When I saw this game, among the literal thousands of ITCH.IO horror games, I just looked at it and said to myself: oh, another PS1 spooky game! When I decided to install it (hesitantly, of course) I was met with one of the most concise and beautiful stories from an indie PS1 horror game I have seen in a long, long time. Spoilers from here on out.
The story was...sad, but also hopeful. From what I can gather, a man was drinking so heavily after his wife died, so much so that the daughter, neglected, took care of herself and wished to be apart of the father's life again.
She then ended her own life.
Afterwards, the Keeper decides to close up shop (figuratively, of course) and remove the light bulb from his cursed tower. He leaves the island, neglecting it.
He returns God knows how long later, only to see the place in a state of disrepair, the memories within him so far suppressed it hurts his very soul so much so he can barely remember anything other than the name "Jessica." This is beautiful on so many levels, and the ending, whilst I predicted it, was still a bit of a page turner and kept me invested.
I would one hundred percent recommend this short, 25 minute to 30 minute long game to absolutely anyone. The amount of effort you put into this surely shows how much you love this project. I hope to see more like this from you soon.
On a more critical standpoint, looking at it as a "game" and not a "interactive story", you may or may not notice some flaws. The movement isn't really ironed out as much as I would like and it feels uncomfortable to play (which might have been an aesthetic choice, I wouldn't know). This is my major issue with the game, but a smaller one is how little indication there is of where to go. I liked the small island and the aesthetic of the game so I kept playing, but I can see some issues arise when players who aren't invested in that sort of stuff might be giving up halfway through. Maybe some indication on things like the grandfather clock might have been helpful. Obviously I could have just missed something.
Finally, I think that even if it was hard for me to find the items and/or figure out where the hell to go, I think that the lack of "jumpscares" was helpful in making me not shy away from this and really proving that it's a worthwhile experience that anyone can enjoy. Also the story was just told so perfectly that I was invested without wanting to rush to just "get to the end". I also think that the difficulty of finding where the hell things are helped me immensely to really see all that the island had to offer. For instance, I would have never ever figured out about the gravestone in the side garden had it not been for me getting stuck.
Final rating? 9/10.
Bravo.