As I’ve noted quite a number of times before, the indie horror space has been quite the mixed bag. Heavy on listless walking simulators, an abundance of jumpscares, or outright redundant run and hide schemes, more often than not they seem to rely on their concept or simple stories carrying the experience, despite weak gameplay and mechanics. While there are certainly worse offenders out in the eShop, Angel Engine falls into this sort of trap, having I suppose an idea that’s interesting conceptually, but lacks lastability where it really counts.

I’m not sure there’s any way to sufficiently explain the game’s premise quickly, so we’ll stick to the basics. You’ll be operating on a series of comatose “patients”, trying to use your somewhat limited set of tools to remedy the various things that are wrong with them. The problem is that they will have a tendency to wake up on you if you’re not quick and pretty efficient in getting your work done, and if that happens things will end very quickly and badly for you. The good news is that these operations are all driven by relatively simple mini games, but the bad news is that the game has a consistent focus on distracting you and making your path to success a challenge, and that’s aside from the controls you’ll use to move between tasks being a pretty clumsy mess.

This leaves you with the choice to view the experience through one of two lenses. The first is as an amusing enough high-tension horror game that will get you frantic as you try to contend with all of these challenges and keep yourself alive. The other is as a collection of not-so-great mini games that quickly get repetitive, and generally only start to get genuinely challenging as the game begins to mess with you. I have no doubt there’s a crowd who’ll enjoy it in a quick burst before moving on, appreciating it for what it has to offer, but for me the lacking gameplay and clumsy controls for interacting with everything in the lab stifled my excitement.