I don’t watch much horror myself, so forgive me. But you know those trailers? The ones where there’s a cabin in the woods and a group of smiling high schoolers descend upon it? They flip up the trunk of their car, eagerly fling their suitcases on the wooden decking, and chortle about how they are going to have a rad time. Tropicana in the morning, red cups and beer pong in the evening. Then someone learns the murderous great grandfather of Tommy used to live here and poor Sarah spots an eyeball through a floorboard.
This is the feeling I got from puzzle adventure game Bugsnax. It is cutesy and whimsical at first glance, but there’s clearly something up, something simmering under the surface. I spent an hour with the game’s opening portion, and throughout my hair follicles were semi-hardened, primed but unsure of whether to fully extend or not.