The 9th Gate Review – A creepy Malaysian-made horror game

It is still quite uncommon to see a Malaysian-made horror game that made it to Steam, and of course we won’t hesitate to try it out if we saw any. The 9th Gate, an indie survival horror game by Spacepup Entertainment launches recently on Steam and we are fortunate to get a copy of it for review. So, check out our The 9th Gate review below to see what are our comments on it!

Check out our gameplay below:

The Story

Play as a spirit whisperer named Kim, you will venture into an abandoned highland forest apartment in search for the missing young girl that was unlocatable by the local authorities. Rumor has it that the apartment is haunted and dark deeds were committed in its long history. Kim’s transgression of the site will no doubt awaken restless spirits who were once wronged as well as the far sinister beings that keep the complex possessed.

Granted with the ability to see and hear the supernatural, you will need to use all your wits and tools to break through the spiritual dimension in search for the missing girl.

The Gameplay

In the game’s prologue, you can control the young girl and experience what she saw before she went missing. While in the main game, your mission is to find the 8 dolls that belonged to the young girl and bring them back to a spiritual circle one by one to retrieve her soul. Armed with only a smartphone, you will have only one night to collect all the dolls.

The smartphone comes with the ability to see the supernatural via its camera. You can also use its flashlight to light up your way ahead or view the notes about your items, the supernaturals you met and the image of the doll you are looking for. Also, you will need to use its voice recorder to locate the doll’s location by listening closely to its crying sound.

There is a time limit – you only have an hour to bring a doll back to the spiritual circle safely. A notification will pop up on your smartphone every 5 minutes, and you will lose your soul (mission failed) if you couldn’t bring the doll back when the time runs out.

Finding a doll is not an easy task, as the map is big, repetitive and confusing sometimes (I got lost quite often). Every room looks the same at first, but you will get used to it as you progress. Moreover, there are all kinds of ghosts and demons wandering around. Unfortunately, you can’t fight them, you could only use your camera to locate them, then avoid them with the different methods (depends on what you meet).

Well, you only have one smartphone and that is obviously not enough to listen for crying sound, see your surroundings with the camera and use the flashlight at the same time. It is especially scary when you are carrying a doll back as you couldn’t use your smartphone at all unless you put down the doll first. No doubt the dark surrounding gives out a terrific atmosphere too.

Gladfully, the game did well in the sound effect part – you will hear the supernaturals if they are nearby. So whenever you hear a strange sound, you can pick up your camera to scan around. This doesn’t really apply on the sound effect for the doll’s crying sound though, I often find myself wandering in an area trying to find the exact location of the doll even though I know it is nearby.

Note that there is no savepoint in the game, the game only automatically saves when you successfully brings a doll back to the spiritual circle. This somehow makes respawning frustrating as you will need to start over, but this is actually a great feature that forces you to be very careful when you walks around.

There are collectable amulets and jades that gains you a protection against the supernatural, or you can light up the holy candle using the matches you collected to recover your soul if you are being attacked. You won’t die that easily!

Since it is a Malaysian-made game, you can expect to find a lot of Malaysia-cultured elements in it. For example, the amulets, the matchbox and the Spirit tablet you will find in the game are very common in Malaysia. Even the different types of supernaturals are designated based on local myths!

The game features a horror-director-AI system as well, which it reads both the player’s behaviour and adjust the pace of the game accordingly. Every player will experience the horrific moments in their unique way and no one will experience the exact same scripted game!

The 9th Gate is currently available on Steam at only RM15.50, you will enjoy a 15% discount too (which makes it RM13) if you get the game before October 25! For more information, you can visit their official site.