A global phenomenon occurs and a strong aurora soaks the sky in a beautiful, but apocalyptic glow. With the aurora causing problems with navigation, the harbor authorities re-open Outsmouth Lighthouse, which has been operating automatically for many years. We are tasked with manning the lighthouse and helping to navigate ships to their designated ports until everything returns to normal.
Solarsuit.games’s Lovecraftian psychological horror game, Static Dread: The Lighthouse, is described as Papers, Please meets Eldritch horror, and it certainly is that. As we step into the lighthouse for the first time, we’re met with slightly warped, comic book-style visuals which focus on a toxic orange and green colour palette. Outside is a beautiful sunset, and across the room we get an incoming call from the radio.
Over the radio, we’re told that our primary objective is to pick up incoming calls from ships and direct them, safely, to their designations. Static Dread perfectly sets itself up to be a compelling Eldritch horror with a The Shining twist. Separated from our family, we’re isolated in the lighthouse, working nights and with strict instructions not to let anyone inside. Of course, the eccentric characters that turn up on our doorstep every day seem absolutely desperate to get inside for all kinds of reasons, and whether we let them in or not can change several side quests and even the main story.
Ships can’t contact us directly, so when we see that a ship is waiting for us to be directed, we need to hop on the radio and tune in to its frequency. They’ll then fax over any relevant documents, and we need to draw out their route and fax it back to them. Just like in Papers, Please, this will get more challenging as the game progresses, as we’ll be given different rules and tasks each day; sometimes ships will need to take specific routes depending on their draft, or we’ll have to cross-reference the routes with a mine map to ensure they don’t get blown up. We’ll also get various side quests crop up during our routing, as some ships will request we break regulations to help with special tasks.
In between this, the lighthouse is disturbed by an entity of some kind. It will leave scribblings along the walls, turn out the lights, and more, each of which will slowly drive us insane unless we take the time to put things back in order in between ship routing. Our sanity is shown by ambient sounds that will play and get progressively louder the more we are consumed by the amount of scribbling on the walls or from being in the dark for too long.
We can consume food and drink items before and during our shift to improve our mind and stamina levels, and to also give us a boost so that we don’t fall asleep. At the end of each shift, we earn a salary and can sometimes receive fines and bonuses depending on our performance throughout the shift. This salary can then be spent on resources to top up our supplies, or decor items that can also improve our stats. Falling asleep on our shift or being driven insane will result in a game over, so it’s important to stay on top of our levels.
While Static Dread sets the tone perfectly with its gothic comic book-style visuals, creepy townsfolk who all have their own story to tell, and the lighthouse itself also containing a treasure cove of secrets, where it falls completely flat is its gameplay. The Papers, Please-style admin segments of the gameplay are easily the most enjoyable. While I did feel like some of the introductions to the new regulations weren’t well explained (the draft/depth measurement part being a key one, I had no idea what that map was supposed to tell me upon first glance), it does progressively get harder at a steady pace and I found myself receiving more fines towards the latter half of the game because of this – it was the rest of the gameplay that could be downright tedious at times.
I think the biggest problem with the gameplay is the lack of urgency and actual horror. There’s no time limit on answering to ships, so you can take all the time you need to tidy up the lighthouse in between each routing. There’s also no urgency to quickly route ships like there is in Papers, Please, so you can also take as much time as you need to cross-reference documents and make sure you’re choosing the right route. Part of your responsibilities as keeper of the lighthouse is ensuring that the light remains on and continues rotating, we’ll have to keep on top of this if it does stop working for whatever reason but, again, there’s no urgency here, so it’s more just a nuisance that we have to traipse to the roof if the light stops rotating.
And while I found it really annoying that there’s no in-game UI to show what levels your mind, sleep, and stamina are at, I was also never in a position where I ran out of money for food. In fact, I had a huge surplus of food by the time the game was completed because I had spent it all each night and not finished the previous night’s rations. I think the game is expecting players to struggle a lot more with incoming fines than the low difficulty will allow.
This wouldn’t feel so blatant if it weren’t for the fact that Static Dread is not scary at all. It uses approximately six scare tactics and recycles through them for the full ten hours of gameplay: writings appearing on the walls, pictures being thrown off the walls, doors opening and closing, random teddy bear spawns in the middle of the room, lights turning off, and black tentacle puddles appearing. Once or twice, I did see a dark figure dart past the window, and that was the only time I got freaked out, but absolutely every other horror tactic used became incredibly predictable and boring. There’s even a closet to hide in, which was never utilised at all in my playthrough, as nothing ever entered the lighthouse that I needed to run from? This part of the game felt completely unfinished, and I think the unused closet is a big giveaway for that.
By day six I felt like I had a good grip on the gameplay, but it just never progressed past that. The admin segments got trickier, but there’s never any urgency to get everything right. You can explore the lighthouse with some very minor escape room-style puzzles to unlock some rooms and storage, but this is also very minimal. In fact, by five hours in I was incredibly bored, and the repetition in the gameplay had begun to drive me as insane as the Keeper. While the storyline was interesting, the gameplay completely dragged down the experience to the point where the game vastly outstayed its welcome. This is a shame because the varying pathways are quite interesting, and I was really torn on letting people into the lighthouse at the beginning of the game, and there’s certainly some replay value in making different choices.
Jess reviewed Static Dread: The Lighthouse on PC with a provided review copy.
