The Night Gym Review (PC)

With hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have skipped leg day. If only I’d known that I’d be spending a twilight shift down at the gym bolting for the hills from some weird skeletal axe murderer, I would’ve made more of an effort on the treadmill. But I was sluggish. Caught up in the egotistical nature of weight training, I forgot the most important rule: if push comes to shove, it’s your legs that carry you forward, not your biceps. Yet, even with that knowledge buried away at the back of my mind, I still attempted to execute the one thing that I knew probably wouldn’t work: I confronted the threat, and I touched gloves with the killer. But it didn’t fall to its knees; it mocked me for even trying. I wasn’t Hercules; I was an idiot in a gym who just could not sprint to save their life.

The Night Gym is, first and foremost, a dollar game, so without needing to break into the intricacies, it’s best to take everything here with a grain of salt. Alas, The Night Gym isn’t flexing its graphical capabilities, nor is it pushing the boundaries of modern horror with anything particularly invigorating. Heck, it isn’t even packing all that much mass in its narrative department, either. But like a lot of indie cat-and-mouse thrillers, it’s so very rare that you come to these sorts of worlds to experience bottomless plots and captivating character development arcs. No, the reason why we choose to dip our toes into these pools is to unearth an affordable adrenaline rush—a quick escape from the convoluted reality of a modern RPG. And honestly, I like to think that The Night Gym offers that on a copper plate, all things considered.

Bulking Out

The Night Gym doesn’t trick you into thinking that the world is full of fascinating features or thoughtful ideas; it instead opts to paint a simple picture—a VHS image of grainy dumbbells and janky retro aesthetics that attributes an otherwise mundane and textureless experience. Speaking of which, the experience itself is a short one, to the point where you would naturally be able to romp through it in a single session without having to return to explore any hidden secrets or alternate endings. A minor thing, but something that reflects the small asking price of a dollar, nonetheless.

Story-wise, The Night Gym doesn’t deviate much from the usual tropes of a hide-and-seek-like horror. By that I mean, there isn’t much to unpack outside of the usual chase sequence and frequent jump scare. The only thing that separates this IP from its kin, of course, is the setting. Think of a standard gymnasium with all of the sweat-addled machines and weights, and add a lashing of VHS jank over the surface, and you’ll have a rough idea of how this composition opts to tell its story. It’s barren, it’s dull, and it’s essentially devoid of any real life. A good tribute to indie horror, then.

As I was saying, the storyline — eh, it isn’t great. In short, it follows a gym rat who, after finding out that they’re not alone in a dank building, decides to engage in a tongue-in-cheek routine with a psychotic killer. That’s it. In short, a killer roams the corridors, and a protagonist desperately tries to outmaneuver them in the hopes of avoiding a grizzly fate. Perhaps there’s a bit more to it than that — but you get the idea.

Scooby Doo Has Entered the Chat

To state the obvious, The Night Gym isn’t a game that’s blessed with classic good looks or any form of frivolous artistic flair. The world itself is passable, though I wouldn’t say that it’s bursting at the seams with exciting locations or intriguing points of note. It’s essentially a very large room with a few set pieces and a draping of thematic elements that you would typically find in a cliche horror. And that more or less stretches to the monster design and general asserts, too. The skeletal foe, for example, isn’t necessarily scary, much less capable of instilling fear into its victims. And yet, lack of flair aside, all of these things just work.

Progression-wise, The Night Gym scoots you into a variety of different locations in the gym, with each section having its own encounter with the stalker and a banquet of affordable thrills. Granted, there isn’t a great deal for you to do besides tiptoe and cower from the killer in question, but you can create some pretty exciting moments with the settings here. Again, the storyline is mediocre at best, and the gameplay isn’t the slightest bit memorable. But weirdly, I find myself willing to give it the credit that it deserves, because truly, while it doesn’t conceive the best horror in modern times, it does make the simple act of fleeing from a murderous villain stupidly entertaining. And that alone counts for a lot.

Verdict

It doesn’t offer much by way of lavish perks or useful features, but I’d say that The Night Gym is worth the temporary membership fee of a mere dollar. I’ll admit, it isn’t the best indie horror you’ll ever lift weights with, nor is it exactly packing in heart-pounding jump scares or cutting edge action sequences. Having said that, The Night Gym has a good selection of moments to skip around, and not to mention a relatively gripping style that pays homage to the realm of retro-inspired VHS aesthetics. As for whether or not that’s enough of an incentive to keep you in its clutches is another story, and something that is bound to pull a mixed response. For a dollar, though, I suppose you haven’t got too much to lose here.

To put it simply, if you enjoy fist-in-mouth chases and cheap thrills that don’t ask much in return, then it’s likely that you’ll enjoy sweating bullets in The Night Gym. It’s a dollar, so what you see is what you get: a quick workout without the added protein. Take from that what you will, folks.