Pure unadulterated terror, pants wetting fear, and shriekingly uncontrollable horror are rare in today’s gaming market considering the scariest game these days is one where animatronic mascots jump-scare you to death. So it is great to see a game really grasp subtlety in storytelling and innovative gameplay, such as Stairs.
In Stairs you play as journalist Christopher Adams who is desperate for a story he can publish. While searching for a story he stumbles upon some missing persons reports for Valerie Berkley, a high school graduate; James Reed, a young businessman; and Jean Jowars Remens, a pastor. After reading the reports Christopher links the missing persons to an abandoned factory. Once in the factory he unknowingly takes stairs that lead to unimaginable horrors. The most interesting part about these horrors is all the horrors in the game are based off of real life events like the Dahmier party or Jones Town Massacre and those are just two examples of the events that the developers at GreyLight pull from to make Stairs more realistic, and horrific.
The main three items you will be using in Stairs are a camera, a video camera, and tape recorder. These items allow you to see things in a different perspective ranging from secret messages to seeing some monsters. The camera is carried around by the player and used to see in things that normally can’t be seen. The same for the video camera, but it can be placed in key locations and then later recovered. Lastly is the tape recorder, which works the same way as the video camera in that the player can leave it and come back to it and it will have recorded things the player can’t hear normally.
If you want to learn more about Stairs be sure to check out its Kickstarter campaign before it ends on March 18th.
