Phantasmal: City of Darkness is a Kickstarter-funded, roguelike survival horror game that subjects players to several haunted levels in a mostly abandoned area entitled Kowloon City. It combines elements of Cthulhu-ian legend with more traditional aspects of a first-person indie title. Unfortunately for horror fans, its follow-through is nothing that hasn’t been seen before. Though it has elements that border upon being somewhat interesting, you’d best be served by walling this game off from your permanent library, at least until it’s more fun and functional.

The premise is pretty simple: you sort of “come to” in a horrific place and need to get out. That’s what gets you started. A pop-up note hits you right off the bat with a pages-long chunk of text that explains how to play the game, and for some reason that must be endured every single time you restart. After that, you’re sort of on your own, story-wise.

Basically, though, Phantasmal takes place in the Kowloon Walled City, a small section of Hong Kong with a dark and varied history. Anyone who’s paid attention to the game’s development will notice that it has changed the environment since early teaser trailers from a haunted mansion, of sorts, to the current setting.

Kowloon is a sad-but-rad concept for a horror game, and yet there’s nothing in Phantasmal that suggests the game totally encapsulates its backdrop. The absolute dearth of interesting detail within the levels is somewhat depressing. It’s entirely too same-y looking, with only a few sparse items here and there to break the grayish-black monotony. For the most part, it still feels like yet another procedurally-generated haunted house game.

Beyond that, it’s a pseudo-Cthulhu game, with an ancient creature called “The One Who Sleeps” lurking around, which is brought to bear by making too much noise. Players who knock over the myriad bottles placed in the levels or fire guns or make all kinds of noise will be visited by an elder (evil) god.

Punishing players for making too much of a ruckus naturally encourages stealth, so the key is to stay quiet, walk, and avoid conflict. Since the rooms are mostly empty, save for the occasional bottle, stealth basically entails crawling down a barren hallway right in front of the monsters you’re supposed to be avoiding. There aren’t really even hiding places to speak of, save for the intermittently-placed side room. The rest of the game is hallways, hallways as far as the eye can see. Not only that, but they also look so very similar as to make no difference at all.

In escaping Kowloon, you’ll encounter a handful of enemy types, ranging from shadowy monsters to floaters, impish minions, and face hugger-like spider creatures. They aren’t terribly smart, but when they attack, they are unrelenting. It’s easy / frustrating to get overwhelmed by one of the monsters, because it only takes a few hits to be killed.

If you think the enemies are frustratingly overpowered, not to worry. At other times, they will either stand stock-still or turn and run into walls repeatedly, making the game less terrifying that hilarious. The game is technically in Early Access, and the developer is currently working on improving both the AI and the AI Director for the game, but for now the monsters are almost completely broken.

In fact, take a gander at mid-to-late-90s AI, and that’s what it is reminiscent of. It’s almost a shame that the combat is so clunky and imprecise, because it might have been fun to really let loose on some of those monsters. Instead, they are overly dumb or overly aggressive, which forces you to flee even when combat would be preferred.

That problem is compounded by the fact that the game doesn’t really offer anything beyond its base ideas. It’s a very simply executed game, and though it functions within the confines of its own aims and aspirations perfectly well, I just don’t know there’s a lot to be explored here. Even the things that become sort of interesting aren’t done with any nuance or skill. They feel as though they are still in-progress.

To make matters worse, the game crashed a lot on me, especially when I paused or tabbed out to another window or something similar. Also, the controller mapping was completely crazy, and I couldn’t quite figure out how to remap it correctly, so that never really worked.

Which brings us to the roguelike component, simultaneously one of the game’s pluses and its minuses. Phantasmal, though slightly different with each subsequent playthrough, doesn’t feel that procedurally-generated. The stages change in marginal ways on repeated attempts, but not enough to keep it fresh. After a certain time, it all starts to blend together and look and feel the same.

In my mind, a truly entertaining rogue-like needs to possess something enamoring about dying and restarting to keep players invested, such the process of building up a character or exploring an area, and Phantasmal doesn’t quite possess that. The game is overly scant in its features and gameplay options, and its major selling point isn’t striking enough to keep the game interesting.

Mechanically, Phantasmal is sound — every button press works as intended — but the game itself doesn’t offer much diversity in how to interact. Sneaking around and avoiding enemies is perhaps the best facet of the game’s mechanical repertoire, but even that is flat and rudimentary, at times.

The user interface includes a helpful directional arrow to guide players through the dark, ramshackle levels. A recent update also makes use of light switches to illuminate rooms through which you’ve traveled. They do help what is otherwise a confusing and repetitive trek through the various rooms and levels. I also have to say I enjoyed the tentacles icon that gradually appears over the UI, which represents the Cthulhu figure’s looming presence in the game.

Ultimately, however, what Phantasmal does not have is staying power. You might play it for a couple of hours to tinker around with it, but I don’t see very many people becoming completely engrossed by the experience. The game simply does not have enough incentives to pull players along, and the mechanics or combat aren’t fresh enough or sophisticated enough to warrant an extended amount of time with the game.

It would be different if it offered something that wasn’t being done in other games, and for the life of me I can’t figure out what that thing would be. The motion blur is somewhat novel, but it got to be so distracting I had to turn it off.

At the same time, Phantasmal also feels like it is a project in flux. In a lot of ways, it doesn’t feel finished, and so part of me thinks it’s almost too early to be too harshly judged. It certainly needs polish and refinement, but it also needs something else, too. The game’s design is not particularly inventive, and the interesting pieces do not make for an interesting whole.

The Final Word: Phantasmal plays like a game in Early Access, which is both a blessing and a curse. There are some interesting things to follow-up on here, for sure, but for the time being, I would say save your fifteen bucks and wait for a more refined version.