While it’s great to see indie developers with some ambition, taking on the challenge of creating experiences on par with efforts from bigger publishers, you can sometimes visibly see that they’ve bitten off more than they can chew. Whether the issue is time, budget, resources, or simply depth of experience, what sets out to be impressive can have less-than-stellar results. Having recently played Little Nightmares 3, there’s no doubt in my mind that Hannah was supposed to be shooting for that same sort of vibe, though with some touches of its own. While some of it works, it unfortunately also has some pretty serious issues.

Starting with the overall design in terms of aesthetics and atmosphere, the game is at least on the right general track. The environments are oversized and have a lot of jagged edges everywhere, giving it a creepy feel. When you encounter some of the massive threats that you’ll need to deal with, their scale and general look can be intimidating. There’s also no question that the game’s music, at least in spots, helps to reinforce the overall mood.

The problem is that in execution, there are several key areas where the experience isn’t up to snuff, and that can be crippling. In general, given that you’ll need to do some platforming and dodge attacks now and again, the constrained camera control you have can be quite problematic. Making jumps with a poor angle can be needlessly aggravating as your sense of depth can be quite poor. Worse, I hit an almost game-breaking issue where I was able to explore behind an unopened door, and had no good way to get out since that made my position completely hidden. In general there’s just a clunkiness to the gameplay, whether that involves problems with clipping and collision detection at times, the controls being just a bit loose, performance jitters in places, and some design choices that don’t work out in the favor of great play. You can’t fault Hannah’s overall ambition, but it’s hard not to be critical of where the final product landed in terms of its general quality.