Perfect Vermin is a near-perfect reflection of the stuff I want from my horror games, condensed down into an experience roughly fifteen to twenty minutes long.

When looking at a horror game, it’s easy to look at big monsters or a rusty, ugly aesthetic and think “ah yeah, that’s going to be right scary”. Whereas in actual fact, with these games, so obvious is their attempt, they are nowhere near as scary as the games that at least begin with some pretense of normalcy, or at least of grounding it to real themes and real events. Outlast 2 is a game I seriously disliked for this reason. It was always bloody, always shoving nasty stuff in my face, but it never earns those moments, and the game felt like hurtling through some poorly thought out roller coaster of gore.

The smartest horror games understand that symbolism, metaphor and restraint are the key to telling an effective and chilling horror story. As I discussed yesterday, P.T. gets that. It doesn’t spoil the surprise too early, nor does it continually ramp things up. Some loops of the hallway are quieter than others, making moments where things shift back to horror even more noticeable and effective.

Perfect Vermin also understands the value of restraint. You have a big hammer, and you are delivered to an office. What do you do with a hammer? Smash stuff, that’s right. So you smash stuff, until the objective becomes clear.

The game becomes faster and faster, urging you on and on. Smash! Come on, there’s no time! The game builds and builds naturally, and nothing feels out of place. Every simple mechanic has its purpose, and the game feels perfectly balanced.

The arcadey gameplay falls into grotesque and unsettling body horror quite quickly, and then that turns into something far more potent. Something genuinely emotionally intelligent, along the lines of the Silent Hill games or The Void. It turns out the game is a reflection on purpose and meaning, but in a particularly clever way that admittedly I didn’t see coming until just before it all ended.

I don’t want to say more than that, only that you can download it for free on Steam and itch.io.