The Last NightMary – A Lenda do Cabeça de Cuia roughly translates into English as “The Last NightMary – The Legend of Gourd-Head”. It’s a Brazilian game which emulates the old point-and-click adventure game style, and if you know what you’re doing when you make it then that type of game is an awful lot of fun. Added to that, it’s horror from a country that doesn’t tend to put out a lot of horror games. It sounded pretty good, so join me as we look at how well it actually pulled all of that off.

There’s not a ton of story in “The Last NightMary.” The intro tells about a legend of a man who became a monster after killing his mother. If you read the main character’s journal there is a little bit of background info about how her mom was sick and now she is. The game has just the minimum amount of story necessary to really work. “The Last NightMary” is a very small game, and that really shows in the story.

The Last Night Mary looks good. It’s got a somewhat cartoonish art style, which is a refreshing change for a Unity based game. Most of those tend to have really rudimentary 3D graphics that end up looking much worse than just using sprites. It’s not perfect, though. The majority of the scenery in the game is a field, which consists of a series of nearly identical screens. While yes, this is supposed to be a maze, it really needs to have a bit more life to it. Probably a good 80% of the game’s screens are just an endless series of nearly identical screens with just tall grass and a few trees off in the distance.

When there actually is sound in “The Last NightMary” it tends to be pretty good. The music is mostly kept to occasional little stings, which is nice. The game leans heavy on the idea that you’re utterly alone and being chased by a monster, so the lack of music helps create the necessary atmosphere of isolation. When the monster is approaching, you hear the rattling of the gourds he carries, so that’s another really nice use of sound. But, like most everything else about this game, a little more would have been nice.

As for gameplay, “The Last NightMary” simply needs more of it. The game took me less than an hour to complete on my first playthrough. It plays like an old point-and-click adventure game, a bit like Myst, but with an added inventory system and a journal that records what’s going on in the game. A bit like Corrosion: Cold Winter Waiting (link please), except that it manages to strip the gameplay down enough that it’s actually kind of fun and doesn’t feel too terribly dated. However, most of the time in the game is spent either navigating your way through the field maze or trying to figure out how to combine items to light up the bathroom in the shack. It’s a simple game, but fairly engaging. There just really needs to be more of it.

I liked “The Last NightMary.” I really did. But the fact of the matter is that there’s so little of it that it feels more like a demo than a full game. I want to recommend this game, I really do, but the fact that it’s four dollars and you can finish it in under an hour on your first try is a sticking point for me. It’s fun, but maybe spend your money elsewhere.