Recent reviews by THIEVIUS FOX

It's a Slender man clone. Nothing more, nothing less. It adds nothing new.
I will say the graphics and sound design were great and it had promise, but overall just falls flat.
Cannot recommend.

For $3 this is a STEAL!
The dev did absolutely phenomenal work with this one.
In a sea of uninspired horror titles that often times feel like copies of one another it was fun to see something that WAS somewhat familiar but executed with that "X factor" that, in my opinion, makes horror truly affected.
While there might not be much of a story to pick up on, this title focuses on it's lighting, pacing, unpredictability of jump scares, atmosphere, and sound design to deliver a truly frightening experience.
The first two scares had me ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bricks!

VERY VERY WELL DONE, DEV.
I look forward to whatever you come up with next!

It has a good foundation but ultimately goes nowhere with its potential.

Pros:
+ Great lighting
+ Great sound design
+ Erie atmosphere that builds suspense
+ A gripping story

But none of the above pays off...
Cons:
- Short game
- No real scares. You feel like it's about to happen but never really does
- Since there's no scares the tension disappears
- No sense of direction leads to a few moments of aimlessly wondering

The foundation is there, but unless the dev overhauls this experience with something substantial I can't see this being worth $6 to just walk around a setting back and forth. It feels half baked.

3/10

Challenging puzzles.
Spooky atmosphere.
Fun characters and story.
I wish the ending had a bit more to it (I got the bad ending) and it just kinda... ended. Might have better results with the good ending.
Totally worth a playthrough if you want a spooky game with no jump scares that challenges you more than most horror games.

With only a few reviews and an interested trailer, I wasn't left with much to determine if this game was good or not, but I said "heck it" and gave it a shot anyway, and I have to say, that was an excellent decision.
I think we have a diamond in the rough with "Dare to Stay"
While it may need a little bit of polishing here and there, what we are still given is a terrific and horrific immersive "walking/running-sim" horror game.

What this game does manage to exceed in is it's lighting, atmospheric tension building, sound design, and mysterious story telling. I was always worried about what was around the corner and hated (because of how scared I was after) what I ended up finding.

I hope you if you give this game a shot you won't be disappointed. This dev truly nailed it on their first attempt at creating a game. Well done, dev team! I will definitely be keeping my eye out for what comes next.

Play if you're horny and love to read.
If you're real gamer and bang ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, play literally anything else..

Maybe fun with friends, but don't tell them I said that.

I hated this.

Fantastic horror game despite all the walking. Atmosphere is top notch, the sense of dread if heavily present, and the scares are poop-your-pants worthy.
If you're looking at trying out the second game, DONT! It's poopoo (https://steamproxy.net/id/THIEVIUSFOX/recommended/1029890/).

It just didnt feel like "Layers of Fear" in that it's missing so many of the elements that made the first one so great and unnerving.

The atmosphere here is lacking the dread that helps to build suspense.
The jump scares were cheap and forced.
Too many stupid mannequins everywhere becoming increasingly unscary each time I saw one (I get that they are not the primary source of scares here, but their presence didn't help set the atmosphere).
The addition of a monster that chases you was unwelcomed and unnecessary (and cheap. What am I playing here? Outlast 2?). Seriously, the first one was great without the need to have the player run away from an "install-kill spoopy monster" every 5 minutes. When you rely on a cheap scare tactic like this it really just pulls you out of the immersion.
The game doesnt give you any real reason to invest into the main character or their story meaning most of what you pick up in the story lacks any real "weight" to it.
The environments became repetitive and uninspiring. I know it's on a ship and there's only so much they can do with that, but three hours into the game I felt I was seeing the same hallways and rooms being recycled over.
Overall it was disappointing. The spiraling journey into suspense, dread, and madness that was heavily impactful in the first game is just absent here.

After playing and loving the first one, and only watching the initial trailer for LOF2 in hopes of preserving the experience for myself and not get hyped up, it was a let down. The only expectation I had was that it would be as good as, if not better than, the original. I'm just bummed out about it. Like I said, it doesnt feel like a Layers of Fear game.
It's similar to how the first Outlast was great and innovative, then they released a sequel that didnt innovate enough and instead depended too heavily on the things that made the first one great to the point where it became oversaturated with unoriginality.

The game looks beautiful and it's amazing stepping into an 80's living room and reliving the experience of waking up on a Saturday morning to play video games and watch cartoons; truly a time machine. While the ending was a nice enjoyable twist that left me wanting more, it only lasted 10 minutes. In between the nostalgic living room and the ending, you're left with the game's core gameplay; the duck hunt, which inevitably becomes a chore to progress more than a game itself.

While this was a wild experience at first, to step into a reimagined version of Duck Hunt and blast away, it got repetitive fast. There's only so many times I can joyfully shoot at the same duck target, with the same shotgun, to the same music. While the ending DRASTICALLY changes the formula at the end, you have to do the same thing over and over again 6 times (about an hour) to even get to that "meat" of the game (which, again, last about 10 minutes). And I understand that the game has multiple endings, but it's not enough of an incentive for me to stand there and shoot at ducks for another hour to see just ONE other ending. To get all 7 endings means 7 hours of duck shooting without a change in gameplay AT ALL. Load your shotgun, aim, shoot, repeat for 7 hours.

Fantastic production, amazing graphics, on an otherwise lackluster game. Worth it at $10, not worth it at $20.

So I've played my fair share of seated VR games like Elite Dangerous, Project Cars, Fated: The Silent Oath, and while each of those games is great in it's own way and I'm sure people love them, I never really felt drawn back into playing them again.

Then I came across Narcosis and was instantly hooked. I'm a sucker for thriller/ horror games and story games and Narcosis blends the two beautifully. Usually I have no problem getting involved with a roomscale or standing VR game because I feel actively involved and previously games that required a controller bored me after awhile, but Narcosis's story and atmosphere is what kept me going.

The game seems to have a lot of influence for it's atmosphere from titles like Bioshock and Soma including it's thriller/scary moments, but one thing that Narcosis does well is in inducing this sense of fear, dread, and claustrophobia as you progress through its story. I felt fear from the unknown, dread from the amount of sorrow I came across, and claustrophobia from feeling trapped in my own diving suit, and it was all so beautiful.

If you have a VR headset then this is the VR experince for you.