Title.
You might’ve heard the fancy term ludonarrative dissonance, which describes something a lot of modern games suffer from. It’s the way games often tell stories that don’t fit within their gameplay loops. How a character can take 20 shots to the head in gameplay, and then die from a single wound in a cutscene. Or how in the story, characters can act like people who would never do the things they do do in gameplay.
This conflict doesn’t actually ruin a game most of the time. But the pictured game is one which is renowned for showcasing what can be done when gameplay is used as a narrative device, reinforcing rather than conflicting with the story. Using every element of a game in concert.
Little Nightmares is one game which I adore for the way it marries gameplay, music, narrative and aesthetic.
Everything works together to build a sense of desperation and unease, which eventually through a twist gives way to a cathartic sort of dread as you realise there’s no innocence to be found anywhere in the game.
Only monsters.