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Before Amnesia crawled into our collective nightmares, there was Penumbra.
Less polished. More raw.
More like a cry from the crawlspace no one dared to check.
I played it young, when my brain still believed that a flashlight was a weapon and a hammer could protect me from… whatever that thing was.

Penumbra didn’t care if you were ready.
It dropped you underground, handed you a glowstick, and whispered:
“You should’ve stayed away.”

And I wanted to.
But I didn’t.
Because horror like this doesn’t ask for permission. It burrows in.

The cold wasn’t just the setting—it was the feeling.
No safety. No silence. Just brittle bones, cryptic notes, and creatures that never quite made evolutionary sense.
Oh, and the dogs.
Always the dogs.
Fast, feral, unforgiving.

I remember crouching in the shadows, holding a rock like a fool, hoping it’d help.
Penumbra was the game that taught me:
survival is improvisation.
And fear doesn’t need jump scares.
It just needs time.

The tools were clunky. The movement awkward.
But that’s what made it real.
You didn’t glide through horror.
You fumbled through it.

And when it ended, I didn’t feel victorious.
I felt watched.

So yeah. Dig it up.
Feel the cold air breathe on your neck.
Become the thing that should’ve stayed above ground.

I get stuck a lot, the game is good, but I don't wanna continue cuz it hurts my tiny brain

This game's atmosphere and writing hooked me in deep enough to go through with finishing the game over the course of a few days. An eerie atmosphere with some weird puzzles, I'd recommend it to fans of Frictional or adventure / horror genre, but do believe Amnesia offers a more fulfilling and scarier experience.