LOCKED Reviews

good game that is well designed and defiantly challenging with a girl trying to escape a serial killers house. this game can be short depending on your skill level since the serial killers house isn't massive but nonetheless it was a good game and fairly priced https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQfMBfH0G60

A simple one-dev escape game. The premise is interesting and the game is pretty short, but the execution leaves much to be desired. Some of the controls don't cooperate how you'd expect and that split second of a difference could send you back to the start. There's a few cheap kill moments which are quite frustrating. As even once you know exactly what to do, you're still stuck waiting for the enemy AI to work with you long enough to advance. I enjoyed the dark atmosphere, but there's a few shock elements that simply aren't necessary, namely the nudity. The VHS filter also gets irritating after awhile. I hate to thumbs down an obvious solo project, but the frustrating gameplay really isn't worth the cheap price of admission. Go ahead and give it a try if you're curious, it's clear a lot of passion went into this.

A short horror game where you have to find a way to get out of a killers house using clues that you find along the way while also not getting caught. I thought the art style of the game was simple and good and it reminded me of some 2000's flash games with a mix of good 3D. The backgrounds are nice as well and filled with a little story of what has happened before you became trapped. I didn't experience any major bugs but I did get soft locked when the killer hit while I was hiding in the kitchen and had to restart. Some problems that I have about the game overall is that when you throw items they are flung super far away and I have to walk a long way to get them back to retrieve it again. You also have to get the character in a specific placement to interact/getting items which could get annoying for you when need to hide or get and item that's near a bunch of other items. Its a good first and short game by the developer and can see their next game being a big step up.

Fun creepy game but very buggy. Controls are wonky and don't always properly register. Game crashes sometimes while trying to quickly move/use something. 6/10 if fixed.

An amazing survival horror game with a nice art style. I really enjoyed trying to figure out how to progress out of the house while my raptor was in the prowl. Good stuff!

I tried to play this game but my character would randomly stand still and not move or pick up anything. The game forces you to stand in very specific spots to pick up certain items, if anything else was close by there was a chance that I would pick that up instead and no real toggle option to pick up something in front / behind. I get this is inspired by PS classics and whatnot so of course the mechanics are going to be wonky, but the game bugging out and freezing my character was more than enough to get me to stop playing. I picked it up because the art style and concept seemed cool, but to not even be able to attack the serial killer dude with the knife is where I drew the line (you can only temporarily knock him out but not outwardly kill him) so meh.

Intriguing artistic game about waking up in a basement and trying to escape from a hammer wielding crazy. Part side scroller, part puzzle game, part find X to get Y game. Overall it was pretty decent, and with its unique art style it felt like something quite fresh and different. Quite why they needed friendo to strip down to full baws oot im not sure but at least its something different.

The most important thing first: is this game worth two bucks for its short runtime of one to two hours max? I can answer this question with a clear yes. While it only took me about 90 minutes to beat on my first run, mainly because I was very impatient and got myself killed an embarrassing amount of time, I feel like these 90 minutes and therefore the two bucks were well-spent. I mean, I get one litre of cola for two bucks and that one doesn’t last me nearly as long. But length is not everything (please hold your dick jokes in the comments). [i]Locked[/i] also has its looks and game feel going for it. The well-crafted cartoony graphics do not clash with the dark subject matter of the game and underlines the few surreal aspects of the story. The story itself is nothing to write home about, by the way, you are an unnamed woman, who was captured, undressed (but not naked, this is not this kind of game) and [i]locked[/i] (roll credits) up by a serial killer called Frantz, from whose house you now have to escape. This in combination with the cartoony graphics and the 2D gameplay actually reminds me of old flash games, specifically the point-and-click game “Free Ice Cream”, in which a child has to escape the house of a serial killer. This gives the game a big bonus because I am a sucker for this period of internet content. But putting aside graphics, story, and nostalgia for a moment, the game also plays remarkably well. At its core, [i]Locked[/i] is a puzzle game, but the gameplay, much like our player character, is very stripped down. You can pick items up, but you don’t have any inventory, so you can only hold one object at a time. You also can’t combine items with each other, you can only use them with the environment, either by pressing the interact button or throwing them at stuff. Throwing most items also can temporarily stun Frantz which roams the house while you work on your escape. You can also hide in certain spots in the house from him or run back to the starting room, which the killer can’t enter, making it your safe room. While this is a bit weird story-wise (how did Frantz put you in this room when he can’t enter it), there is a bigger problem going on with your one and only opponent. Because, while he is imposing the first couple of times you encounter him, he also highlights the problem with making this game 2D. When Frantz is blocking the direction in which you want to go, you either have to stun him and run past him, which can lead to him chasing you shortly after and consequently to you taking damage, or you have to hide. Hiding on the other hand has the disadvantage that Frantz spends often too much time crossing a room, slowing the game down. There are also two situations near the end, where I was killed by Frantz because of temporary changes in the gameplay, but to be honest, I could have seen them coming, so this is partly on me. Also, the game is so short, you never lose that much progress by dying, making starting over not much of a chore. There is also no randomness, except for where Frantz goes, so you can speedrun the earlier puzzles till you are at the point where you previously died. Which was also one of the reasons why [i]Locked[/i] is now one of the few games I 100%ted. To be honest, six of the ten achievements you get simply by progressing in the story, two you get for getting killed, one is for finishing the game in under five minutes, which is pretty easy after you have beaten the game once, and another one is for interacting with an item in a specific way, which is also not hard to pull off. In conclusion, [i]Locked[/i] is one of these short but sweet indie horror games that is worth dishing out two bucks for without any regrets. The only real problem I had with the game was that its title makes it difficult to find anything about it. Seriously, a subheading would have done the searchability of the game some good. But it got the attention it deserved anyway, so maybe I am wrong.

This game could have been decent if a few problems were addressed. The game is visually shocking which I like although the random blood spots are a bit comedic. Problems - the man investigates way too fucking frequently and you are unable to get anything done - the man stays still for a painfully long time. That can be useful but a lot of the time it's just annoying. - sometimes you throw objects the opposite way to the way you are facing - you have to stand in a very specific place to interact with things Supposing the game actually worked well, this would be a very short game. Technically you just do a few things and that's the end of the game but actually doing those things is tedious and annoying. The man will just investigate before you can do anything and you can't follow too close behind. It seems like the man looking for you constantly is supposed to make up for the shortness of the game. Don't try to make a short game long by making the enemy annoying.

A small escape-room-horror-game. We play as a girl kidnapped by some freak with a hammer. The usual stuff: find an item, open a door, hide, figure out how to escape, etc. There are some hints of a creepy mystery, but nothing more in terms of story. Simple and interesting graphics style, a little bit of gore. I ran into a couple bugs, but nothing too terrible. Once an item fell through the floor, and another time I was stuck in place and couldn't do anything. The controls are a bit clunky with picking up items. I guess this is the first game by this developer. Hey, everyone starts somewhere. It's a simple good game made with effort. I hope the developer makes something else in this style, but bigger and better.