’s backstory and hint at something sinister at work in the local mine. These two sides of the story work together, although some element of ambiguity remains even at the end.
Stealth is an important part of the gameplay, as you want to make your way through the school and other locations without alerting the monsters to your presence. At first, stealth is the only option you have, but that changes once you obtain a special flashlight. Rather than just serving as a light source, this flashlight functions as both a puzzle-solving tool and weapon by focusing the beam. Most enemies have weak spots you can damage with your flashlight, while certain puzzles and obstacles also require light. The puzzles in this game are all fairly simple, but enjoyable enough to overcome. Gylt finds a nice middle ground for its flashlight mechanic – using the flashlight for light is unlimited, while focusing the beam depletes the battery. This allows batteries to be a limited resource, without making you worry that you’ll be punished simply for exploring.
That’s good, because the game tries to encourage exploration. Although its structure is more linear than open–exploring will always lead you toward the next key item you need to proceed to the next area, with obstacles in your path to ensure you have to follow the general path the game wants–there are a handful of side areas and secrets with numerous collectibles to find. These include diaries to provide a glimpse into the backstories of both Emily and the town itself, mysterious glowing quartz to save strange figures encased in stone, and more. You’ll also find inhalers, which serve as your healing items, and batteries for your flashlight. You can only carry 5 inhalers at a time, and batteries are used the moment you pick them up, but the relatively small game world means there’s usually a few you skipped over somewhere within reach. In fact, batteries are plentiful enough that I began opting for combat over stealth against regular enemies, although later parts of the game introduce more dangerous monsters.
Gylt has multiple endings, determined by a choice you make at the end. Two of these endings are available by default, while the best ending is locked behind saving all of the town’s stone-encased inhabitants. The final autosave point is right ahead of the choice, making it easy to go back for all the endings. Finishing the game also unlocks the ability to explore in search of any missed collectibles without starting over from the beginning.
There are minor annoyances, such as explanatory tips that pop up every time you pick up an item and a reliance on auto-saves only, but overall it is enjoyable to play. While not the scariest horror game, it has its moments of tension and a nice approach to telling the story of both a child bullied at school and a town with a dark secret. Taking around 7 hours to finish with most collectibles found–and significantly less time once you know what to do–it’s just long enough to tell a complete story without overstaying its welcome.
The Final Word
Gylt is a short horror game with a lot of good ideas. It doesn’t break any new ground, but it has a solid structure that provides a clear path to follow while rewarding exploration at the same time. The world has enough potential that I wouldn’t mind revisiting it in a sequel, but either way, it’s nice to see a game like this find new life now that Stadia is gone.
– MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
