LIMBO/INSIDE
Games Like Little Nightmares
These two games from Playdead are clumped together because they are so similar in both gameplay and tone. Like Little Nightmares, both Inside and Limbo are creepy side-scrollers where you encounter dangerous enemies in very dark and mysterious environments.
Limbo has much more simplistic visuals releasing first in 2010, while Inside released later in 2016 and had a more detailed art style than its predecessor. Between the two, Inside is going to be a closer match to Little Nightmares due to the way in which the player goes about solving puzzles as well. There’s even a portion in both that is extremely similar where search lights move methodically back and forth and you have to dart behind cover to avoid being seen.
You can even buy both games in a double pack on Xbox One and PS4 for $29.99, and on Nintendo Switch, PC, and iOS separately as well.
CONTRAST
Games Like Little Nightmares
Not only do Contrast and Little Nightmares look a lot alike, their gameplay is very similar too with a big focus on light and dark puzzle-solving around the game’s darker environments.
In Contrast you play as Dawn, an elegant acrobat/imaginary friend who has a special ability to jump into shadows. She is accompanied by a small girl named Didi, who can often control light in the real world to help Dawn through platforming puzzles. Both Little Nightmares and Contrast have a unique twist to how a player goes about solving their puzzles, with being small in Little Nightmares being crucial in your ability to sneak and get through tight places, and Dawn’s ability to jump between a 3D and 2D world in Contrast offering up some interesting ways to construct puzzles as well.
Contrast originally released back in 2013 and is available on a variety of platforms including PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, and PS4.
YOMAWARI: NIGHT ALONE/MIDNIGHT SHADOWS
Games Like Little Nightmares
The Yomawari series consists of two games, Night Alone releasing in 2015 and Midnight Shadows in 2017. They are survival horror games where you play as a small girl who ventures out into the darkness with only a flashlight, some rocks, or other small items.
While in the darkness, dangerous spirits will lurk in the shadows and try to attack you. When a spirit is nearby, the girl’s heartbeat will increase indicating you are in danger. You’ll have to run to the nearest light source to escape, and try and sneak by them again once they give up.
The games revolve around this premise of sneaking around monsters, which is very similar to a lot of the gameplay in Little Nightmares as well. All these games also have a very dark and sinister tone, broken up by the cuteness of the playable characters themselves.
Yomawari: Night Alone is available for PS Vita and PC, and Yomawari: Midnight Shadows is on PS Vita, PC and PS4. However, both games are coming to the Nintendo Switch as part of the Yomawari: The Long Night Collection in October 2018.
LONE SURVIVOR
Games Like Little Nightmares
Fellow horror side-scroller Lone Survivor has you playing as a character being given directions by his hallucinations in a post-apocalyptic world. You’ll have to either sneak by the mutants of the world or kill them, but they can only be killed by a pistol and ammo is very scarce. Two-way mirrors are scattered around the environments that transport you back to your safe apartment, and in order to progress you will need to collect and use items in the right order in a point-and-click adventure game format.
Lone Survivor features a 2D pixel art style that infuses the gameplay with a charm that is similar to the way Little Nightmares’ dark but cute art style adds some originality as well. The monsters in both games are also distracted by light and sound, and it’s up to the player to sneak by them using whatever they can find to hide behind.
Lone Survivor released for PC in 2012, came to PS3 and PS Vita in 2013, and then to PS4 and Wii U in 2014.
A.L.F.R.E.D
Games Like Little Nightmares
A.L.F.R.E.D is a free-to-play indie title from students at the video game and 3D animation school ISART DIGITAL with campuses in Tokyo, Japan, Montreal, Canada, and Paris, France. In it, you play as a lost young girl accompanied with her butler robot A.L.F.R.E.D who is programmed to always keep humans safe. Using A.L.F.R.E.D you work through item and platforming puzzles, but the only catch is since A.L.F.R.E.D must follow the law of robotic to protect humans, he might also protect your enemies as well.
This title looks very similar to both Little Nightmares and Inside specifically, due to the art style, scale, and use of depth to make the originally 2D environment feel a lot more realistic while limiting movement. A lot of the gameplay is similar to Little Nightmares, especially the moments where you are being chased by monstrous enemies and sometimes only get away by a hair.
You can download A.L.F.R.E.D on the game’s site here for PC, and here’s hoping this shorter game that’s full of potential is adapted and turned into a longer experience sometime in the future.
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