Mascot horrors may not be experiencing the same boom that came from the huge breakout hit that was Five Nights at Freddy’s (a game that is twelve years old) but there is still a solid fan base for the particular vibes that creepy toys and funhouses can offer. I’ve never been a fan of the static resource management style of the original FNAF, so was happy to see that Dark Pals is a far more dynamic and action-packed take on the formula, playing out as a nicely paced first person exploration game.
You find yourself trapped in an abandoned children’s asylum, complete with games, activities, and sinister secrets. As you try to escape you’ll unravel conspiracies, disturbing histories, and come face to face with nightmarish mascots that quickly switch between helpful and deadly. Add in a sinister director who is using the asylum as a space to develop brain washing techniques in the name of behaviour management and you have all the ingredients for a new franchise. And franchise is the name of the game here, as 1st Floor is the first episode of what promises to be an ongoing series.
I was immediately taken by the graphical style of Dark Pals. Many of the environments are gaudy and brightly coloured in keeping with the childish denizens of the asylum, but there is a disturbing and grotesque aspect that makes everything feel ‘off’ even before things begin to go wrong. As you venture deeper within the environment you’ll find areas that reveal the thin façade of friendliness to be paper thin. Audio design is excellent too as the telltale sounds of enemies and advertising jingles mingle to create a genuinely creepy atmosphere.
While not a shooter game by any means, you do have a cute octopus plushie that can fire gobbets of ink at objects in the environment and is used to activate switches or fill in blank paintings. Different cartridges of colour are hidden around the asylum and you often need to find the right one to unlock specific blocked passages. These puzzles are generally well designed and don’t outstay their welcome as you move from one type to the next at a canter. For what is a relatively short game, and one that is setting out the stall for a series to follow, it contains a nice mix of mechanics and ideas that ensure you never feel bored.
The first set of puzzles sees you having to shoot confetti-filled balloons from the back of a fairground plane ride, score a goal using your octopus ink to push a football, and take part in a shooting gallery. This initial area does well in showing you what the game’s mechanics will be and Dark Pals then gradually builds on these. There are obligatory chase sequences – this is a mascot horror after all – but these are mercifully short and focused with frequent checkpoints to avoid excessive frustration.
But, as with many mascot horrors, much of the atmosphere and effect relies on the design of the mascots themselves. Dark Pals: The 1st Floor has two main residents to encounter and avoid and each is distinctive and well designed. First up you have Chompy Chasey, an oversized canine with the proportions of a beanie baby but scaled up to terrifying size. The initial chase sequence with Chompy is a perfect distillation of the mascot horror genre and is short enough to be challenging without getting boring. The real star of this episode, though, is the grotesque Binky Drinky, a baby-like figure with a bottle teat on his head that he continually sucks with his oversized mouth located in his torso. The Freudian aspects of this design, especially when combined with some very squelchy foley work, make this one of the most disturbing characters I’ve seen in mascot horror.
One potential hold up is the length of this game, though it is balanced out by the price. You can easily make your way through within a couple hours – I had played the first part of this through the demo version so a new player would easily add another 30 minutes or so to that duration. For the price of an increasingly expensive pint or a couple coffees, this is a great addition to horror puzzlers in general and a real shot in the arm for the mascot horror genre.
