Clea

Clea is an interesting game as a whole; it doesn’t reinvent the wheel. Controls feel a bit loose and there’s a definite lack of scares as you’re being hunted down the halls of the Whitlock Mansion. If you’re looking for a bite-sized experience, Clea is sure to fill that void.

When the sound of an intruder interrupts her birthday cake, Clea and her brother Ed head out into the quiet halls of the mansion in search of their parents. However, something sinister has its eyes on Clea, and she may prove to be her own worst enemy.

Clea is a very tense and suspenseful skill-focused horror game that relies on spatial sound over cheap jump scares. Although the puzzles are rather simplistic and easy to solve, this never bothered me as I was concentrating on how to avoid being caught at the same time – so simple puzzles meant one less thing to worry about! Don’t be fooled by the cute and charming visuals, the game gets pretty dark and the overall experience can be quite horrifying at times. If you like games such as The Coma and Detention, you need to give Clea a try – you’ll really enjoy it.

An enjoyable stealth, horror puzzle game, that is definitely creepy, but not too scary. The puzzles are enjoyable to solve and will have you coming back again and again to figure them out. It's too bad the Chaos Servants seemed so dumb and lazy at times, as they weren't very scary at all.

Clea has the foundation that it needs to become something really amazing. The aesthetics are spot-on, and the mood and themes are conceptualised beautifully. The developer has chosen a difficult genre to work with, however, and while Clea is perfectly playable and complete, I would want to see some significant strides with a sequel before it enters the upper echelons of the genre. Nonetheless, it does represent a very different kind of Aussie creativity, and it's very much worth supporting on that basis.

Clea is a good game, small and short, but one that will appeal to horror lovers. Its well-achieved setting - great 3D sound - and its replayability will make us return to it from time to time even after passing it to us. Some design decisions may cloud the end result, yes. Still a nice addition to the Nintendo Switch catalog.

Clea is an eerie stealth based game that will certainly appeal to horror fans and gamers that want the horror setting but without those jump scares. The use of sound is top notch, this is definitely one to plug the headphones in for handheld mode. The game is short and to the point if your looking for a quick horror fix for Halloween or any other time of the year.

Don't let its children's book aesthetic and promise of being "jump scare free" fool you. Clea is an effectively creepy survival horror game that requires plenty of patience and courage when you'd rather just run.

Overall, Clea goes for an unsettling style of horror and, at least for me, completely fails. The atmosphere never really “lands,” enemies are more frustrating than frightening, and I really just struggled to find the desire to even play this game.

Appropriately for this time of year we have Clea, a game where you'll come in a bit cold wondering what the heck is going on with the hopes that perseverance will pay off with some suspense and scares...