Grey Area is a Platform Game by indie developer Electric Prune Juice. It was released for the PC on September 15, 2023.
Hailey is an 8-year-old girl who's been tasked with the important mission of... going to the grocery to buy cereal for breakfast. Things aren't quite that simple, however, as Hailey accidentally uncovers a portal that brings her to a weird and terrifying dimension. In order to find a way back home, and possibly save the universe, she'll have to explore strange lands and traverse some brutally difficult platforming challenges.
Grey Area is a challenging 2D platformer with Surreal Horror elements and a focus on precise jumps. The main gameplay mechanic is Hailey's dive, which gives her a large burst of horizontal momentum in the air, letting her cross large gaps, dash through obstacles, and bounce off walls, and which can be instantly interrupted at any point for precise landings.
Grey Area contains examples of:
- Advancing Wall of Doom: There are a few chase sequences, where Hailey must run away from an advancing threat while maneuvering through obstacles.
- Near the end of Chapter 3, Hailey is pursued through the mountains by the Guardian, a gigantic skeletal horse monster (who becomes the level's boss after the chase ends).
- Chapter 6 starts with Hailey fleeing from a swarm of ghosts.
- All the Worlds Are a Stage: "Refractions", the final section of the game's normal route, consists of an obstacle course combining elements from all of the game's worlds.
- Animalistic Abomination: The Guardian is a gigantic monster that resembles a horse... if the rear half of the horse was made of intestines. And it's apparently powerful enough that the Goddess of Ichor couldn't deal with it herself, requiring her to manipulate Hailey into defeating it.
- Bloody Murder: The Goddess of Ichor can weaponize her own blood. One attack causes a blood vortex which rains droplets from above, and another has her rip her own arm off to attack with the arterial spray.
- Boss-Arena Idiocy:
- The first boss, the Guardian, can't directly be hurt by Hailey, but some of the block in the arena have spikes that pop out of them, which will damage it if you trick it into headbutting them.
- The third boss, the Goddess of Ichor, has an orb orbiting around her. This orb can't damage Hailey, so all it can do is act as a Goomba Springboard for her to jump up and kick her in the face. It also helps avoid certain attacks.
- Brutal Bonus Level: "The Last Place", a hidden level accessed by using Hailey's ghost attack against the final boss, is by far the hardest level in the game (and this game is already challenging as is). It's a lengthy Marathon Level that often require you to make multiple extremely precise jumps and dives in a row.
- Car Fu: The Goddess of Ichor will telekinetically pick up and throw cars at Hailey during the second phase of the fight. They explode spectacularly upon hitting the ground.
- Collection Sidequest: Each world, except for the last one, has hidden items scattered throughout. Finding them all will unlock a new ability to use in the next world.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The Grey Area, where Chapter 3 takes place, is entirely monochrome (hence the name). Hailey is one of the few sources of color in this area. When Hailey returns to the real world in Chapter 4, she'll point out that "at least it's not grey anymore." In Chapter 5, parts of the real world also become monochrome when the Grey Area starts merging with it.
- Desperate Plea for Home: At the start of Chapter 4, after waking up soaked in the middle of a rainstorm, Hailey wishes she was back home.Hailey: I just wanna go home... I want our special breakfast...
- Down the Drain: Chapter 2 has a hidden level set in the sewers, in which Hailey runs across pipes while jumping over pits of sewage and evading Blob Monsters made of sewer sludge. It's the only dangerous place in the entire chapter.
- Dreaming of Things to Come: In Chapter 1, which is set in a dream, some of the enemies resemble monsters Hailey will encounter later in the Grey Area, and the dream ends with her seeing the Grey Girl.
- Dream Land: The first chapter is Hailey having a dream. In this dream, her mom gives a Justified Tutorial, and her plush Bunny can talk.
- Dying as Yourself: After defeating the Goddess of Ichor, a Mad Goddess corrupted by the power of the orb, she regains her lucidity and apologizes to Hailey, then explains the situation before she expires.
- Earn Your Bad Ending: The bad ending is obtained by getting all of the secret items and completing a Brutal Bonus Level. It starts off identical to the normal ending, but gets interrupted by a Jump Scare when Hailey's mom suddenly gains a Nightmare Face, leaving you with no real plot resolution (aside from confirming that the game's events aren't a dream).
- Easier Than Easy: The "Relaxed" difficulty setting not only gives you three starting health points (rather than two or one like the other options), it also lets Hailey do a Double Jump, making the game's platforming much easier.
- Enemy Roll Call: A list of the game's characters, including all of the enemies, is shown before the actual credits.
- Facial Horror: As the first boss, the Guardian, takes damage from headbutting spikes, the skin on its face starts to peel away. Eventually, its eye will pop out of its socket and eventually fall out.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Collecting secret items in Chapter 3 will cause images to flash on the screen. Among these, there are pages from newspaper articles. One of those details the risks of using soul magic (collecting all items gives you such powers, which can kill Hailey if overused), and another is about a study into the possibility of people "slipping out" of reality (which is one risk mentioned in the aforementioned soul magic article).
