NOX is a wonderfully disorientating M.C. Escher inspired first person psychological horror game set within the nightmares of a kid who suffers from sleep paralysis.
In NOX you are a young kid called Gabi who has some deep seated abandonment issues as a result of their childhood trauma. Throughout the game you’ll enter Gabi’s nightmares and work through her trauma, while avoiding creepy entities, solving puzzles and traversing lots of mind-bending Escher-esque environments.
NOX: Chapter 1 takes around 45 minutes to play through and sees Gabi dealing with two of the sources of trauma in their life. They manifest in two different forms and you’ll need to figure out how to deal with them if you want to survive and escape the nightmare. The game also makes use of photographs and pictures which you can hold up in the correct place to unlock new areas, which can be easier said than done when you don’t know what’s up and what’s down.
Some of the storytelling is a little on the nose, but aside from that NOX is an excellent game. The puzzles are very inventive, the visuals are fantastic and the environmental design is superb and packed full of creative uses of its Escher-esque geometry. Highly recommended.
Controls: WASD – Movement, Mouse – Look, Shift – Picture/Book, Spacebar – Place Decoy, LMB/RMB – Turn Page
Available On: Windows (Steam)
Gameplay Video: Here