When it comes to indie horror games on the Switch, there’s no doubt that the most polite thing you can say is that they have been a mixed bag. Getting into more real talk, while there have been some that have managed to do a decent job of mixing together suspense and uneasiness with reasonably-good gameplay, most of them have been content to go for some weird jump scares or being endlessly chased around with not much in the way of a point to be found. While I had hoped that the seasonally-themed Christmas Mutilator would somehow steer away from that rut, it still found its way there, even if perhaps with its own weird sense of overall style.

Not wishing to ruin what little story there is, you’ll play the part of a woman who seems to be lovely enough, prepping up a cabin for her family. Weirdly, the tasks for getting everything ready range from being sensible and likely geared towards some mild tutorializing of different elements you’ll need later, to absolute wastes of time. The need to go off-site for firewood, walking around far too much and too randomly to find some when you literally have an axe at the cabin, and trees all around it, was particularly egregious. I’m also not sure that anyone stores anything of value, or that could be fragile, outside on the porch of your cabin, yet for whatever reason they do. In general, this all seems to underline a lack of even fair ideas going into the experience.

But getting back to what story there is, it seems that her plans have gone awry, and by exploring the place and finding some notes you’ll slowly get the idea that there are some serious problems afoot. Once you’ve finally exhausted the list of odd time-wasting tasks that feel like they were put in place to pad the run time, you’ll finally get down to business for some scares… and being honest there’s not a whole lot to these either. Depending on what you do once things go south, you’ll get one of a handful of potential endings, with most of course being more grim, but given the game’s weird graphical style it isn’t like any of it is all that horrifying since there’s a general lack of detail to almost everything. In the end this unfortunately earns coal in its stocking for having a long ramp up with too little to show for it when it counts.