A pinch of darkness, a dash of loud noises, and a hint of mystery are all the makings of Escape from Umbra, brought to you by the team at Wild Sphere, known for a few titles such as Oxide Room 104 and Naught. Become lost in a world of darkness where you’ll have to use your puzzle-solving skills to escape the clutches of Umbra.

During a celebration, you are taken to the Domain of Umbra; she wants to find you and lock your soul away forever.

You find yourself in a village; it’s dark and eerily quiet. You must escape this place, along with your trusty stray cat companion. You are armed with only a flashlight and a book that contains clues on how you can muster an escape.

For the most part, the game runs quite smoothly and will for most mid-to-high-end PCs.

As you play, you follow the book you pick up at the start. This book contains tips and clues – basically a guide to solving each clue in the game – and they appear in order, which creates perfect cohesion.

For example, a clue might have a picture of 4 circles, and 1 circle has an arrow pointing underneath, which is a riddle giving you a clue on how to solve it! And all this is easily trackable with a map of the village right there in the middle of the book.

Trust in your cat. As you play, a certain area will have you following a sprinting cat to help lead you to the next location, but be careful and pay attention because you are not alone; Umbra and her minions are on the prowl! Low wood creaking sounds creep up as you play, letting you know she is nearby, searching for you, loud moans to her walking minions and screeching to her flying ones.

You may ask, well, how do you defend yourself? The only “weapon” at your disposal is a flashlight, but this is a double-edged sword because, yes, it helps you to see, and holding the charge up on it does let you flash the minions to kill them; it is also a source of attraction for them! Like moths to a flame, they will charge you for your light.

Keep your wits about you and an ear out for each creak and moan.

WildSphere is open and honest about AI support in the creation of its game.

Now, visually, the game is very dark, with dim lighting; expect to squint as you make your way around this world. They did a very good job of incorporating certain elements into the design, such as when you turn the flashlight on, a small remnant of what you were looking at remains, becoming a silhouette before fading back to black. This element really helped with the immersion.

When it comes to audio for horror games, it can be quite hit or miss. I don’t find there’s much grey area here, and, in my opinion, Escape from Umbra missed the mark with their audio. A lot of the time, it felt overbearing and would take me out of the game, making me feel less immersed.

Escape from Umbra does well in the horror category and was enjoyable to play, with a few tweaks to sound and that god-awful maths-solving puzzle!! (no spoilers) It would be much more enjoyable.

I enjoy a good horror as much as the next person, but I really put my foot down when it comes to certain aspects that I would consider lazy.

Escape from Umbra treads the line for me, but I still found it quite enjoyable.

The relief and satisfaction of solving a puzzle always feel good, and when you’re under the threat of being caught, it makes it all the more exciting.

It has room to grow, but it is still a rather enjoyable game to play if you like a little head-scratcher.

Written by: Matiyus