Crawl
review and description
by Dsibe top

Crawl is a short horror game where you have to crawl through tight cave spaces while taking photos of missing people. The gameplay mechanics are pretty unique - you have to hand crank a flashlight to keep it powered, and manually swap out camera film cartridges after every photo you take. Oh, and there's some creepy creature lurking in the caves that you have to avoid.

The setup is tense and claustrophobic from the get-go. Having to inch through the narrow tunnels while managing your limited light source and camera film really makes you feel vulnerable. The constant cranking of the flashlight is an awesome way to crank up the anxiety levels too. It's pretty cool how they used that scramble to keep powered up as a core gameplay mechanic.

The low-poly graphics give it a distinctly retro PSX vibe, but in a good way that suits the horror atmosphere perfectly. The creature design is simple but nightmarishly effective in its creepiness. I definitely jumped a few times when it appeared out of nowhere. The pixelated blood effects were brutal too!

From reading the comments, it seems like a very polarizing game in terms of whether people found it scary or not. A lot felt it absolutely nailed that claustrophobic, panic-inducing fear of tight spaces and being hunted. But some found the mechanics more frustrating than frightening. Getting stuck on corners or having the creature glitch out and not react properly did break the immersion at times.

There's also an "endless" mode called Madness where you try to take as many photos as possible while avoiding the creature and using limited health syringes. Sounds pretty intense!

Technically, it's made using Blender, Unity, and Aseprite. Compatible with Windows PCs, with a separate build optimized for lower-end machines. No word on the specific PC requirements, but I'd guess even integrated graphics could probably run it okay based on the simple visuals.

Overall, Crawl seems like it delivers a wonderfully tense and unique horror experience, even if the mechanics don't quite work perfectly every time. For a free indie game exploring a pretty niche premise of underground cave photography (!), it's an incredibly creative and atmospheric little gem. If you can get past any jankiness and don't mind a bit of retro low-poly visuals, it's definitely worth checking out, especially if you have even the slightest fear of tight spaces.