Jordan Jones provides his hands-on impressions of Hello Neighbor…
Nothing gets the blood pumping in a game quite like being chased. Some of the scariest moments in gaming have always involved being pursued to some degree. It’s the reason that Resident Evil 3 is still a terrifying experience to this day. There is this ever-present acknowledgement that somewhere, something is looking for you. Being pursued keeps players on their toes. After all, you never know how much time you will have before things will go awry. Dynamic Pixels has built an entire game around this very idea. In true Hitchcock fashion, Hello Neighbor tasks you with uncovering the secrets of the mysterious resident next-door. To do so, players must sneak into his foreboding residence by any means necessary. With multiple entrances, and items to distract your foe, there are a variety of ways to accomplish this feat. However, players will have to get creative as the neighbor himself boasts advanced AI, and will do just about anything to get his hands on you; even adapting to your strategies. I spent some time with the pre-Alpha version of Hello Neighbor, and was left cautiously optimistic.
The game starts players out in a small bedroom, complete with a giant window overlooking your neighborhood. The aforementioned neighbor’s house looms front and center from the window, tempting you. There is the option to explore prior to heading in this obvious direction, but there doesn’t seem to be a reason for it right now. The larger environment seems purely for show, with plenty of invisible barriers. Also, many of the items scattered around do not seem particularly useful, and there is little rhyme or reason for why any of these items are placed where they are. For example, is that a toaster sitting on top of my car? Furthermore, why is there a lawnmower placed vertically against that fence? I noticed things like this quite a bit throughout my playthrough. It’s not a bad thing, per se, just a bit bizarre.
The real game began once I decided to venture over to the neighbors house. Out of curiosity, I did a complete walk around the property to see if there were any barriers. During this trek, I noticed I was able to peer through every window in the house. Once I reached the front door again, I found it unlocked so I crouched, and moved in to take a look around. Most other doors were locked, but I did notice a door to my right casting a blinding light. Eerie music seemed to be coaxing me this way so I inched closer. Sadly, I was cut short as I was ambushed by the dead-eyed, mustachioed man who lives there. Being caught causes a loud crescendo to bang that, again, is very reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock. It’s startling, and definitely adds to the tension. After that brief shock, I immediately woke again in the same room in which I started. In that way, the game employs a similar tactic to the ill-fated Silent Hills: putting the player on what feels like a continuous loop.
Also similar to Silent Hills are the subtle changes that occur with each subsequent loop. Every time I woke up in my own bed after a failed attempt to reach the basement, I would immediately head back over to the neighbors house to discover that he was seemingly onto me. My favorite tactic was clumsy: simply sneaking in through the front. He caught wind of this, and not only locked the door, but set a bear-trap near the porch. My next attempt involved ringing the doorbell. This was an interesting moment for me, because I didn’t know how far this pre-Alpha would go. Would he answer? I began to hear foreboding music, and immediately had the impulse to hide behind the neighbor’s car. Sure enough, there he was, silently waiting for me to surface before turning back inside. That moment of uncertainty felt genuinely creepy, and I hope to see more of that.
Luckily, he forgot to lock his door again! Sneaking through this time, I immediately hung a left, moving down the hallway. I noticed a chair propped up against a door, and removed it. This gained me a second entry way to the house. Following this, I turned to my left, and accessed a door to the garage, which allowed me to open the garage door via switch. Now I had three entrances to the house open, but very little clue of how to explore further without being spotted. That is, until I found a radio. Blasting the radio in the garage, I managed to lure him over while sneaking around to the front to search his living room. Eventually, I found a key sitting near his television. Could that be the key to the giant, ominous lock on the basement door? I heard a noise and immediately ran into his adjacent bedroom, hiding in his wardrobe closet. There I waited. And waited. The problem with hiding in this game, right now, is that there aren’t any sound cues to signal when things are safe. I decided to peek through the door to see if the coast was clear. It wasn’t. I was caught, and unfortunately each new loop resets your progress.
I went through countless loops, and a few surprises during my time with Hello Neighbor. The game is very aware of your expectations, and seems to take joy in subverting them. All of this makes me wonder what else Hello Neighbor has up its sleeve. Frankly, right now it’s hard to tell. As clever as this game can be, it still has a very long way to go. Textures are muddy, and the audio is all over the place. I distinctly remember walking on grass and hearing the sound of wood creaking. In addition, as adaptable as the AI seems to be, it still behaves in baffling ways. For example, if the neighbor locks the door to keep you out, he may end up smashing his own window to get back in. Lastly, every item in the game seemed to have the same floaty physics. To give you an idea: if I threw a basketball, it would fall at the same rate as a chair. Issues like this are perfectly understandable in a pre-Alpha state, but it does make me wonder why Dynamic Pixels didn’t just wait until a more polished Alpha, or Beta was ready. As it stands, it’s tough to tell how this game will turn out. The game I am playing most likely is not the game we will ultimately end up experiencing come release.
After spending an hour with Hello Neighbor, I am definitely intrigued. The success of games like Alien: Isolation have proved that there is a market for the cat-and-mouse genre of horror games, and Dynamic Pixels’ latest offering has plenty of good ideas. The game plays pretty rough at times, but that’s to be expected at such an early stage. Again, this makes it hard to get impressions of the game because I feel it will change drastically during the remainder of its development. If anything, I was exposed to a really good proof-of-concept here, and I hope Dynamic Pixels can take those ideas and run with them. If all goes well, Hello Neighbor could be a game worth paying a visit next summer.
You can find Jordan on Facebook, and Twitter at @JordJJones.