A non-feature of this website: a Quick Review. This one, in part of a non-series on this website, is about the free title, Pale Light, from Hushberry Games. How I stumbled across this game was for two reasons. One night, I went down a rabbit hole of saucy thumbnails on Steam, and this 1-bit gem popped up. Nudity aside, the aesthetic and premise sounded interesting, so I wishlist it and subsequently forgot about it.
A little later, a notification popped up that it had been released, but I was in no hurry to fork out any money, as I always have too many games on the go. Butt… it was free! Ok, go on then. I gave it a quick go and died quite early on, which was a surprise for a visual novel-type thing. Then, I sadly forgot about it until cleaning up space on my Steam Deck and having another stab.
In Pale Light, you play you. That is, you give your character a name and are then interviewed by two agents who have asked you to investigate the mysterious discovery of some cadavers. There are no visible wounds (you’re a coroner, by the way), so the hypothesis is that it was a ritual suicide through poison. Now these agents are a peculiar pair, who may have dealt in some X-Files, and they mention a ‘black light’…
Back in the morgue, and the lights go out, and you find that you need to use the flashlight on your mobile, otherwise it’ll get dark and… well, death hides in the shadows. You then periodically inspect the dead bodies and unveil mysterious symbols and clues, though you are up against the clock as your phone battery is going to die out, the feds want answers, something is lurking in the dark, and Love Island is about to start. Urgency is required.
Pale Light is a micro visual novel/horror/hidden object game that seems like it could have a lot more weight if developed further. This isn’t a demo, nor is it going to dip into your Steam Machine savings as it’s free. I say, give it a go, as even if you feel it wasted your time and ‘ruined your life’, it’ll only be for the equivalent of one episode of Love Island. Which is worse. Horrific, in fact. That should come with the label ‘Horror: These are ‘real’ people and make up society. Consume at your peril’.
