Let Me Sleep Review (Xbox Series X|S)

When things go bump in the night, sleep is always the most effective crucifix to keep the demons at bay. A pillow made of Egyptian cotton, perhaps, but comfort, a place to hang your head, and a watchful eye that can banish the ghouls are, above all, the three most vital components that weave the Holy Trinity of nocturnal slumber. The problem for you is that, catching a quick forty winks isn’t in your jurisdiction. Banishing the spirits that plague a bedroom, on the other hand, is.

Counting sheep has never been made to feel like more of an uphill struggle than in Let Me Sleep. To make matters that much worse, the sheep in question aren’t woolly friends for the sleep deprived, but mischievous poltergeists who enjoy whittling down your patience. A bat that likes to reduce your time limit; a ghost that duplicates itself; tentacles that deplete your inventory, for example, all pose as real, albeit comical threats here. But of course, it falls to you to eradicate them and fill the role of The Sandman to bring forth good dreams to the restless. Go figure.

Let Me Sleep is a puzzle game at heart, and therefore, the game itself mostly relies on simple point-and-click tidbits that require you to engage in logical reasoning, obstacle manipulation, and erratic guesswork. A man cradles the idea of being able to catch some shuteye. The problem is, nowhere in a haunted mansion is safe enough for them to hang a coat and put on a pair of warm slippers. The world shuns the consensus that a full eight hours is enough time to replenish the system and the body clock. As the fly on the wall, it falls on your shoulders to quell the spirits and prove them wrong.

It begins with a simple task: to switch off the lights and to listen to the peaceful sound of an exhausted individual claiming their twilight snooze. However, once the night progresses, the room begins to find its supernatural rhythm. The ghosts come out to chime in with their problematic activities, and you, being at the center of it all, have the newfound responsibility of showing them the door before they wipe their feet. And if you think this sounds all rather straightforward — it isn’t. Or at least, it isn’t as simple as repeatedly switching off a light switch.

Each of the 67 stages come with their own “puzzle” to complete. The goal, in short, is to ensure that the man is able to get enough sleep. But how you go about presenting such a fickle thing is another matter. See, each obstacle that you encounter in Let Me Sleep has its drawbacks. A ghost, for example, has an awful habit of replicating itself to shroud your screen. And frankly, that same level of pettiness carries over to most of the undead and supernatural ilk that flesh out the roster. It’s simply finding out what pushes their buttons and, well, switches them off, that’s the tough part.

Of course, there isn’t much here that will cause you to quake in your boots or fear for your safety. In fact, Let Me Sleep is a rather comical experience, in that it opts to frontline a cartoon aesthetic and a slim veil of shoddiness rather than a terrifying exterior with wall-to-wall jump scares. It’s silly, nonsensical, and at times, a little frustrating. The bat that can knock time off of your puzzle, for example, is a thorn in the side in itself. Though, nothing here is dreadfully complex. An irritating pain in the neck, yes, but not a risk to your mental health.

Thankfully, each puzzle has its own unique set of rules and supernatural occurrences, meaning that no two rooms are ever the same. In one case, it could be as simple as highlighting an object and progressing to the next area. In another case, it could require you to formally analyze the objects in the room, build an image, and connect the dots to eliminate a threat. Either way, you always have the pieces of the jigsaw at your fingertips. It’s merely figuring out how to put them all together that’s the challenge.

Outside of its generic point-and-click puzzles, there isn’t a lot for you to wrap your head around here. As there are no alternate endings to unlock, side quests to complete, or vast areas to explore, what you have in your hands, really, is a textbook puzzle game that feels awfully reminiscent of an old-fashioned Flash game. If that doesn’t whet your ears, then you might struggle to enjoy Let Me Sleep for the dated assets that it brings to the bedposts.

For a game that clearly harbors a gimmick, Let Me Sleep is a lot of fun to work through. With enough variety in its puzzles and a creative edge that waxes both comical and eerie environments, it does enough to keep you awake — and that counts for something here. It’s still all rather niche, and although it does foster its own collection of puzzling chapters, it still falls into a smaller category of puzzle-horror tales. That being said, I can see why some fans of dainty old-school arcade puzzlers would want to cash in for a quick sleepover here.

Verdict

Let Me Sleep brings its pillow and pajamas to a supernatural world of puzzles and poltergeists with the intent to wax your brain and give you something to think about between snoozes. While it might not be the scariest puzzle game of all time, or even one that has enough teeth to rattle each and every bone in your body, it is a game that has the charm and creativity to keep you awake for the night. And I think that speaks for itself, really.

If you have the cash to spare and the flexibility to put your pillow where the poltergeists are, then you should consider taking a chance on Let Me Sleep. It might be lacking in nightmare fuel, but it ought to give you enough sheep to count between sleepovers. You can take from that what you want, folks. Sleep tight.