They said Summer Camp would be fun…
Camp Sunshine is a 16-bit blood-soaked Horror RPG that pits you as Jez, who is dropped off at Summer Camp. He awakes in the middle of the night to discover blood everywhere, a rampaging killer on the loose dressed in a mascot costume and himself involved in a deadly game of cat and mouse! It’s up to you to piece together the puzzle, and relive the past of the Summer Camp Slasher in order to put a stop to this night of terror.
In a world of 3D horror that is incredibly realistic and gory nowadays, its hard to imagine a 2D horror game being scary at all. But you’d be wrong in that assumption. Camp Sunshine can be bloody terrifying and has you on edge all the time. You just never know when the bear mascot is going to come and try and get you. Luckily you can save the game at certain spots, but the game is very much a case of looking over your shoulder the entire time.
You have a map of the camp that you can use to navigate and try and gather clues to unravel the truth, which helps because you can get so easily lost otherwise. You do have a flashlight, but that can draw the mascot’s attention if you aren’t careful. You’ll go on a number of fetch quests throughout the game, which took me about 3-4 hours to do but it can be done faster if you are either using a guide or are just really good at hiding from that damn bear.
The visuals are simple, yet unnerving because of the limited view you have, even with the flashlight, you can’t see to far ahead. So you keep thinking that the bear is going to show up and sometimes he does when you have no chance of escaping a room you are in, which is a bit unfair…but I guess I was being too nonchalant about it, which proved to be my undoing at that point.
The Verdict
Camp Sunshine may look like a 16-bit game, but that doesn’t stop it from being extremely creepy. Paranoia begins to set in quite quickly and once you see the bear coming towards you once, you’ll be even more paranoid about it happening again. Overall, it’s a decent horror title that you shouldn’t dismiss because of its appearance.