What happens when it’s dark and you don’t have a flashlight? You take photos — spooky ones!
Heartworm is a short and sweet experience. At about four or fice hours, it’s structured like a PS1 era Resident Evil or Silent Hill game where we have a fixed view and have to explore a mysterious location, often in the dark. But even though it takes inspiration from those two IPs, it really is it’s own thing.
It has those things we’d expect from survival horror games, the puzzles and the walking around to explore rooms, but what makes it unique and cool is that we don’t have a flashlight. We have our camera, because we’re a girl who wants to take pictures of things, but our light source is our camera’s flash, taking pictures of dark rooms and lighting them up. Unfiortunately it feels like it drops that neat aspect midway through.
The game really is split into two halves. The first half is that exploration and darkness, but then we’re taken outside where there’s a lot of light. So that camera gimmick isn’t explored as much as I wish it was. But the moments where we are using the camera, like when we walk into a room that’s just totally dark and we turn that flash on and light it up not knowing what’s going to be there, it’s really scary.
There are some good moments, like when the developers use fixed camera angles to show shadows walking — it’s not a typical horror game where jump scares happen, it’s more about getting under our skin — but by sort of abandoning the camera midway through it just kind of fizzles out.
I do think for a Halloween game, if we want to play something new that’s a good short length, then Heartworm does the trick. It’s good, it’s fun, I just wish it kept the camera rolling.
This review is based on a Steam code sent to SideQuesting by the publisher. The video originally appeared on The SideQuest LIVE on October 30th, 2025.
No Comments