aephemera 14

Low-budget indie games tend to be some of the most creative around, assuming they aren't just flipping assets poorly in Unity. Without the budget to dazzle the audience with beautiful graphics, they instead need to focus on something else to stand out. These restrictions can lead to some very creative premises. Let's look at aephemera.

To install aephemera, simply unzip the files inside the archive into any folder you want.

If you've watched the Mandela Catalogue series on youtube, you'll quickly pick up on the vibe of this game. The game is presented through a number of slides much like the presentations in the earlier Mandela Catalogue and has a similar eerie vibe to it, where the standard, almost boring way it presents supernaturally lethal entities juxtaposes to multiply the horror.

It only gets worse when you draw the attention of the entity that the test itself warns you about, which manifests as an eye that will stare constantly at you. It will mess with you as you try to navigate a maze by turning the lights off completely, then distorting the maze itself to keep you on your toes. This gets worse and worse as the test changes. 

Other than the minigames, there's a mechanic where you need to manage your excitement. If you move your mouse too much, your excitement will rise, and leaving it still will decrease it. If you go above or below the acceptable level, the entity will...interact with you directly and you'll need to restart.

All in all, aephemera is an incredibly unique game that everybody should check out.