The Black Within
The Black Within is a single-player first-person psychological horror. When selling her soul for fame and fortune, Laila Rose faces the consequences of her actions. A tale of Greed, fear, and change.
The year is 2007, you play as Laila Rose, a failed musician who decided to sell her soul to the devil for fame and wealth. Laila, 38 years old, has tried to make it in the music industry, but a lack of talent and patience led Laila to take matters into her own hands and contact a well-known record label manager called Arne Cheyenne.
with the instruction of her new boss, Arne. Laila goes into the abyss and starts her journey, searching for fame and glory. But like the old saying goes, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. What Laila fails to realize is that her battle is bigger than signing a piece of paper; it’s fear vs change and pain vs hope.
Steam User 12
The Black Within will likely take you a bit less than an hour to play through. It might be a bit longer if you spend more time being cautious of the potential terror around the corner.
With that out of the way, how'd I like it? I liked it a lot. I was in a pretty good mood as I played it, a short reprieve from a light case of food poisoning. And so, I just wanted to have fun with it. And I did. I maintained very little levels of seriousness, which was perfectly fine for me. It was the ideal way for me to play.
The game takes place in a few locations, each with a nice bit of atmosphere to give them a creepy vibe. The "scares," almost entirely rely on jump scares. And those will either work on you, or they won't. They did not work on me, but I will admit that the placement of them felt pretty clever. I don't think our main character, Laila, really acknowledged things as much as I would have.
The story is rather minimal. Laila needs to sign a contract and do stuff so she can become the best singer out there. Unfortunately she's a bit aloof to everything around her it would seem. Either that or it's us as the player that's seeing most of the spooky events in the game and not her. In any case, the story serves its purpose and everything flows at such a decent pace I didn't mind it much.
The levels have a fair amount of interactive environments, even if most of that serves no real purpose. It does enough to make the world seem lived in.
Sound design is pretty good, though the volume settings were hard to get just right. Headphones are recommended! Voice acting was very good, as was the ambient sounds. I think the sound for picking up items was hilarious, as it sounded like you were eating things instead of putting them in your pocket. But, perhaps this is how Laila carries her things. I do not know.
In any case, I'm pleasantly happy with buying the game at full price. I certainly recommend this title to horror fans.
Steam User 4
i really loved this game, got a good few jumpscares on me, really loved the atmosphere, the puzzles werent to hard but not hand held either, i recommend this game
Steam User 4
great debut game! loved the story / had some nice jumpscares.. puzzles weren't crazy hard which i appreciate but overall a very well done narrative horror sim. keep going dude!
Steam User 4
Just played this with my friend Tetch, our playthrough is above. It was a ton of fun! Great jumpscares and the puzzles weren't too crazy =) The game also has full voice acting and a cool story! I recommend it =) =)
—Edy
Steam User 4
This game honestly had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. So many quality scary moments. The storytelling was rich,original, and has a very important message behind it. I recommend this game to anyone who enjoys horror games with a powerful story. Smooth gameplay all throughout. LETS BRING THE HORROR GENRE BACK BABYYY!
Steam User 2
This is a fantastic short horror game with some great scares. I did record my play through above but I highly recommend you check out the game yourself if you're a fan of horror.
Steam User 2
I can see some inspo from Visage (My favorite horror game) how they both set a great atmosphere around the story.
The game still needs a lot of polishing, but for being your first game as a solo dev, you really nailed it!
Exited to see what you bring next!