“Little Nightmares II”: the video game that plunges into fear at child height

It is the story of Mono, a little boy whose head is covered with a paper bag, and Six, a little girl in a yellow raincoat, who are prisoners of a world "distorted by the disturbing transmissions emitted by a tower distant". In any case, if we rely on the official presentation of Bandai Namco, the publisher of Little Nightmares II designed, like the first episode published in 2017, by the Swedish studio Tarsier. Because the impressions that we get from this nocturnal game with an ultra-precise tempo and which, to express itself, does not bother with words, turn out to be less clear, less direct than this little scenario. Unless, on the contrary, they are only too much – what stirs Little Nightmares II finds in us, deeply, an echo.

cursed schoolboy

It starts more or less like Limbo, the masterpiece of the Danes of Playdead which, here, is a major influence. In the forest, in the night, our character advances and falls into a trap. Then in another, and yet another. He dies, is reborn, leaves again and we do the same, but each time with a little more anguish than the one before. From this first woodland setting, followed by other equally evocative ones (a school, a hospital, etc.), the principle is established: Little Nightmares II is an experience of vulnerability. This feeling of leading a fragile being whose survival, at all times, hangs by a thread, will not leave us during the big handful of hours that the adventure lasts. Some threats cannot be avoided at first. How can we guess, for example, that setting foot in such a place on the floor will trigger a device that will end with the arrival at full speed on our defenseless skull of an ultra-heavy bucket attached to a wire? Afterwards, we are wary and we learn – we learn to “read” our environment, to anticipate. But, at the same time, we tell ourselves that another unpredictable "attack" could arise at any moment. The big business of Little Nightmares II is there: in its way of combining the ambient game (the walking simulator, or rather running because we spend our time trying to escape) and the die & retry. To inject a dose of the second, like a virus, into the first, to contaminate it. This done, even the void becomes disturbing.

Fortunately, Little Nightmares II is not a punishing game. Not completely, in any case, because if he sometimes seems to want us badly, the counterpart will be, for us, the possibility of immediately trying our luck again, from a point always very close to the one where we failed. . Before, perhaps, failing again because, for a little guy like ours, dragging a big hammer in order to defend himself from the other rather (very) odd children at school who only want to throw themselves at him and devouring his face is anything but obvious. We feel the heaviness, the weakness, the seconds that slip away and the need to act (hitting, jumping, climbing, dodging) right at the right time or risk relaunching the time loop in which, at times and not only because the control of our character with the joystick is slightly imprecise, we find ourselves locked up like a cursed schoolboy.

Duck on wheels

Fortunately, in certain game sequences, there are two of us and, as in Ico, we grab our friend by the hand (“Six”, who was the heroine of the first Little Nightmares). We hold her to prevent her from falling and she does the same. When we have to reach a passage in height or hang on to a door handle to open it, she gives us the short ladder, too. We are not completely alone (but still a little anyway). Together, at the hospital, we find ourselves in a room with books, toys, stuffed animals that we pass through X-rays – you never know, they could contain a treasure. There are balloons, here as in other dark places, decrepit and as if haunted by a past life which has left traces there. And here is a wooden duck equipped with wheels which Six grabs and takes with her. It holds no real place in the game – in its mechanics, in its puzzle solving. Playfully, it's a useless, "free" duck. The effect produced will only be stronger if we deign to take an interest in him.

Black dream

Little Nightmares II is based on two movements, two actions, on their articulation and their contradictions. First there is the race, the escape. You have to start from here, most of the time to the right of the screen (like in the platform games of yesteryear) and put an end to this hostile and monstrous world. The other omnipresent gesture is that of grasping, of holding. The hand of Six, then, but not only: a weapon, an object that will allow us to unlock a forbidden passage, the edge of a cupboard on which we would like to climb or of a platform above the void so as not to fall. And then there are those things that we pick up and that are useless. These fetishes, these cuddly toys, these things to reassure ourselves, which we grasp less because we hold on to them than to hold on to something. There's a button on the controller for that, a trigger to create a link with the universe. We use it and abuse it, then we run away.

Rich in ideas that renew the experience, like those televisions between which you travel in a flash like from one hole to another in Portal, but which do not break its precious monotony (because, yes, for a work, monotony can be a quality), Little Nightmares II shakes us up without deviating from its line. That, changing, of the black dream, of the protean haunting and the traumas that we gather in bouquets. It's a bit like The Night of the Hunter – there's one, by the way, a terrifying one –, a bit like Eraserhead, a bit like all past and present monster films, seen or only imagined, reduced to the essentials: to childish terrors which, contrary to what one might think, are ageless. It's a bit sad, as melancholic almost as much as it is frightening. We never see the face of the trembling but courageous little heroes of this Little Nightmares II which will leave its mark. Perhaps because, on the other side of the screen, ours twists in their place.

Little Nightmares II (Tarsier Studios / Bandai Namco), on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, Windows and Stadia, around €30

Cultist Simulator: Initiate Edition

When it comes to “life simulation”, there are other options than Animal Crossing. For example, if you rather dream of finding yourself at the head of a sect in a Lovecraftian universe, Cultist Simulator is an excellent address. Freshly adapted on Switch, the game of the British Alexis Kennedy is one of those that are given without instructions and that we learn by practicing them. Here, the system to tame is based on cards that we decide to play or not and which determine the fate of our character. Will he read, rest, work or engage in a much more specific activity requiring more than one card? Inevitably, we end up losing, that is to say, dying, and it is a descendant of our character who will take over. The more we advance, the more the richness and subtlety of Cultist Simulator emerge. Which, in addition to a great strategic game, wakes up a model of video game writing (but only in English).

On Switch, Weather Factory, around 20€. Also available on Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android

“Summer Catchers”

We knew the atmospheric runner with the very beautiful Alto's Adventure and Alto's Odyssey. With Summer Catchers, already released on PC and mobiles and just arrived on the Switch, it is towards the narrative adventure game that the Ukrainian studio FaceIT leads this genre derived from the platformer and very popular on smartphones in which it is to make a character who is advancing alone avoid the obstacles that stand in his way. Here, it's a young girl who dreams of leaving her snowy country to join the South and the summer. To do this, she will have to complete a certain number of objectives at each of her stages and use the tools at her disposal at the right time to blow up her vehicle, accelerate or even protect herself from a shield. If, in the long run, the exercise turns out to be a bit tedious (but less in touch than with the controller), we will forgive Summer Catchers a lot for its sense of detail, for the encounters offered by its adventure phases and for its adorable graphic style all in pixel art.

On Switch, FaceIT / Noodlecake, around 10€. Also available on Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android