Insomnis is a horror puzzle game in which you explore an abandoned mansion after inheriting it from your grandfather.
Presentation and Horror
The first thing I noticed was the graphics which are unexpectedly high quality for such a low-budget indie game. The illusion can begin to wear off once animations come into the mix, but aside from that, it looks great. The ambient soundscape complements the graphics nicely, giving the mansion a creepy atmosphere before anything strange has actually happened. Conversely, the voice acting is rough around the edges and kind of takes you out of the experience, but it’s not laughably bad like many projects of this scale.
As soon as you enter the mansion, it gets off to a strong start thanks to some excellent tension building. It feels like something is about to happen after every step you take. Eventually, it hits you with a strong jump scare that got me pretty good, even though I was on the lookout for something like that. Jump scares are often criticized for being used as a crutch to prop up a game with mediocre horror elements, but this one was used to complement the atmosphere, rather than make up for it. It’s a great sequence that I wish could have been replicated as you progress through the house, but sadly, it begins to get repetitive and predictable. Sure, you might still flinch, but you won’t be scared. This also coincides with a shift towards more of a puzzle focus, so it isn’t unwarranted, but I would have loved for the developers to keep the horror going.
Gameplay
After the first chunk of primarily horror adventure gameplay, you start to see more complex puzzles that have the potential to trip you up, rather than the easy puzzles that are just an excuse to make you walk around a spooky mansion. Overall, I felt that there was a good balance between simplicity and challenge, although getting stuck is an absolute nightmare due to the lack of a hint system. One puzzle, in particular, ground the game to a halt until I gave in and looked up the solution. It kills the atmosphere and might explain why horror puzzle games are so difficult to pull off.
Something that many great horror puzzle games do is tie each puzzle to the game world. For Insomnis, this is done by making each solution reveal some backstory about the mansion, the owner, etc. Although the puzzles themselves are a bit far-fetched in terms of realism, they make sense in the context of the story.
Verdict
The excellent atmosphere dwindles as you progress, but it’s still an above-average horror game complemented by strong puzzles. Horror-puzzle fans will probably enjoy it, although there are certainly better games in the genre that I would recommend playing first.
Thanks for your review! <3