Unhinged is not the sort of game I’d expect from Oxenfree and The Afterparty developer Night School Studios. Unhinged is, well, unhinged for the studio. Unlike the two Oxenfree games and Afterparty (three games that are spooky, yes, but are anchored by whimsy and endearing characters), Unhinged is a whiteknuckle stress fest, packed with Tobe Hooper Texas Chainsaw Massacre-level gore and scares.
To say as little as possible, it is disturbing. But, boy, it’s a romp too! And yet, despite the jarring contrast to its previous more lighthearted (but still spooky) games, Unhinged still features Night School Studios’ strongest trait: the emotional bond between its characters.
I played through the entirety of Unhinged in about 30 minutes, which is exactly how it’s meant to be played. And that’s one of the things that makes it so cool. Streamed entirely through Netflix, Unhinged is a fully 3D in-engine experience where you use your real-world phone like an actual phone in-game to shine your flashlight, receive as well as make calls, and read texts in real-time, all while hiding from an unhinged killer. It’s a horror thriller joyride that was designed and intended to be played in a single sitting, as if watching a short horror film that you’re controlling.
Sean Krankel, head of Night School Studios, told me that creating an experience that leaned into that one-time viewing (or, playing, in this case) was intentional.
“We believe that there are a lot of people out there who love horror films and TV shows, but who do not necessarily want to learn how to combine herbs and resource manage ammo clips,” Krankel said. “So how can we find something that’s super approachable mechanically?”
The answer: your smartphone, something anyone, gamer or non-gamer, can grasp. The game’s conception, however, didn’t start with the smartphone connection, but instead the use of a flashlight. It was the flashlight that eventually led to the team’s next epiphany.
“How do we not make [your smartphone] just feel like a glorified, bad D-pad?” Krankel said. “How do we make it feel like this could only function with this controller? And we’re like, well, let’s just go all-in with a phone.”
In the game’s tight and punchy 30-minute experience, Night School Studios managed to make me gasp, wince, laugh, and–most impressively–fully understand the friendships between its small cast of characters.
You play as Eva, a young woman alone in her apartment during a hurricane that knocks out the power. Your real-world phone mimics Eva’s, where you can scroll through her texts and receive calls from her best friend Claire, who lives in the adjacent apartment building; her window looks directly into Eva’s. However, Eva is unaware that someone else is in the apartment with her, and Claire gets to watch from afar while on the phone with Eva. Think Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, but in reverse. It’s pure suspense fuel, and it is so damn cool.
Considering the game’s length, it is difficult to say anything more about its events, as it is best experienced on your own–and then again watching a friend play for the first time. And then again with you and your friend watching another friend play it. The game merits all these repeat viewings, as there are branching paths and the potential for Eva to die in several gruesome ways. I wouldn’t know, however, as I made it through to end credits on my first try.
The relationship between Eva and Claire, as well as between Eva and some of her neighbors, isn’t established by laying on mounds of exposition, but rather through the environment and the few texts you can read in her phone. It’s in that confined timeframe in which the game is played that Unhinged uses every trick it’s got, from photos and notes placed in the environment, to nuanced dialogue between Eva and Claire that tells a deeper story about their friendship.
The game starts fast, but picking it up and understanding it is very intuitive, and that’s due to the integration of your own phone acting as the controller and the main storytelling device. Claire’s voice comes from your phone speakers, while Eva’s comes from the TV; your phone screen becomes a simplified version of a phone UI, with text messages to read, calls to make, and an icon to turn the flashlight on and off. With motion controls, moving your phone around moves the flashlight on-screen, allowing you to look freely around the in-game room in real time.
While you don’t have full control of Eva’s movement as navigation is done using point-and-click mechanics, pointing the flashlight towards hotspots allows Eva to turn around or progress forward. While this level of interactivity isn’t new, it still felt very novel when I remembered I was playing a game streaming on Netflix, using my phone. It felt like an experience that I can only have this way, and wouldn’t have the same effect if I had been playing with a traditional controller or mouse and keyboard.
It’s also just a cool case study in observing how someone interacts with their phone when under pressure. You can choose to reject incoming calls, or make them. There are some well-timed calls I declined. But funny enough, I never once thought of calling 911 (which you can do).
Unhinged creates an incredible sense of stress when trying to survive and engage with what’s happening on your TV screen, while also navigating incoming notifications and calls on your phone. I’ve felt anxiety in horror games while trying to carefully use the last few bullets I have, or just barely making it home free after running from a monster, but I can’t point to an experience quite like this, where I was the participant trying to silence a phone call as a killer stood just on the other side of the wall.
When I was told I was going to play a new game streamed through Netflix, I ignorantly thought of Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch or the Escape The Undertaker, both of which were episodes of the TV show that operated like choose-your-own-adventures, often with binary do-this-or-that choices. Unhinged is in a league of its own, though, bringing real-time video game fidelity to the streaming platform in ways that I’m sure will pave the way for new and inventive methods to experiment with short-form game experiences.
You can play Unhinged for yourself on June 30 when the game goes live on Netflix. Maybe you’ll actually try to call 911 … unlike me.
