Fear the Spotlight Review (Sylveon)
Finally, it's back after a year of being delisted from Steam. Fear the Spotlight is a third-person horror puzzle game about Amy and Vivian, two high school students who break into their school, Sunnyside High, to perform a seance believing that it has a strong connection to the spirit world. During the seance, something happens and Amy vanishes, and it's up to Vivian to find and rescue her from the mysterious and dilapidated Sunnyside High.
Completing Vivian's story unlocks Amy's chapter from her POV.
The game consists of a few sections where you must solve puzzles to get pieces to solve more puzzles all while avoiding a monster shaped like a man but with the head of a spotlight beam. There are small story snippets giving the backstory between the students who perished during a fire that caused the school to close down. The story gradually becomes darker as you progress before the conclusion that led to the events is revealed.
The game has a lot of interaction which seems to be common in modern horror demakes - twist to unscrew, move your mouse in circles to tighten, click items to operate them etc. I enjoyed the tactile nature of the game and liked finding a use for all my items; puzzles were relatively straightforward and easy - you don't need to think much to solve them. Vivian operates on a breath meter which is recovered through asthma puffers - which aren't in short supply. As soon as you use one, you're likely to find another one. The game also checkpoints through every door you enter, so it's quite forgiving.
There's not much music in the game but it builds atmosphere quite well and the sound design and voice acting are all top notch. The voice acting felt natural for the characters and they were decently personified in the game. Amy's chapter reveals a lot more about the two girls and helps build them into more tangible characters. I found her chapter quite tragic and I really believed that Amy and Vivian relied on each other given the backstory of each.
It's not a long game - it took me 2.6 hours to finish the first time, then replaying Vivian's chapter AND then playing Amy's only took me 3.5 hours. I fully believe this is worth playing and one of my favourite of the modern indie horror games that are coming out (that aren't too scary).