The last thing anybody would want is to be kidnapped, but if you we’re do you think you could make a clever escape? In Darkstone Digital’s upcoming game Our Secret Below, that is the very situation you find yourself in. It’s only been a week since I discovered this game, but since the announcement, I went over to Itch.io and grabbed the free demo. In short, this game is looking to be the puzzle game I was hoping for!

Gameplay

After waking up in a small cell and hearing a conversation where you find out that you only have four hours until the kidnapper ends your life, you start on your series of steps to work on escaping this entrapment. Luckily, and more so unfortunately, you aren’t this guy’s first victim and so you are able to start off quickly with the aid of a note and unexpected gift that a previous captive left in the cell for you. Breaking the chain holding you in place and the chain locking the door shut, the escape attempt begins.

Giving the room a once-over examination, you find yourself with a few different puzzles to work with. Here you will need to start scouring the surroundings for clues and tools that you can use to make steps forward. After finding an essential item and opening the cabinet drawer, you find a journal with some story details stuff before you go into your first blackout moment.

This blackout moment is where the game goes from a 3D escape room to a full-on experience title. During this moment you will be presented with an unrealistic and unsettling visual style that will present an answer to move forward. There’s also some interesting story dialogue spoken through the darkness of these moments, so be sure to be listening while trying to understand what is going on. What makes these moments essential is that it will give you a vital stepping stone in order to progress forward and in the case of the demo that is the code sequence to the locked fire box.

Expectations

We are sure to be in store for a twisted story with an ending that most won’t see coming. I hope to find out what is going on with the kidnapper and get to understand better his motives as to why Nia, why the other women, and what’s his tick. There are a lot of blunt details shown in the journal and on the computer, once unlocked with the hidden code, that I believe hide some subtle hints as to what is going on. I am looking forward to this form of storytelling to continue further.

The puzzles shown in this demo had a sense of similarity in them, unfortunately. Even when you uncover the code for the computer, it was in yet another locked fire box for you to uncover the combination sequence for. I found this moment to be a bit of a letdown and hope that we aren’t going to be seeing a bunch of the same puzzles formulated throughout the game. I would rather see a large variety of puzzles, each with their own form of discovery and uncovering methods, mixed with plenty of find-what-you-need searching. Escaping your own kidnapping is great, but as a video game, I expect the kidnapper to have some form of nuance that makes the journey to freedom difficult.

My highest expectations lie in the blackout moments though. This is where the story and gameplay can be at their juiciest and I am really hoping to see these moments squeezed for all their worth. The first time it hit the entire mood over my gameplay experience shifted. It was the kind of moment I long for in discovery puzzle games and now I just want more of them!

Also, it would be interesting to have the added challenge of listening for when the kidnapper was returning and having to go back to the cell, like nothing is going on. Something like footsteps or the door creaking to signify our moment and getting a game over if caught outside the cell. This is more of an idea than something I expect though.

Conclusion

Our Secret Below is well on its way to being an amazing escape puzzle game! I hope there is an adjustment made to keep the puzzles themselves in a wide variety with little-to-no cut-and-paste styles used, but the experience the small demo provided brings excitement for its full release this summer. I am happy to have helped fund their Kickstarter and glad to see that they are already about to reach their goal!