The thing about Look Outside is … don’t. It’s scary out there (but also do it for a quick achievement). Filled with beautifully horrific pixel art, terrible life choices, and a nosey neighbor, Look Outside is a unique horror game that keeps you on the edge of your seat. It also teaches you about colour theory. You know, the colour of red blood trailing down the hallway is definitely going to lead to some sort of boss fight, and you definitely shouldn’t go there. But you will.
Look Outside is a survival horror RPG made on the RPG Maker engine, originally as a submission for a Game Jam session. It gained popularity, and was quickly turned into a full game, and we can all be thankful for the nightmares it brings. In Look Outside, you play as an average guy in the middle of a Lovecraftian apocalypse. There is something outside that people have looked at, and it has turned them into monsters. Unfortunately, as you live in an apartment building surrounded by people who like to look at the outside world, you have to deal with it. You were wise enough to just play video games and not experience the outside world!
The ultimate goal is to survive fifteen days, but you can also banish the entity that has created this world of horror. If you get bored or something. After all, there are only so many video games, sudokus, and crosswords you can play before you die of boredom. Yeah, I’d easily survive fifteen days too… Still, Look Outside plays on your inherent curiosity, gently nudging you to discover more and more about the world outside of your apartment. It’s clear that following a blood trail or entering an apartment that a monster just burst out of are bad ideas. Surely, they can only lead to ruin? But that’s not going to stop you! Besides, a trail of blood is basically a red carpet, right?
One of the smartest mechanics of the game is the time system. Time only moves forwards as you do things. Either playing games, cooking food, or exploring outside your apartment, and even then, only when you explore new areas. The longer you explore, the more dangerous everything becomes, and the more experience you earn. If you don’t do anything, the day simply doesn’t progress and won’t let you go to sleep as it’s much too early. If lockdown taught me anything, it is that I can and will nap at any given opportunity. Add another useful skill that will get me through the fifteen days needed to survive Look Outside. Useful, but admittedly, not heaps of fun.
So, of course, there is nothing else to do except explore. The atmosphere outside the apartment is creepy. There are broken doors, wandering monsters, and giant flesh walls that expand to eat you. If you don’t get lost running from that, then how about trying your hand at the labyrinth that somehow fits inside one floor of the apartment building despite being much better than every other floor? Obviously, as with most cosmic horror situations, there is more than meets the eye, and figuring out what happened to your neighbours can only be done by breaking and entering. And stealing everything that isn’t nailed down from right in front of a monster. While that sounds like fun, Look Outside does an excellent job of creating an atmosphere of dimly lit horror by making you mistrust everything. Kid playing with toys? Probably evil. Monsters with eyes for torsos? Definitely evil. A knock at the door? Someone evil! Maybe? Well, you won’t know unless you check, and you are bombarded with choices like this that you have to make in order to progress the game that will have you pausing and wondering if you’re really about to explore the apartment that has mysteriously opening and closing doors.
Combat is what is to be expected from an RPG Maker game and one of the weakest components of the game. It’s not too varied and can become nothing more than an easy hurdle as you recruit any companions. Of course, that does require you to trust someone else, so chances are you won’t pick up anyone. Classic turn based RPG combat aside, it’s not all bad. The art of the monsters you fight evolves as they slowly creep towards you, something that really encapsulates the cosmic horror tennent of less knowledge is definitely safer. There is nothing quite like a game telling you that you are too low a level to beat the monster in front of you as you try to escape, only to fail to escape and have said monster step forward with about five times the amount of eyeballs it should have. Better hope you can escape better next turn.
As much as you’ll wish you didn’t have to continue going outside your apartment and doing the other obviously stupid horror movie things that you get up to in Look Outside, there is a draw to the macabre and the unknown. As the saying goes, ‘Curiosity killed the cat, and satisfaction brought him back’. Satisfaction might not bring you back; but it will give you an excess amount of teeth, tongues, eyeballs, and trauma, and that’s just as good. Right?
Satisfaction might not bring you back; but it will give you an excess amount of teeth, tongues, eyeballs, and trauma, and that’s just as good. Right?
