You probably still know Fullbright as the studio behind Gone Home, a delicately experimental first-person yarn about a girl exploring her family home after travelling overseas, and learning about the turmoil in her absence. Picture that game in your mind: the quietness of the hallways versus the crash of a thunderstorm outside, the sickly-sweet 90s décor, the fairy lights and screwed-up balls of paper, the gentle amber pressure of cloistered teenage memories. Now, imagine a faint scuttling behind the skirting boards. A rattling in the pipes. Was there a toilet in Gone Home's autumnal mansion? I can't recall, but you should probably steer clear.
Now available on Steam, Toilet Spiders is the first in a new anthology series of "short, strange, lo-fi games", gathered under the label Fullbright Presents. To crib unceremoniously from the Steam blurb, it's "a short, replayable lo-fi first-person survival horror game where you must learn to judge your odds and manage your resources to avoid or scare off the giant radioactive spiders laying in wait inside filthy toilets that contain the keys and items you need to complete your mission and escape with your life."
The game takes place in some kind of Exclusion Zone, with you playing a nameless "volunteer" sent by an evidently tyrannous regime, and the map is broken into several floors. "Scavenged items like old light bulbs, surplus flash grenades, and lucky coins will aid you on your mission, but their numbers are precious few," the Steam page continues. "You must learn how best to weigh your odds and make your own luck if you want to live."
Personally, I think the game has missed a trick by not including some kind of pooping mechanic, because as every arachnophobe knows, the real terror of the hypothetical toilet spider is realising you forgot to check the bowl before plonking yourself down. Mind you, you can always increase the intensity by downloading on Steam Deck and playing it while riding the porcelain express.
F
PC
Indie
Horror
Science Fiction