Detention is one of the best pieces of horror media I have had the privilege to enjoy. As a big fan of Silent Hill, this game hits a lot of the same notes and constantly keeps a focus on the things that matter when it comes to horror games despite its simplicity in design. Detention is not only excellent in its execution of the horror genre, but with the way it utilises that horror to its advantage to tell an effective and multidimensional story, forcing you to engage and empathise with its characters in ways that you otherwise wouldn’t.

Detention mostly follows the typical structure of a point-and-click adventure puzzle game, but features some unique survival horror-esque gameplay mechanics. I did not have much trouble with this game in terms of difficulty; the majority of the puzzles are fairly self explanatory as long as you take the time to read the collectable notes and the descriptions of each item you pick up. However, there are some more cryptic puzzles later into the story which remind me more of the more… unique riddles from games like Silent Hill 2 and 3. There are at least a couple of examples I can think of where certain items needed to be used in seemingly unrelated places, resulting in some trial and error puzzle “solving” before I was able to continue progressing through the game. Ultimately, there aren’t too many possibilities to try for any given puzzle in the game, so if you get stuck it likely won’t be for long.

Especially in the early stages of the game, there are monsters lurking in many areas of the map which must be snuck past. You cannot fight anything in this game, so you have to hide, hold your breath or distract monsters in order to get past them. I personally felt like this aspect of the gameplay was slightly unnecessary. The monsters have fairly interesting designs and were clearly created with a lot of symbolism in mind, but after the first two or three monster encounters, they were no longer scary and served more as annoying obstacles to slow down exploration. Thankfully, later into the game, these monsters are not present and exploration is a lot more enjoyable.

The ways in which Detention scared me were very varied as each section of the game appealed to a different kind of fear. This ensured that I never reached a state where I was “comfortable” with the oppressive but ever-changing atmosphere and was constantly in a tense state of mind. At the start of the game, a lot of the fear comes from the typical things you may expect from a haunted school setting. You are alone, it is dark, and there are many supernatural happenings. This kind of fear can be overcome, however, and this game is aware of that. The focus changes from surface-level jumpy horror into a much deeper sense of hopelessness that grows within you as you gradually learn more about the story and characters and move on from the school setting. At the same time, the imagery slowly becomes more and more disturbing and representative of the protagonist’s darkest thoughts. This resulted in me feeling a much deeper level of empathy with the characters than I would have if this wasn’t a horror game, as I was forced to literally face some uncomfortable truths about what happened to the characters prior to the events of the game. In that way, Detention utilises horror elements very effectively in order to aid its storytelling, which in my opinion is the best way for this genre to be used.
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=847313868

Detention is set during the White Terror period of the 1960s, where thousands of Taiwanese civilians were imprisoned and even executed due to accusations of opposition to the Chinese Nationalist Party. The story of Detention specifically focuses on how this period affected Taiwanese youth at the time. Players who are familiar with the movies of Edward Yang will draw parallels here with the movie A Brighter Summer Day, which is set during the same period and shares many of the same themes. The game does a great job of explaining the political context as well as its significance to the core story in the form of collectable notes scattered around the map. The story managed to make me care a lot about a period in history which I had never heard about before and made me want to read up on it afterwards.

The story starts with the main character, Rey, waking up after school alongside her classmate Wei. They are unable to leave due to a typhoon and Wei tries to find a phone to call for help, only to vanish. Rey is trapped in a purgatory-like state and unable to leave the school. What happened to the school prior to the events of the game as well as Rey’s personal backstory are slowly unravelled and explored throughout the story, beyond the point of becoming uncomfortably dark and invasive by the end. This game certainly went further than I thought it would with its depictions of social and interpersonal horrors and never stopped digging deeper into its uncomfortable themes of loneliness, oppression, identity and insecurity.

What starts as a simple and almost stereotypical premise gradually turns into one of the most unique and well thought out stories I’ve experienced in a horror game. It is not overly complicated and is very easy to understand exactly how all of the separate plot threads contribute to the bigger picture, but the ways in which they come together are as disturbing as they are satisfying. The story achieves such a clear message and detailed character writing in such a concise way, with the game approximately taking only 3 to 4 hours to finish. This may seem short but in my opinion it ended at the perfect point and the only reason it isn’t any longer is because nothing dragged on longer than it should have. However, if you leave the game wanting more, I strongly recommend the TV series of the same name. It is not only a surprisingly great adaptation of the existing story, but manages to continue it in a way which genuinely makes sense and shows an understanding of what made the game so good; an extremely rare feat for video game adaptations.

Detention is a game which immediately left a big impression on me upon finishing it several years ago and sparked my interest for horror in games. Since then, I have come to respect and enjoy it even more in retrospect, and greatly enjoyed playing through it again recently. The simplicity of the gameplay makes it easy to become immersed without interruption from frustrating controls or unnecessary combat options, despite some annoying monster encounters in the early sections. It doesn’t use horror to scare you for the sake of it - rather it purposely puts you in a state of fear and a prime mindset for absorbing its dark and emotionally driven story which will leave you with a lot to think about after putting the game down.

