Whilst sitting around and eating pretzel sticks, I spotted word of Visage, a game that was looking to take over the role of now-lost P.T. in our lives, and give us a good scary horror game. I settled in to check out the 12 minutes of alpha gameplay, and what I got was quite a shock.

The game is currently on Kickstarter--what isn't these days?--and if all goes as hoped, the game will be in our hands starting January 2017, for PC, for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 with some nice VR capability thrown in. Not a bad little project to root for, even if it's a little derivative by now.

Not much is known as yet about the plot, though reports suggest that it will be a game focusing on small horrors much of the time. Unsettling, with little things going wrong, the player will have to wander the house and find clues about what went on in there, and what's likely to go on in the future.

Watching the alpha gameplay, meanwhile, is spooky as all get out. If this actually does come out in January, it's going to be coming out right in prime time for horror buffs. Some of the darkest times of the year are in January--it's about eight days after the shortest day of the year--so it's a pretty safe bet this sucker will be played in the dark. The house has an almost aggressively realistic quality to it, looking somewhere between photo-realistic and uncanny valley.

I've seen much of the Paranormal Activity series, and I like to refer to it as the "Where's Waldo" of horror film. Up until things start going truly, madly, deeply wrong, there are always little things going on, and it's almost your job as a viewer to spot these little things going on. Maybe an item is moved that was formerly stationary, or maybe a light that was on is suddenly off. This is a lot like that, except the moves are often more pronounced, like open doors suddenly shutting for no reason, or a fishbelly-white lower leg rounds a corner, or the entire decor of a house turns oddly industrial in the grandest Silent Hill fashion when walking out of a den.

Needless to say, this is a profoundly scary affair, and tension is built to within an inch of its life. As a horror movie, this would be successful on a level few would dare to dream possible. As a horror game, well, it's going to be a real doozy unless they completely drop the ball. Hopefully we'll see this one hit when next winter arrives.