Go to Bed: Survive the Night Preview – Frantic Ghostbusting

Go to Bed: Survive the Night .

. The game’s instructions are pretty much right there in the title. As a young child, your one job is to make it through the evening without all of your imagined terrors coming to life and taking yours. Sounds simple, but the child in Touchfight Games’ inaugural title lives in the most haunted house on the planet, with dozens of ghosts and other creatures attacking every evening. Reality doesn’t seem to be holding together all that well either, and soon you’ll find yourself in all manner of creepy places as you wait for the morning sun to vanquish the horrible night.

It’s a long time coming, though. A real long time.

Go to Bed: Survive the Night involves clicking on the creeping hands that show up while you cower in your bed. The player’s character is at the center of the screen, and you have to watch the sides to make sure none of the hands are close enough to touch you. If they make contact enough times, you die and are tossed back to the title screen. If you can keep those hands at bay until the timer runs out, then you’re off to the next hour or the next night.

You’re not just looking out for long, shadowy hands, either. Other enemies start to creep in that are a lot harder to deal with, such as the ghosts that split into multiple ghosts when clicked, or the giant spiders that can’t be clicked on at all. The game introduces a few of these to the player at the beginning, but for the most part you have to figure out what these enemies do on the fly. Touchfight tended to be pretty good about having little else going on when a new enemy showed up, but you still have to figure out what each enemy does while still fending off other things. It makes learning a new foe difficult and frantic. It does warn you about the ones that damage you, though, never tricking you into losing a precious hit.

Another thing the game was really fair about was the hit boxes on its enemies and collectibles. The game isn’t especially fussy about where you click, giving enemies a bit of a wide hit box for when you’re wildly clicking around to hit multiple ones. It’s not that it’s far outside the enemy and makes it easy, but more that it gives the player the benefit of the doubt when they’re not quite on the enemy. The player’s hitbox is quite small as well, so you can save yourself when the ghosts are really quite close. It seems like it’s skewing things in the player’s favor, but this has been done to make most of the game’s stages possible .

The whole art style is a cartoonish black and white, giving the dark events more of a sense of humor. It’s funny to watch the poor kid cowering in his bed, and to see him raise his blankets higher and higher over his head as he takes damage. The enemy designs are more of the childish, cutesy ghosts you’d see in a children’s game, but there is something a little off about those crawling shadow hands. The game’s enemies straddle this weird line where they’re too cartoonish to be scary, but the dark outlines and simple designs also give them just the right amount of creepiness. It’s humorous horror, and gives the game a neat personality.

The game gets hard pretty fast, especially if your mouse sticks in any way to your mousepad, so you may need some help. Small balls of light also appear on-screen when you’re clicking your ghostly problems away. You want these, as clicking enough of them will let you turn on your lamp for a moment, temporarily paralyzing everything on the screen. If you save up even more, you can launch a burst of light that will wipe out everything in sight. Both are useful, but it can be pretty risky to save up for that burst.

Spiders also wander around the stage. Squishing them won’t give you a bonus on the current level, but in between stages you can buy some items from your toy closet to help you out. The teddy bear gives you another precious hit, the toy box puts more light orbs on the screen, and the dreamcatcher collects light balls for you. All handy stuff that will keep you in your bed and out of the grave a bit longer.

Now, items and light balls become very important in a hurry since the game is pretty relentless right form the start. The fun part is that clicking those items takes your attention away from clicking ghosts, so you have to carefully, yet quickly choose how you want to progress on any given screen. Every second is filled with rapid decisions on what to click on next as you whip from ghost to ghost. Do you have time to nab items? Do you have enough time to click on that stray spider? When you’re in deep trouble, do you risk going after the light orb and ignoring the enemies so you can freeze them and destroy them all? Your mind is always judging distances and calculating risks/rewards while playing it, and it keeps the player engaged in every single second you’re playing. The stages are usually only a minute or two long, but every single moment is earned by the player’s wit and reflexes.

The game’s backed up by a spooky, but lighthearted soundtrack that captures its mood quite well. The demo build I received had a copy of the game’s odd soundtrack, which I was happy to continue listening to. Many horror games shoot for a deliberately creepy soundtrack, but this horror-styled game had a sense of humor about it that was reflected in the music. This created an odd little selection of tunes that really match the game well, and make for some fun listening later. It’s a unique selection of tracks that I really enjoyed.

I found the demo build to be quite challenging, especially when you have to keep clicking on lights and maintaining other tasks while playing the game in later stages. Touchfight Games keeps finding new things to toss into the juggling act as you play, and are promising to have even more challenging things to throw your way in the future. A second story-driven campaign is on its way, as is a harder mode for people who hate themselves, and some unlocks. The devs also want to add some more puzzle-like stages in case your brain doesn’t already feel completely engaged in keeping ghosts from taking your life.

Go to Bed: Survive the Night takes a simple control scheme and uses it to push the player to the limits of their speed and ability to think. It’s a fast, straightforward game that will keep players involved for every moment they’re playing, requiring great timing and planning to get through. It offers a lot of additions to the player who feels it’s somehow too easy, providing a good difficulty curve depending on what you’re looking for as a challenge. It’s already a cute, fun horror-styled game that you can pick up for five minutes, guilt free. Maybe longer if you want to see the really strange places this game will take you, though. Something really strange is going on in this silly world – something darker than the goofy visuals would have you believe.

Go to Bed: Survive the Night’s (very robust) Beta and soundtrack are available for $4.99 on Gumroad. You can learn more about developer Touchfight Games by reading their website, or following them on Facebookand Twitter. You can also help the game out with a Greenlight vote.