- Game Within a Game: In the hidden sewer area in Chapter 2, you can pick up Hailey's Game Bean, a portable game console. Sitting down for a few seconds (by pressing down) will eventually cause Hailey to pull out the Game Bean and start playing Pyo, a minigame made by one of the game's staff in which a chicken jumps around and collects seeds.
- Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Hailey is an eight-year-old girl who loves plush toys. Her favorite is her Bunny, and she also has a strange alien-looking plushie named Bumpity.
- God in Human Form: The Grey Girl turns out to be the Goddess of Ichor in disguise.
- Ground Pound: The Pow Cereal box, earned by getting all items in Chapter 2, causes Hailey to quickly slam into the ground if used in the air. This is used to destroy some fragile floorboards and access secret areas.
- Harder Than Hard: The "Punished" difficulty level not only makes you a One-Hit-Point Wonder, it also removes all checkpoints, forcing you to go through each level without making any mistakes.
- Hard Head: Diving headfirst into walls is a core gameplay mechanic, but Hailey doesn't seem to get a headache from doing this.
- Idle Animation: If you don't do anything for a few seconds, Hailey will start rocking on her feet in the first three worlds. After that, she'll just blink.
- In a Single Bound: Collecting the ten Bunny plushies in the first world unlocks an ability that lets Hailey jump much higher than normal, although it has a limited number of charges.
- Invincible Minor Minion: Borbos, seemingly based on the Gordos from Kirby, are floating spike balls that cannot be harmed.
- Jump Scare:
- Collecting secret items in Chapter 3 will cause frightening images to pop up on the screen, the last one being a picture of Hailey with a Ghostly Gape.
- The "bad" ending has Hailey's mom suddenly gain a Nightmare Face, which is implied to be due to Hailey breaking the Orb which holds reality together.
- Kid Hero: Hailey is an eight-year-old girl who bravely faces plenty of trials and horrors in her quest to return home (and save her parents, along with all of reality).
- King Mook: The second boss, the Clockwork Borbo, is a giant version of the Borbos that act as obstacles in other levels, and some of its attacks involve its smaller relatives.
- Marathon Level: The secret final level has five items scattered around it which you need to collect. There are checkpoints, but no permanent save points, so you have to do the whole level in one sitting. Expect to spend at least a couple hours on it.
- Minus World: An intentional example. Using Hailey's ghost attack against the Goddess of Ichor will destroy her orb, which was anchoring all of reality together. This takes you to the secret final level, which is composed of jumbled, glitched graphics while Hailey tries to recover all of the orb fragments.
- Monster Town: The Hub Level of Chapter 3 is populated by monsters, some of which are from species that attack you during gameplay. However, these ones are peaceful and won't hurt Hailey, with one of them saying it's tired of scaring and chasing people and wants a quiet life.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The route to the hidden ending has Hailey destroy the Goddess of Ichor's Orb... then learn it was actually the anchor holding reality together. Even after collecting all of the pieces, this doesn't fully restore everything to normal, as her mom turns into a monstrous figure.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: On the "Painful" and "Punished" difficulty levels, Hailey has only one health point which cannot be upgraded.
- Or Was It a Dream?: The normal ending has Hailey wake up in bed, being reassured by her mom who tells her that she just had a nightmare. However, after the credits, there's a Sequel Hook showing an older Hailey, wielding a gun and looking at the Grey Area encroaching upon reality. The secret ending starts off similarly, but gets interrupted by a Jump Scare, meaning that Hailey damaging the Orb in her "dream" actually did affect reality.
- Replay Mode: After finishing the game once, you unlock a level select menu that shows you how many collectibles are in each area.
- Superpower Meltdown: Getting all items in the third chapter unlocks the ability to launch a ghostly projectile. Using it consecutively will cause Hailey's eyes to darken, and eventually she will die on the spot unless you wait a bit for her to return to normal.
- Tennis Boss: The second boss, the Clockwork Borbo, will occasionally attack with an energy orb. Unless you've collected all items in the previous chapter (which unlocks a different attack), the only way to damage the boss is by diving into or jumping on that orb, sending it back at it.
- Unrealistic Black Hole: Tiny black holes occasionally show up. Space-time curves around them, and although crossing the event horizon means instant death, you can make use of their gravitational pull to slingshot yourself higher.
- Wall Jump: Hailey's dive is a lesser version of this. Diving into a wall will cause her to bounce diagonally back and upwards, letting her gain some height, but since she can only dive once per jump, you can only use this to gain a little bit of height, and the backwards momentum means you can only land if there's a platform behind you.
- Wave-Motion Gun: One of the Clockwork Borbo's attacks is a large laser beam which it sweeps along the floor, though there is a blind spot directly beneath the boss.
- When Dimensions Collide: In Chapter 5, Hailey finds that various dimensions, including the Grey Area, are starting to merge with her reality.
