The Door in the Basement
I find myself a the foot of a staircase in a basement. Darkness and silence are surrounding me. As my eyes get used to the absence of light, I fail to make my way back upstairs, so I go over to the only door down there.
As I make it through all sorts of hallways, I encounter a lightly dressed man mumbling while standing in a corner. As I approach him, he turns towards me and looks at me with his dead eyes. His name is Marc.
Don’t stay long here, the man without a face has many pets…
Baffled by his cryptic words, I continue through the maze that unfolds as I carry on through the basement tunnels. Soon, I would regret that. Still recovering from the horrors I experienced during the first monster I encountered in the depths of these mysterious catacombs, and having solved even more confusing puzzles to get down further and further, I keep finding notes that appear to be written by Marc. In these notes, I learn about someone who used to stand by his side throughout his attempts of escaping from here.
She went mad. She is one of them now…
Is all of this even real? I think I saw Marc sitting in fron of a TV earlier… He didn’t seem to notice or recognize me anymore. Am I getting mad too? This humanoid creature is constantly following me now — I hardly managed to escape it last time.
Light, over there! This has to be the exit, right? Finally I found my way out of this hell of a place!
Or so I thought…
The Door in the Basement takes us to an alternative reality in which first person walking around horror like it was popularized by games like amnesia was around in the N64 era. With its pixelated retro visuals it takes you right back to how you experienced your first console games — and somehow gets even spookier by doing so.
Never have I found myself being on the edge of my chair as often as when playing the demo version of The Door in the Basement. I spent about 30 minutes playing this title and do not regret a single second of it… or rather… I do in fact! But in a good way.
Horror games aim to make you anxious about what's behind the next corner, experiencing horrifying incidents while not actually living through them and staying out of harm’s way. The Door in the Basement excels at that like I haven’t seen in video games in a long time. If you are a horror fan like me or just seek that next rush of adrenaline, I urge you to try this one. The demo is free after all, so what are you waiting for?
Make sure to wishlist the game on steam if you enjoyed playing the demo version and if you like indie horror games, take a look at a piece I wrote on Casper Croes’ Alisa!
