RFM Quickie: Text from Mom (Cry of Fear)

Some of my friends and lovely Twitter followers will know that I’ve been playing through a lot of survival horror games lately, like the Penumbra series and Amnesia and most recently Cry of Fear.

To date Cry of Fear is probably the scariest game I’ve played and so far it’s made Amnesia feel like tea with my Nanna.
Admittedly Amnesia’s horror is more sophisticated on the whole, giving a slow burn of atmosphere as well as great set pieces whereas Cry of Fear has been throwing me kicking and screaming to the lions with it’s constant jump-scares and frantic combat. Cheap and effective, but only while it lasts.



Ultimately jump scares are like ripping off a plaster, you get a couple of seconds of anticipation and then a jolt of pain and it’s over. If the game was this way exclusively then I would be quick to write it off but Cry of Fear managed to pull the rug out from my feet in a way which I wasn’t expecting.
At the beginning of the game you are given the standard tension building and foreshadowing of monsters running just out of your peripheral vision along with the creepy music that have all become expected tropes in the genre by now, but then you hear a ringtone, your character stops and whips out his phone to find a text message which reads...

“Where are you? Come home as soon as possible it’s getting dark” - Mom.
This is perhaps the most unsettling thing I’ve experienced while playing a game and it hit me like a punch in the stomach.

I think I speak for everyone here by saying we can all relate to the guilt of worrying our mothers. Granted we’ve probably never been in a scenario where we have to fight monsters on a night out (or maybe you have) but it’s the idea that there’s someone who loves us and is worrying about us and just wants us back in the comfort of our home. It really got to me, more than any Pyramid head or Zombie could because it hits you right in the feels and I applaud the dev’ team for making me feel so crappy. A great catalyst to set the tone for the rest of the story.


I haven’t made much progress in the game but so far I’ve experienced a few more instances like this that has left my brain feeling fried and even made me have to turn off the game and look at some nice kitten pictures as a palate cleanser. The biggest compliment I can give a horror game is that I’m reluctant to even keep playing it. We’ll see how I get on...

If you feel like subjecting yourself to Cry of Fear it’s now available for download on Steam and it’s completely FREE so play at your own risk!

Thanks for reading,
Kris.