Lakeview Cabin is a free to play Flash Game hosted on Newgrounds as well as Gamejolt. In it, you play a red haired man who's in a woodland cabin on an island in the middle of a lake, most likely enjoying a well earned vacation. A little beer, a little fresh air, some peace and quite, and a nearby topless beach frequented by nubile women, what more can a man ask for? Well, how about not being attacked by a vengeful zombie?
The game starts off nice and calm. You're a red haired man, let's call him Steve Hustler, because why not. Steve is out on his island cabin, enjoying himself, taking his clothes off, going swimming, enjoying a sauna, spying on the naked girls across the lake, a typical man's vacation. Oh, except for one little detail: Steve is haunted by the spirit of a dead woman, most likely his wife or lover.
The point of the game is simple: kill the ghost. Well, it's not so much as a ghost, it's more like a haunted cadaver, like Jason from Friday the 13th. Anyway, the game gives you a couple of weapons to fight the ghost: A shotgun, a bear trap, some lumber, an electric wire, fire, and some gas. There's also some beer and some water, but those are more for Easter eggs. Once the ghost is killed, you have to kill the demonic fetus that springs out of her body, though this one is slightly easier to kill, even if it's only possible to kill it with fire.
Lakeview Cabin is short, beatable in six minutes tops if you know what you're doing. It can best be described as a puzzle horror, instead of just a straight up horror, due to the fact that you need to be a bit creative in how you kill the ghost and her demon child. However, the impression it leaves stays with you for far longer.
The game plays with our fear for our safety. Steve here is simply enjoying his time away from the world, in the middle of nowhere, on a little island on the lake (the island is subtly implied to be private, too. Or at least the cabin is private). When we go out on vacation, we want to get away from our everyday lives. We want a change, we want fun, peace. Steve here wished for that too, but he's still being attacked by the evil ghost. The game lulls you into a very false sense of security with its atmosphere. The birds are singing, the wind is rustling, the sun is shining, the water is clear and calm. Steve would be forgiven for thinking he's in paradise. He is not safe, however; even the daylight does not guarantee him safety, because the ghost can attack during broad daylight (in fact, you are far more likely to be attacked during the day than at night). Hell, this fear is even present in how, even if you manage to kill the ghost, you're still going to have to deal with the demon fetus! Lakeview Cabin plays with our fears and keeps us on edge, always.
Lakeview Cabin doesn't depend on just jump scares to scare the player, it also depends on the panic and paranoia the player is bound to feel throughout the game. When you first start, you KNOW something bad will happen, but you just don't know what. Many a new player, without knowing what the game will be about, will most likely just walk around the island like a dunce, experimenting with the many items around the cabin and such. If you're like me, you'll be trying to open the shed most of the time, only to suddenly panic at the fact that it's now night time and something bad is BOUND to happen because that's how video games work. This made EVERYTHING scarier. Suddenly I was cautious just entering the cabin, something I was thoughtlessly doing when it was daytime. And wouldn't you know it? I jumped when I saw the specter of the woman on the bed, signaling me to come hither. Paranoia can make even the tiniest noise, the smallest shadow become part of a much larger, unknown but not unexpected threat.
The story of the game is very much open to interpretation, but the most popular one seems to be that the woman was Steve's wife, and he killed her. Why and how, we don't know. The only thing we do know is that the woman's body is in the lake. This hypothesis is supported by three bits of evidence: one, there is a picture of the two in the cabin, smiling, suggesting a relationship. Two, as I said before, the woman's body is in the lake, and there is a bit of driftwood surrounding a bubbling ripple, suggesting the woman was not killed off on shore, but was drowned. This bubbling ripple just happens to be a few feet away from where the woman will emerge later, seeking to kill Steve. Thirdly, there appear to be bottles of alcohol littered on certain parts of the island, one of them right next to a box of shotgun shells. The shotgun itself is located right in the cabin, easily reached. Ask any gun safety expert, they'll tell you that's a no no.
The game is one that tries to appeal to emotion rather than intellect, which must be said, is a GOOD thing. Every now and then, we need a good laugh, a good cry, and a good scare. Emotions make us feel more alive. No, let me rephrase that, emotions are proof we are alive. Video games are more than mere entertainment, they are art because they offer an experience that can not be replicated by any other media. A book or a movie called Lakeview Cabin would have been an experience in watching a man (that we called Steve) be haunted by a woman's ghost. But the game let's us feel what Steve feels by putting US in control of Steve! You can't get that from a movie, that's for sure.
The game plays with our fear for our safety. Steve here is simply enjoying his time away from the world, in the middle of nowhere, on a little island on the lake (the island is subtly implied to be private, too. Or at least the cabin is private). When we go out on vacation, we want to get away from our everyday lives. We want a change, we want fun, peace. Steve here wished for that too, but he's still being attacked by the evil ghost. The game lulls you into a very false sense of security with its atmosphere. The birds are singing, the wind is rustling, the sun is shining, the water is clear and calm. Steve would be forgiven for thinking he's in paradise. He is not safe, however; even the daylight does not guarantee him safety, because the ghost can attack during broad daylight (in fact, you are far more likely to be attacked during the day than at night). Hell, this fear is even present in how, even if you manage to kill the ghost, you're still going to have to deal with the demon fetus! Lakeview Cabin plays with our fears and keeps us on edge, always.
Lakeview Cabin doesn't depend on just jump scares to scare the player, it also depends on the panic and paranoia the player is bound to feel throughout the game. When you first start, you KNOW something bad will happen, but you just don't know what. Many a new player, without knowing what the game will be about, will most likely just walk around the island like a dunce, experimenting with the many items around the cabin and such. If you're like me, you'll be trying to open the shed most of the time, only to suddenly panic at the fact that it's now night time and something bad is BOUND to happen because that's how video games work. This made EVERYTHING scarier. Suddenly I was cautious just entering the cabin, something I was thoughtlessly doing when it was daytime. And wouldn't you know it? I jumped when I saw the specter of the woman on the bed, signaling me to come hither. Paranoia can make even the tiniest noise, the smallest shadow become part of a much larger, unknown but not unexpected threat.
The story of the game is very much open to interpretation, but the most popular one seems to be that the woman was Steve's wife, and he killed her. Why and how, we don't know. The only thing we do know is that the woman's body is in the lake. This hypothesis is supported by three bits of evidence: one, there is a picture of the two in the cabin, smiling, suggesting a relationship. Two, as I said before, the woman's body is in the lake, and there is a bit of driftwood surrounding a bubbling ripple, suggesting the woman was not killed off on shore, but was drowned. This bubbling ripple just happens to be a few feet away from where the woman will emerge later, seeking to kill Steve. Thirdly, there appear to be bottles of alcohol littered on certain parts of the island, one of them right next to a box of shotgun shells. The shotgun itself is located right in the cabin, easily reached. Ask any gun safety expert, they'll tell you that's a no no.
The game is one that tries to appeal to emotion rather than intellect, which must be said, is a GOOD thing. Every now and then, we need a good laugh, a good cry, and a good scare. Emotions make us feel more alive. No, let me rephrase that, emotions are proof we are alive. Video games are more than mere entertainment, they are art because they offer an experience that can not be replicated by any other media. A book or a movie called Lakeview Cabin would have been an experience in watching a man (that we called Steve) be haunted by a woman's ghost. But the game let's us feel what Steve feels by putting US in control of Steve! You can't get that from a movie, that's for sure.
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