Puzzle out dreams in this free horror game

Still Ridge is a free adventure video game wherein you visit a strange town shrouded in a deadly mystery. Developed by Jaybee, this 3D retro indie game is a single-player psychological horror journey that’s reminiscent of Silent Hill—especially with its low-poly graphics that pays homage to old-school games.

Still Ridge was created for the Haunted PS1 Demo Disk 2021 contest. It features third-person perspective exploration gameplay mixed in with point-and-click mechanics. Despite this, however, the game is often compared to P.T. Take note that this version is a demo and the full game will be released commercially in four parts. 

Welcome to the town

The story of Still Ridge begins with you waking up in a dim chamber. You play as Omar Fletcher, a therapist. He had recently been called to the titular town and immediately has a looping dream that seems connected to the town’s past. The demo stops just before you can explore the town but the opening dream sequence is enough to showcase the gameplay mechanics.

The controls are easy since it’s mainly a point-and-click game. You just left-click on the floor to walk there, move your mouse to pan the camera view, and click on interactive items to examine them like you would in mystery games. The inventory can also be accessed by simply hovering over the top of the screen. Thus, the gameplay mostly consists of exploring and solving puzzles.

What’s great about this indie horror game is that it’s creepy due to how slow-paced the build-up is. You can’t run and the unusual camera angles make for a terrifying reveal every time something changes in the ever-looping hallway. Plus, the old-school graphics give you unsettling NPC faces. Sometimes, the static camera that just follows you like a side-scroller can make it tricky to spot certain items, though.

A great creepy little game

All in all, Still Ridge is a solid little demo of a puzzle psychological horror game. While the side-scroller-like view makes it difficult to interact with some objects, the overall gameplay mechanics and pacing of the story are quite engaging and even nostalgic to fans of PS1 games. This is a highly recommended horror demo for fans of old-school PS1-style games.