Having recently taken a look at The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters ahead of its Xbox One release, I’ve now had a chance to play it and I’m pleased to report that it’s an excellently creepy experience. I was perhaps expecting the game to be more along the lines of a visual novel with little interaction beyond the odd occasional dialogue choice, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that’s not the case.

Exploring a school, in control of a teenage student named Mina, things start of slowly in order to build up a feeling of normality in your surroundings – attending lessons, helping friends out with errands and just generally getting to know the layout of the school, which is explored from a 2-dimensional perspective. When you fall asleep in class, however, things take an incredibly creepy turn, with the environment twisted into something a few nightmarish steps away from the reality that you were just becoming accustomed to.

Lovecraftian weirdness inhabits the halls at night, with some truly scary creatures and shadowy, gory figures to escape from. There’s a lot to discover and much to do; even though I’m not far into the narrative, it’s already pretty compelling and very, very spooky indeed – with an excellent atmosphere created by the comic book visuals and excellent sound design.

I’m definitely looking forward to exploring more of the school and the environment beyond, even if I might need to stick to playing during the daytime, for the sake of my own sanity…