Narin: The Orange Room Review – A Promising Indie Horror That Struggles With Silent Hill Influences

There’s something immediately appealing about Narin: The Orange Room. Maybe it’s the contrast of a child wandering through a space that feels wrong, or maybe it’s just how confidently the game leans into its atmosphere from the start. Either way, this debut from indie Thai studio Red Sensation Games pulled me in pretty quickly. It’s a short horror puzzle game with a strong visual identity, some interesting ideas, and a setup that gives it plenty to work with, even if not all of it lands as well as it should.

Story and Premise

Narin: The Orange Room opens by describing a recent string of disappearances around the school, making it plausible that this twilight dimension might be the cause. More importantly, our lead, Narin, doesn’t know where her sister is, and there seem to be clues as to where she is within this realm. With a talking black cat serving as her guide, Narin might have a shot at solving the mysteries behind the realm and finding her sister.

Gameplay and Core Mechanics

Narin: The Orange Room is a fairly short horror puzzle game where progress is mostly linear, with the occasional obstacle blocking your way. There are dangerous flowers to avoid, vines that are weak to light and stall you, and you can pick up a lantern to see better and take out those vines.

She can find objects to pick up, often keys or parts of door locks, along with various other puzzle-related items. But if you were just solving puzzles in the dark, it wouldn’t be that scary. When an enemy inevitably does show up, well, Narin is a child, and her only means of conflict resolution is to run away and hide, either by moving slowly while crouching or by finding a conveniently placed locker to hide in.

Atmosphere and Horror

Whilst it’s a horror game, it’s not especially scary. There’s good decrepit lighting, strong use of sound effects, and good ambiance. You don’t feel like something is around each and every corner, or that something will jump out at you every time an enemy appears.

It’s a very pretty game. The real focus on bright oranges punching through dark and clammy environments makes it feel homely and nostalgic. Characters are stylized pretty well, with certain enemies having well-animated, exaggerated traits that make them more interesting.

Voice Acting and Localization

In a curious creative choice, Narin is the only character to be voiced, and she is fully voiced. Every little thing you can investigate will give a voice quip from her. The talking cat not being voiced is a choice that feels odd, and many factors contribute to that feeling.

The localization has a few issues and sounds stilted or repetitive at times. When Narin speaks, the text box hangs for a bit, which makes any issues with the lines feel more blatant. What makes it even odder is that most puzzle games wouldn’t have Narin voice the small observations, instead sticking to more important scenes. Ultimately, I turned the English voice off towards the end of the game because it was doing more harm than good.

Puzzle Design Issues

Another small issue comes up in the puzzles, where the framing often becomes “find the 3 trinkets, but each trinket is behind a puzzle on the furthest side of this large room.” Whilst the individual puzzles themselves are fine, and it gives you an excuse to explore the area, the way it’s presented to the player feels like padding.

I want to solve the mysteries behind my sister’s disappearance and learn about the beings who dwell within the twilight dimension, but the puzzles often feel more like unconnected roadblocks. As you progress throughout the game, the puzzles certainly get more interesting, and the “Scissor Girl” puzzle arc is compelling. I was writing notes for the theatre puzzles as I was solving them, but the framing undercuts them.

Either a minor character gives away all the information that would be fun to theorize about at the beginning, or the puzzles don’t really tie into the overall narrative. There’s no payoff to the librarian or the janitor in a way that feels like there should be.

Narrative Shortcomings

The overall narrative is also frustrating because what should have been front and center, the key focus of the story, is relegated to an excuse to have Narin explore interestingly planned-out locations. And when you finally get to the big reveals, it’s grief.

There’s one speck of foreshadowing to this, and it doesn’t play interestingly at all with the reveal. The big twist feels like it was written by someone who knows of Silent Hill 2, rather than someone who knows what Silent Hill 2 is about. The world of the twilight dimension being inconsistent would be fine if the reveals were just a bit more cohesive or more interestingly tied to what Narin goes through.

Final Verdict on Narin: The Orange Room

Narin: The Orange Room feels like a game that’s close to really coming together, even if it doesn’t quite get there. There’s a lot to like in the presentation, the mood, and some of the puzzle design, and that’s what makes its weaker narrative choices stand out even more. Still, I came away seeing a lot of promise in what this team is doing here. It’s the kind of debut that doesn’t totally stick the landing, but it does make you want to see what the team does next.