For a mobile puzzle game series, these games are seriously spooky. You won't look at a puzzle box the same way ever again, that's for sure.
Moments pages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.
- While the first game was mostly centered on getting the one box open with very little of the game's story getting involved, A.S.'s notes are a perfect example of an Apocalyptic Log. They run the whole gamut of emotions from the joy of discovery, to frustration, to the breakthrough that unlocks what he's been searching for, and the dawning horror of what he's gotten himself, and by proxy you, mixed up in by mucking about with the Null.
- Solving the final puzzle in the base version of the first game leaves one with a hell of a Cliffhanger; A large stone door leaking black tendrils and a brilliant white light appears seemingly out of nowhere, and your character is inextricably drawn to it. Before the Epilogue came out, for all intents and purposes it looks like your character had died.
- The framing device for the second game is pretty horrifying for being so deceptively simple. The ending of the first game sees you trapped in the Room dimension, and every time you solve one room you have to go to another. The only thing that connects these places and times are the notes being left behind by A.S. that help string you along, but for all intents and purposes there is no way out. You're stuck in there solving these puzzles and waiting for a solution to present itself that can let you escape. If it weren't for A.S. waiting behind for you to arrive in the Seance room, you would have been stuck there for the rest of your life, much like he was. And when you do catch up to A.S., what does he look like? Depending on whether you are playing on mobile or PC, his corpse is either a withered husk with flaking skin, or a skeleton. The sudden reveal and Scare Chord veers the scene into Jump Scare territory, especially when you experience it the first time in a dark room.
- In the Temple in the second game, you have to unlock a box that shifts forms between being a gold and shiny palace to a run-down wooden one. What happens when you finally open this thing? You're greeted by a human skull with carvings all over it, implied to be the skull of the priestess whose notes you've been reading. Then you need to crack it open to get to the bit of Null inside it. Bonus horror for anatomy buffs: the skull's morphology shows distinctly European eye sockets and nasal opening, and its jaw seems rugged enough to be male. Which suggests it's not the skull of the priestess, but that of one of the invaders who'd been killed or captured by what he'd presumably regarded as "demon-worshiping savages", and whose head she'd turned into a container for something even worse than "demons".
- The Seance chapter, full stop. Highlights include for flying objects, moving photography, and the dead body of A.S. Maybe Maggy Cox wasn't such a charlatan after all... Bonus points if you input the names of the people trapped alongside A.S. in the typewriter and read their stories. Not only are they aware of their trapped existence, they know there are others as well, but they will never be able to meet.
- The video of E.H.'s "upper right appendage, severed at glenohumeral joint" (right arm cut off at the shoulder in layman's terms) flexing its fingers at Professor de Montfaucen's laboratory whilst connected to a series of electrical wires.
- In the PC version, you can see an actual severed limb preserved in a jar on a workbench.
- For bonus creepy, the severed arm in the film clip only extends to the elbow, and the one in the jar is a left arm. How many severed arms was de Montfaucen working on, from how many sources?
- Whatever that thing is that pokes a bit of tentacle (?) above the water during the second game's ferry sequence.
- The introduction of the third game is terrifying even by this series' standards. You're riding on a train and convinced that the Null and what controls it is stalking you, and then you pass through a tunnel where a stranger briefly appears across the seat from you and leaves behind a puzzle box. Upon solving it you go through another tunnel while the train's whistle produces a horrifying shriek, tendrils slide across the window that's next to you, and then you find yourself in a locked room with a stone dias. Welcome to Grey Holm. It gets worse for uninvited visitors. They have an odd habit of getting killed, such as the 'tenacious aquanaut' whose helmet and skull you see in the lighthouse. "The rocks of this island have always had a taste for blood."
- The crows in the clock tower. Always screeching when you least expect it and somehow knowing exactly where to go after you complete some puzzles. Which leads to the even scarier thought: The Craftsman has some degree of control over living things. Including you.
- The Craftsman's favourite little punishment for people who don't obey him: trapping people in Soul Jars. This has happened to Maggie Cox in the Seance machine, Simon Grayson in the paper theatre, and even you if you are not careful.
- There are a lot of group photos around Grey Holm and they look to be the Craftman's family. Every single person has their faces scratched out. Considering that only happens if the individuals in question have their soul turned into Null, it calls into question how many people the Craftsman had preyed upon and what type of person he is to target his own family.
- Each of the third game's Multiple Endings are terrifying, especially with their written epilogues.
- Imprisoned: As the name would imply, you are now trapped. Specifically, you enter a door that leads back to the train you began the game on, only to find a note from The Craftsman mocking you for not realizing that a Room is also a Cell, and then the train passes through a tunnel and comes out in a completely alien landscape dominated by a massive maze and a large temple. Cue the zoom out, and the train is revealed to be inside a puzzle box not unlike the one you received at the start of the game, which then locks and is offered up to the Null entity by The Craftsman. Then comes a final note from The Craftsman detailing your fate.
- Escape: The door leads out to the boathouse as seen on the topographical map, but the Null entity is close behind. Before you make it to the boat you get knocked into it and black out. Once you wake up you see that the boat has been pushed out to sea, and you get a front row seat to the complete annihilation of Grey Holm by the Null entity. The closing letter is one of your journal entries stating how you are going to steer clear of anything relating to the Null from here on out. Considering you've escaped its clutches three times and appear to be the only one capable of fighting back against it, This Is Gonna Suck for anyone else caught up in its snares.
- Release: Plays out the same as in Escape, with two major twists; First, upon witnessing the destruction of Grey Holm, you bear witness to a mass of tendrils floating up into the clouds. That's right, you just let the Null entity loose in our dimension. Second, the closing letter is one begging an unseen recipient to believe you about the Null, and to find you in Bethlehem - as in the Bethlehem Insane Asylum in England.
- Lost: There's very little to go on here, but it seems that you are now somewhere on Mars, surrounded by three temples not unlike the ones seen in the Observatory level. Wherever you are though, there's almost certainly no conventional way back and you're going to be completely surrounded by the Null and its masters.
- Just to cap it off, the Craftsman's notes make it clear that he's using up the last of the energy obtained from his previous victims' souls to capture you. Which means that if you manage to avoid the "Imprisoned" outcome, his nested rooms/traps/dimensions will start collapsing, having God (or the Null) only knows what effect on the fabric of reality.
- The ending to A Dark Matter: while the Craftsman may finally be gone for good, the Hedgewitch makes it clear in her final letter to the Detective that there are more out there seeking to harness the Null to their own ends. When you consider how horrible of a person the Craftsman was, the notion that there are others just like him - if not worse - is enough to send a chill up your spine.
