Numbra

A young girl, a desolate city, and one rule: stay awake

Numbra, released 30 May 2025 as a free game from DigiPen Europe-Bilbao and published by the DigiPen Institute of Technology, drops players into a desolate, ominous city as a young girl fending off dark creatures that lurk in every shadow. Its side-scrolling, puzzle-platformer structure and atmospheric horror tone place it firmly in the lineage of games like Limbo, Inside, and Little Nightmares, an influence multiple reviewers note explicitly and approvingly rather than as a criticism in itself.

As a student production released for free, Numbra draws a level of goodwill and generosity from its review sample that a commercial release at the same technical standard likely wouldn't receive, and reviewers are consistently candid about weighing the game's rough edges against its evident student-project origins. One reviewer opens with blunt admiration, calling it "incredibly good" for a "student project," specifically praising "cool monster design, great blocky cartoon aesthetics and great composition with well thought camera angles." Another reviewer frames the achievement in comparative terms, noting real potential "inspired in stuff like INSIDE or Little Nightmares, which are obviously great games."

Striking art direction and creature design carry the experience

The clearest, most consistent throughline across the positive review sample is genuine admiration for Numbra's visual and atmospheric presentation, an area where reviewers repeatedly note the game exceeds ordinary expectations for a student project. One reviewer states plainly, "I loved it!!!! Super recommendable if u like games such as little nightmares. I loved the puzzles so creative! And the monsters look sooo good." Another reviewer, while more measured overall, still praises "the atmosphere of the game" and notes "the citematics are super cool," concluding it's "a nice short experience to play."

Even reviewers who ultimately land on more critical overall assessments are willing to separate their disappointment with the game's execution from genuine respect for its artistic ambition. One reviewer who rated the game harshly nonetheless concedes "the art, the story, all of that is genuinely good," specifically praising the team's evident skill while noting "it's obvious that Little Nightmares was the inspiration," and calling the underlying work "masterful student's work" despite ultimately concluding "the game just doesn't work."

Persistent performance issues undercut the experience for many players

Despite that consistent visual praise, the review sample converges overwhelmingly on a single, heavily corroborated technical complaint: poor, inconsistent performance that actively disrupts the game's carefully built atmosphere. One reviewer reports directly, "optimization is a major problem- the game stuttered consistently throughout my playthrough," a complaint immediately echoed by a separate reviewer who states the game "was incredibly laggy for me throughout my computer really did not like this game." A third reviewer frames the same problem even more emphatically, rating the game's performance "MICRO FREAZES all the time" despite running the game on notably capable hardware, joking "the graphics are from 2016" relative to the demands the game nonetheless places on a system.

That performance complaint is corroborated broadly enough, spanning reviewers with clearly different hardware setups, that it reads as a genuine, unresolved optimization gap rather than an isolated configuration issue affecting only a handful of unlucky players.

Janky mechanics and a very short runtime frustrate a real share of players

A second, widely corroborated complaint concerns inconsistent, occasionally broken interaction and movement mechanics that undercut the game's tense chase sequences specifically. One reviewer notes directly, "you can climb certain objects but not others of the same height, which breaks immersion," adding that "box pushing and movement in general feels janky." A separate reviewer expands this into a more detailed, harsher account, describing "the amount of input bugs and sequence errors just in the parking garage scene alone," specifically noting chase sequences sometimes required "about 5 tries on each chase part for the running animation and behavior to kick in."

A third, related complaint concerns the game's brevity and comparatively shallow puzzle design, limitations several reviewers explicitly connect to its short, twenty-to-forty-minute completion time. One reviewer states bluntly, "too short, I've completed it in 34min... I don't see much originality, nothing particularly interesting." A separate reviewer echoes the same sentiment more specifically, noting "the puzzles are too easy, the chases are too short and far too simple, and some of the mechanics were pretty buggy," concluding "I wouldn't say anybody needs to play this game" despite crediting its lovely atmosphere and scenery.

Ambitious but unfinished, viewed through a student-project lens

A recurring theme across both the positive and critical ends of the review sample is a candid weighing of the game's ambition against its evident lack of polish, with many reviewers explicitly framing their score around whether Numbra should be judged as a finished commercial product or as a student showcase. One reviewer captures this tension precisely, writing, "a lot of potential in this little student project. And I only say 'little' because of how short it is. I bet there was a ton of work put into it," specifically praising monster design and sound while still gently flagging its scope as a genuine limitation rather than a stylistic choice.

Other reviewers are less forgiving of that framing, arguing that publishing on Steam alongside commercial releases invites direct comparison regardless of the team's academic origins. One reviewer writes pointedly, "it's cute that every student wants to put his game on Steam nowadays, but I wish I had read the description properly," ultimately concluding the game amounts to "less polish, less ideas" compared to its clear commercial inspirations, though conceding "masterful student's work" in the same breath. That split, between reviewers grading on a curve for student work and those judging Numbra purely as a horror game competing with its genre's best, largely explains the meaningful but real minority of negative reviews within an otherwise strongly positive overall sample.

Verdict

Numbra is a genuinely striking, atmospheric student horror project that earns consistent praise for its Little Nightmares-inspired art direction and creature design, real accomplishments for a free, short-form student game. But persistent performance stutters, janky climbing and chase mechanics, and an extremely short runtime with shallow puzzle design leave a real, corroborated share of its review sample disappointed despite genuine visual admiration. As a free curiosity for a single short sitting, it's an easy, low-stakes recommendation for fans of the genre; anyone expecting a polished, substantial experience on par with its clear inspirations should temper expectations accordingly.