Version Played: Switch – $6.99/£6.29 – Published by: Ultimate Games

I was excited to get my hands on Otherworldly; it looked like it had a real old school dungeon crawl feel, with horror elements such as jump scares thrown in the mix.

Sadly, it’s quite a disappointing game. The dungeon is extremely dark; though this is intentional in order to play up the scares, it just means that most of the time you’ll be wandering about in the dark without being able to see more than a few feet ahead of you, at most – and it doesn’t help that pretty much everything looks the same.

The jump scares are effective, however, considering that most of the time the creatures attacking you will come out of the aforementioned darkness – with unholy noises announcing their arrival, along with a simultaneous jolt of vibration in the JoyCons that certainly adds to the shock.

The shock doesn’t last long, however. The creatures you encounter are e barely, if at all, animated. You’ll generally be able to walk around a skeleton, for example, as it just stands rigidly in the place it scared you from.

There’s no opportunity to get accustomed to the controls, to knowing where you are or what you’re trying to achieve – you’re pretty much just dumped into the dank, dark dungeon and left to fend for yourself with a handful of matches and a map that draws itself as you move through the dungeon (which is, admittedly, a nice touch).

It’s just a very basic, very technically unpolished game – it seems to have been rushed to release, which is a shame. There’s definitely the shell of a decent game here, but I’m guessing that the budget was restrictive enough that no improvements could be made before release.

Sadly, Otherworldly is a disappointment – and definitely a missed opportunity for some scary, dungeon delving fun.

Disclaimer: Ultimate Games provided me with a code for review purposes.