Alice's Lullaby now playing on Steam

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Sequel to nine-year-old surreal horror adventure Albino Lullaby launches today on Windows PC

Video games take a long time to make. So long, in fact – especially for indie developers – that it can be tempting to think some have been abandoned between updates. Such is the case with Ape Law's horror adventure Albino Lullaby, which launched in 2015 as the first of a planned three-part series, and then went radio silent – until now, with the surprise release of the next installment, Alice's Lullaby.

In the first game, players found themselves waking from a car crash in a freakishly disturbed underground world filled with shambling, limbless "Grandchildren." Like you, they were once abductees of this place's overseer and have been since left to rot when they aren't being subjected to various kinds of dehumanizing torture. Now they live (if it can be called that) only to serve Grandmother, and if you don't want to become a permanent part of this cult, you have to find a way to escape. As it turns out, however, getting yourself out isn't enough, as in the second installment a young girl named Alice is trapped in this "uncannily macabre underworld of Styx." What's worse is that the Grandchildren have constructed a device able to turn back time and allow them to "undo each of their mistakes." As the only "walkling" with eyes, it's up to you to rescue the captured girl and "unravel a metaphysical mystery by traveling back and forth through time to uncover the mysteries hidden within Styx and prevent the cult from unleashing its horrors upon the world above."

As with its predecessor, Alice's Lullaby is a first-person, free-roaming 3D adventure. The "eerie and treacherous world" of Styx is grim and dark as you'd expect of a subterranean realm, yet it's juxtaposed with surprisingly vivid "psychedelic" splashes of colour and the odd flourish that looks hand-sketched to give the game a distinctive aesthetic. Here time is "both ally and adversary" as you travel through different time periods, "uncovering how they intertwine between past and present." Survival is paramount, as the cult members will do everything in their power to stop you, but as you can't fight back, the game relies more on psychological horror than pulse-pounding action. Indeed, as you begin piecing together the multiple narrative layers that reflect "the distorted reality of trauma, where what is real for you isn’t necessarily the case for everyone around you," you'll come to face the rather unsettling question of why it is YOU are "perceived as the monster" in this place. 

After such a long wait, the good news is that there's no further delay, as Alice's Lullaby is now available on Steam for Windows PC. While newcomers can jump straight in, for the full series experience you can still find out what you missed with the now-rather-confusingly-titled debut installment, Albino Lullaby: Episode 1, available in both VR and flat screen versions.

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