Can You Find Your Faith Within Your Darkest Hour? Gray Dawn Releases on Steam

By: GeekyGamerGirl87

Developed and published by Interactive Stone, Gray Dawn is a psychological horror indie game that pulls you in with its story and leaves you with a dropped jaw. Normally, I do not play psychological horror games, but wanted to step a bit out of my comfort zone. So, when I was offered a copy of Gray Dawn for free to play from the developers, I said “I’m probably going to be scared out of my mind, but I really want to step out of my comfort zone and I am going to review this game. It’s an indie game, it can’t be that scary.” I’m just going to laugh, because the mind set should have been, because it is an indie game, I should probably expect to be scared. So, I would like to thank Interactive Stone for being generous enough to provide me with a free copy of Gray Dawn to play so that I could write this review, and for also making a game that really does creep me out.

In Gray Dawn, you are playing as Father Abraham,— awesome choice for the name by the way—, a priest who is the head caretaker of Saint Anne’s Orphanage.  Apparently, one of the children, who’s name is David, comes up missing and unless you find him or David magically reappears; you will be swinging at the gallows for his murder.  Therefore as Father Abraham you set out on your journey to find out what happened to little David before you must meet your maker.

When you first start off the game Father Abraham is locked inside of a room –which I presume is his office—that has three locks on the inside of the room. No, you didn’t read that wrong, they are on the inside of the room, as if he has locked himself in. Apparently, walking around the room Father Abraham explores and talks a little bit about David, even looking at his favorite toy and saying how the toy really resembles David. At one point you receive a letter from David which contains a key to unlock the locks letting you go out to explore the church. You bounce between the church and a special place that God has created for the children, at least this is what David calls it and also tells you that you are not worthy of being here. However,  you have to find eight objects and once you find them you will be able to learn the truth, and truly walk among this paradise.

Graphically, I found the game breath taking. The imagery was well thought out and the atmosphere of the game had me a little freaked out. I don’t want to spoil too much of the game; but it appears that because of this incident with David; Father Abraham has some deep-rooted issues and is questioning his faith.  The scenery in the game does a great job of showing how Father Abraham is losing his faith, with its grotesque details in the game. Although, this is described as a psychological horror adventure game, I would like to say to me it felt like more of a walking simulator with puzzle elements, because this game –in my opinion— really focuses on the story and let me tell you it has a lot of story behind it.  There is more to it besides David missing and out of respect for the game I won’t dive deeper into the game’s other storylines.

The gameplay for the game was solid. Although, the puzzles are a tad bit easy at times, I believe they are made easy so that you can focus on the story of the game. There are times that when you solve a puzzle that Father Abraham would fall into insanity; or as this is a religious based game “temptation. “ This would in turn distort the game into random colors. Therefore, I will say that if you have motion sickness or may have difficulty with looking at distorted images, you may want to proceed with caution when playing this game.

When it came to the controls for the game, they worked very well. You are not able to use gamepad and can only use keyboard/mouse which to me added a little bit more to the atmosphere of the game. I won’t say that the game is scary as it is more so intriguing, but those jump scares had me turning the game off a few times. Again, as I stated before psychological horror is not my thing, and I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t say that I appreciate the times in which Father Abraham had entered Paradise and found myself on edge when I had to go back to his personal hell.

Surprisingly, one of the things the game does lack are achievements and as I do enjoy collecting achievements, I would say that this would keep me playing the game or at least trying to 100% complete the game. The game also doesn’t have the trading card feature, so overall you are just really playing a horror walking simulator, but even so I still would like to complete the game because I did like the puzzles and the storyline did draw me into the game.

Overall, when it comes to Gray Dawn, I can honestly say that I highly recommend the game. The game has a great storyline and is very gorgeous with it’s art. It has just enough jump scares to put you on edge, and even though this is out of my comfort zone, I am determined to see what happened to David and if Father Abraham will be able to overcome his insanity. If you would like to experience Gray Dawn for yourself, you can pick it up on steam for the price of $19.99 USD. Again, I highly recommend that you do, you will not be disappointed if you’re looking for a great story.