If there's two things I find scary, it's creepy monsters hiding in the shadows that defy rational explanation and having to think. Unfold Games's Darq is the rare game that caters to both those fears. The game follows a bald kid (or maybe a teen; it's hard to tell without the hair) as he finds himself stuck in a loop of falling asleep, waking up in some nightmare factory, and then narrowly escaping back to the waking world only to repeat the pattern as his exhaustion takes over. Much of Darq takes the shape of a 2D action-adventure game—the Limbos, Insides, or Little Nightmareses of the current horror-platformer (platfearmer?) trend—where you're walking (sometimes creeping, sometimes running) around areas solving some basic inventory puzzles. What is less basic is the way the game's environments tend to wrap around in odd ways, allowing you to walk along walls and ceilings and occasionally flipping the perspective of the world to allow for other destinations across perpendicular axes. This irrational traversal creates an uncanny and vertiginous effect that can't help but accentuate the already eerie monochrome setting and horror tone.

Darq has seven of these nightmare worlds to visit, the seventh immediately following the sixth as a more action-packed denouement (read: a whole lot of trial-and-error dying). A typical puzzle might have you navigating a three-dimensional maze, twisting walls around to complete a circuit, or sliding blocks around to free a key item. Most rely heavily on spatial awareness, as does the twisty level design itself: you'll be going in and out of the background and foreground, turning the geometry around, and discovering paths in the unlikeliest of places. Fortunately, each of the individual levels is fairly short so building a mental map of these topsy-turvy locations isn't too mentally taxing a prospect. Likewise, the inventory puzzles and more Layton-esque instances don't offer too much of a roadblock: despite the disorienting subject matter it's a relatively simple and brisk playthrough at just over a couple hours in length.

Because the game is trading in horror staples, expect a smattering of jumpscares and puzzles where you need to evade a wandering ghoul's attention. Some use the protagonist's same unexplained command of the environment, shuffling up a wall to allow some weird trumpet monster or what have you to trundle past. Others might involve a red light/green light scenario where you have to pay close attention to the distracted monster's sudden perking up towards the sound of an unknown intruder in their midst and make sure not to move when it's alerted. These sequences often serve to detract from the puzzles, especially if the monsters are patrolling an area between you and a location you might need to revisit with the right items, but I guess horror games are always faced with this dilemma of whether to introduce actual peril to keep the stakes raised or just hope the overall creepy atmosphere alone is enough to unsettle the player. The checkpointing is generous enough and the enemy patterns predictable enough that it's never so rough to be a detriment to the playthrough if this whole stealth horror thing isn't your preference. Sometimes, having to suddenly hide and duck around a monster can sometimes make for a nice switch from having to think about circuit puzzles and where it is you need to backtrack to next after grabbing some random piece of junk.

Darq's a hard game to review for several reasons. The first is the atmosphere, which isn't easily rendered by text alone: the monochrome worlds and the boy's bald, emaciated appearance recalls German Expressionist horror like Nosferatu or the gothic-whimsy of illustrators like Edward Gorey, as do the levels' vaguely 19th century furniture and trappings, while the sound design does its darndest to remind you that you're never particularly safe even if there's nothing in the immediate vicinity trying to grab you (for now). The second is that the game largely relies on elaborate environmental puzzles that need to be seen in full before you can really process how to solve them. The third is that the story is practically non-existent despite offering a lot of incidental subtext that is never followed up on—a recurring nemesis is a blindfolded old lady in a wheelchair who proves to be absurdly strong, though if this is meant to be an elderly relative or a fellow asylum patient or what is never disclosed—followed by a real out-of-left-field ending that implied that the protagonist was in purgatory and fighting to be reincarnated, as evinced by what sounds like a live birth once you pass through the game's final door. It's one heck of a trip, albeit a short, confusing, and sometimes irksome one, though its environment-bending puzzles and relative brisk pace makes it one that's easy to recommend to those looking for a stylish short series of spooky shocks and surprises if nothing too substantial. (Sorry for the sudden surfeit of sibilance; I have a cold.)

Rating: 4 out of 5.