The room is dark when I regain consciousness. An old TV hums, a monochrome close-up from someone’s medical imaging is on the screen. It looks distended. I peer down at myself. My arms and legs seem wrong, somehow. I must be strapped to this metal chair. All I can do is turn my head. I can’t even make a sound. FLATHEAD doesn’t give me any time to settle in.

It’s me, the television, a dusty tape player bolted to the wall that I’m not sure I can reach, and the lever on the other wall. A woman’s picture hangs above it. She seems knowing.

After some fumbling, I figure out how to transfer power from the TV to the lever and hold it down as instructed. My surroundings warp. Something pulls me away from the room with the television. I was on edge before, but I feel the first inklings of true foreboding now.

No Room to Breathe

I find myself in a new room bathed in tinted lights. Yellow from the big display, red from the tangled snarl of monitors to the left—is that a person on the screen? They look asleep or—no. I won’t even think it. I try not to acknowledge the faint noises off to my right. Instead I look at the rows of numbers, the familiar LCD readouts with points or power or both.

My hands are now free, but it must have been a while since I last used them. I can’t figure out what I’m allowed to touch and when.

FLATHEAD shines when it shows, not tells. Fumbling with rusting, borderline unresponsive machines while something menacing is happening at the edge of your periphery feels like the best bits of Alien Isolation in a leaner and meaner package. This isn’t a corner-cutting horror joint. FLATHEAD is truly grotesque, and it makes sure you feel it.

The House Always Wins

The yellow panel introduces me to a simple game of Over or Under. The screen will randomly select a number from 1 to 20. Will the next number be over or under? A simple binary choice, complicated by my surroundings—the upsetting face on the screens, the ominous noise I can stave off by using the lever and fuse box to my left, freezing my pursuer in the light.

Each successful guess earns points. Temporary points freely accumulate before they’re stored. Risk your temporary points and they multiply. If I guess poorly, they vanish, leaving me scrambling for the buttons and levers all over again.

My first failed attempt is easily under ten minutes, complete with cursing and eternal gratitude that I toggled the jump scares option off. After losing an attempt, I return where I started—the old television humming over cryptic footage.

If I shuffle enough stored points to the lever on my right—helpfully labelled “PAY WHAT YOU OWE”—and pull, one round ends and another begins. But this machinery is methodically slow, and each second wasted brings that unsettling noise closer.

Spin enough times in a round, and I’m treated to the Fate-O-Matic, a press-your-luck spin with single use power-ups that can save a doomed run or destroy an otherwise excellent one. On my fourth attempt, I frantically make it through all three rounds, only to be pulled free like a loose tooth.

Better Left in the Dark

After my first successful trip, FLATHEAD plays much the same as that gripping first run: in that cramped room. This time, however, the sound of rain hitting the shutters catches me by surprise. Light streams in from that side, but there’s no lessening of the eerie pressure in here.

I can see a growth of some kind taking form on the wall above the TV and shudder, remembering a real-life run in with black mold.

But then, regrettably, I see that there is one more cartridge on the wall with the tape player. Now I know the arcane behavior of the game’s cursor. If the reticle is hollow, you are not allowed to click. If it’s filled, a solid circle with an outer ring, you can. I swivel toward the bolted contraption and choose to interact. I succeed this time, but I wish taking action looked and felt more consistent.

FLATHEAD does its best to rally, but the bits of overzealous backstory puncture my tense experience like a flimsy mylar balloon. It’s simply too much, too soon. Within the first few entries, there are no less than three proper nouns, a barely redacted date, and a name. Frankly, you’re better off not knowing.

Verdict: FLATHEAD is a treat-sized terror

FLATHEAD is a promising entry in the new crop of shorter horror explorations. While the core mechanics are simple, the uneasy atmosphere ripples through each choice in the game, save a few pacing missteps.

Click through to the solo developer’s Steam profile, and you’ll see an interesting bit of backstory—a listing for the Silkbulb test demo, where the ambiguous, creeping dread of my first run is rendered entirely explicit.

There’s no distance between the player and the disembodied head on the screen. The eerie room looks more shot through with white light, with a person, a real one, standing at the window. I could download it now, but I’ve learned since then. I close the tab.

Like that test demo, FLATHEAD falters when it adds too much detail too soon, undercutting its own tense atmosphere. The game has taken noticeable (and welcome) steps back since its early days, but can’t quite overcome the urge to overexplain. I chalk it up to a developer finding their voice and their footing. I’m confident that with time, they will make something that can truly rattle me. They got perilously close this time.

Great

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