[h1]The Best Kind Of Horror[/h1] Detention is one of the best pieces of horror media I have had the privilege to enjoy. As a big fan of Silent Hill, this game hits a lot of the same notes and constantly keeps a focus on the things that matter when it comes to horror games despite its simplicity in design. Detention is not only excellent in its execution of the horror genre, but with the way it utilises that horror to its advantage to tell an effective and multidimensional story, forcing you to engage and empathise with its characters in ways that you otherwise wouldn’t. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] Detention mostly follows the typical structure of a point-and-click adventure puzzle game, but features some unique survival horror-esque gameplay mechanics. I did not have much trouble with this game in terms of difficulty; the majority of the puzzles are fairly self explanatory as long as you take the time to read the collectable notes and the descriptions of each item you pick up. However, there are some more cryptic puzzles later into the story which remind me more of the more… unique riddles from games like Silent Hill 2 and 3. There are at least a couple of examples I can think of where certain items needed to be used in seemingly unrelated places, resulting in some trial and error puzzle “solving” before I was able to continue progressing through the game. Ultimately, there aren’t too many possibilities to try for any given puzzle in the game, so if you get stuck it likely won’t be for long. Especially in the early stages of the game, there are monsters lurking in many areas of the map which must be snuck past. You cannot fight anything in this game, so you have to hide, hold your breath or distract monsters in order to get past them. I personally felt like this aspect of the gameplay was slightly unnecessary. The monsters have fairly interesting designs and were clearly created with a lot of symbolism in mind, but after the first two or three monster encounters, they were no longer scary and served more as annoying obstacles to slow down exploration. Thankfully, later into the game, these monsters are not present and exploration is a lot more enjoyable. [h1]Horror Elements[/h1] The ways in which Detention scared me were very varied as each section of the game appealed to a different kind of fear. This ensured that I never reached a state where I was “comfortable” with the oppressive but ever-changing atmosphere and was constantly in a tense state of mind. At the start of the game, a lot of the fear comes from the typical things you may expect from a haunted school setting. You are alone, it is dark, and there are many supernatural happenings. This kind of fear can be overcome, however, and this game is aware of that. The focus changes from surface-level jumpy horror into a much deeper sense of hopelessness that grows within you as you gradually learn more about the story and characters and move on from the school setting. At the same time, the imagery slowly becomes more and more disturbing and representative of the protagonist’s darkest thoughts. This resulted in me feeling a much deeper level of empathy with the characters than I would have if this wasn’t a horror game, as I was forced to literally face some uncomfortable truths about what happened to the characters prior to the events of the game. In that way, Detention utilises horror elements very effectively in order to aid its storytelling, which in my opinion is the best way for this genre to be used. https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=847313868 [h1]Story[/h1] Detention is set during the White Terror period of the 1960s, where thousands of Taiwanese civilians were imprisoned and even executed due to accusations of opposition to the Chinese Nationalist Party. The story of Detention specifically focuses on how this period affected Taiwanese youth at the time. Players who are familiar with the movies of Edward Yang will draw parallels here with the movie [i]A Brighter Summer Day[/i], which is set during the same period and shares many of the same themes. The game does a great job of explaining the political context as well as its significance to the core story in the form of collectable notes scattered around the map. The story managed to make me care a lot about a period in history which I had never heard about before and made me want to read up on it afterwards. The story starts with the main character, [i]Rey[/i], waking up after school alongside her classmate [i]Wei[/i]. They are unable to leave due to a typhoon and Wei tries to find a phone to call for help, only to vanish. Rey is trapped in a purgatory-like state and unable to leave the school. What happened to the school prior to the events of the game as well as Rey’s personal backstory are slowly unravelled and explored throughout the story, beyond the point of becoming uncomfortably dark and invasive by the end. This game certainly went further than I thought it would with its depictions of social and interpersonal horrors and never stopped digging deeper into its uncomfortable themes of loneliness, oppression, identity and insecurity. What starts as a simple and almost stereotypical premise gradually turns into one of the most unique and well thought out stories I’ve experienced in a horror game. It is not overly complicated and is very easy to understand exactly how all of the separate plot threads contribute to the bigger picture, but the ways in which they come together are as disturbing as they are satisfying. The story achieves such a clear message and detailed character writing in such a concise way, with the game approximately taking only 3 to 4 hours to finish. This may seem short but in my opinion it ended at the perfect point and the only reason it isn’t any longer is because nothing dragged on longer than it should have. However, if you leave the game wanting more, I strongly recommend the TV series of the same name. It is not only a surprisingly great adaptation of the existing story, but manages to continue it in a way which genuinely makes sense and shows an understanding of what made the game so good; an extremely rare feat for video game adaptations. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] Detention is a game which immediately left a big impression on me upon finishing it several years ago and sparked my interest for horror in games. Since then, I have come to respect and enjoy it even more in retrospect, and greatly enjoyed playing through it again recently. The simplicity of the gameplay makes it easy to become immersed without interruption from frustrating controls or unnecessary combat options, despite some annoying monster encounters in the early sections. It doesn’t use horror to scare you for the sake of it - rather it purposely puts you in a state of fear and a prime mindset for absorbing its dark and emotionally driven story which will leave you with a lot to think about after putting the game down. [h2][quote]𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 [url=https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/curator/33853800/]𝐎𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐤𝐚𝐢'𝐬 𝐂𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐏𝐚𝐠𝐞[/url] 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐕𝐢𝐬𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐉𝐑𝐏𝐆 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰𝐬[/quote][/h2]