There’s a fair amount of red in The Green Light, but this isn’t about RGB connections, and instead a sort of psychological horror that’s toys with a walking simulator. It’s a simple setup, but it’s not without a few peculiar pieces that break any signs of immersion. No, we’re not playing ‘In real life, this would happen’, but there are quite a few unnatural moments and setups that make this often feel like you’re playing a game rather than getting lost in it.
You play Fred, an office worker stuck in a meaningless job, meaningless existence and all that sort of stuff. He’s pulling a late shift as his boss is a bit of a dick who hates any form of life, to the point where he’ll leave open notes/letters scattered around the workplace that detail how he’ll cut their wages and make them do overtime. Well, that’s where we are with Fred.
Alas, there’s a power cut to his old school 486 tower, and he has to jump through a few hoops to connect the power and wander the office with a… lantern. You see, there are no flashlights in The Green Light. Anyways, after a fetch quest and reading notes by disgruntled employees, you soon befriend a creepy Saturday morning cartoon villain over a radio who may or may not be helping you, and then everything goes Pete Tong. That red soon turns to green, and we’re now outside the building, pacing the place looking for clues on what to do next/to solve a puzzle.
Eventually, we start to make our way to a lighthouse, but that’s not without some classic walking simulation revelations and those light puzzles. However, there wasn’t really anything that caught my attention. The lighting was good, and the sound production was good, though the couple of jump scares were annoying and unnecessary. The biggest thing for me was that the dialogue was iffy, as was the delivery, a little too pantomime. There’s an idea here, but there wasn’t enough to convince me to follow the light. More so when I couldn’t manually save and, after two attempts, had to start the game again.
Still, I persevered with The Green Light and, without any spoilers, that shift from green to red was the highlight for me, but the messages throughout were a little too literal and forced their meaning down my throat. I’m sure there’s something we can pick out that’s relatable, and I know I could, but they’re a little too abstract to connect all the dots to create one big coherent narrative. Sure, I’m a narrative-driven gamer, and while I like ambiguity, this wasn’t something that made me think, ‘Oh wow… I need to re-evaluate my life’. Instead, I thought, ‘How am I going to write this review without giving anything away? Focus on the good bits?’ Some elements could have really made this shine, but regrettably, it didn’t shine for me.
If you’re looking for a good walking sim, may I suggest Project Songbird?
