White Day: A Labyrinth Named School is a South Korean horror game about surviving in a haunted high school at night. It’s a very dark game (literally), so I apologize in advance for the dim screenshots.
For my American audience, “White Day” is originally a Japanese holiday that has spread across many East Asian countries. It mirrors Valentine’s Day. Unlike in America, where Valentine’s Day is just about confessing love and sharing romantic experiences and gifts, in some Asian cultures, the Asian Valentine’s Day is a day for women to confess their love with homemade chocolates (or store-bought if you prefer, but homemade are more special and meaningful).
Then a whole month later, on March 14th, the guys celebrate White Day, where they will reciprocate with their own homemade (or store-bought) chocolates if their feelings are mutual. Imagine confessing your love and having to wait a whole month to find out if the guy actually likes you back!
I lived in Japan for 3 years and South Korea for 2 years, so I got plenty of experience with this holiday. It’s kind of a big deal, in both countries.
White Day: A Labyrinth Named School is a game based on the premise of a guy confessing his love for a girl in his school. She lost her diary on the school grounds and he decided to return it, along with a box of chocolates. He does this by sneaking into the school late at night to put it in her locker.
But there’s an excessively violent janitor who patrols the school halls, so you have to avoid being caught. You literally watch him take a baseball bat to a kid until he’s unconscious, then drag the kid’s body to his office! Dang, South Korea!
My screenshot above is your first encounter with the janitor; you outrun him and hide in a classroom until he passes. Throughout the game, you hear his keys jingle in the hallway and that’s your cue to run and hide. Here’s me taking refuge in the girls’ bathroom while he’s on patrol:
This is more than just a “hide-and-seek from an angry janitor” game, though. As you roam the school and explore classrooms, you can find ghost stories about the school, and I haven’t gotten that far in the game yet, but I believe you actually run into some of the ghosts while roaming the school grounds. Here’s a bloody textbook I found in the corner of a room, with two bloody hand prints on the wall nearby it:
This is a puzzle game, where you collect clues and solve puzzles to eventually reach your goal of returning the diary and leaving your chocolate gift. You only know the girls’ name and what homeroom she’s in, but the classroom is locked, so you need to find your way around the school and gain access to other rooms and resources until you can eventually gain access to the girl’s locker.
You also run into some other students sneaking around the school and help each other achieve your goals.
One of the girls is sweet and kind and saves you from the janitor:
While the other is only interested in how you can help her gain access to a classroom. She’s a bit more of a tease.
There are also some strange images hanging between classrooms on the wall that are wildly different from one another, both in art style and theme. I feel like they’re going to be important for a puzzle later on.
This game wouldn’t be too bad if not for the scary music and sound effects. If it was just hiding from a janitor and solving puzzles, I would hardly consider it horror. But there’s a storm raging outside, with rattling of doors and windows at inopportune times to give you a fright. Plus, creepy music will play randomly that makes you think something’s sneaking up on you. There was one area where I heard voices whispering unintelligibly and they wouldn’t stop until I left the area.
I played this at night with all the lights out and it definitely got my heart rate up! If I was this boy in real life, I would’ve just gone home and given the girls’ diary to her directly during the day. As soon as I saw the janitor beat some kid unconscious with a bat, I would’ve noped right out of there. That’s a situation for the police to deal with, not some young student.
There’s a sequel to this game called White Day 2: The Flower That Tells Lies. It’s a direct sequel, returning to the same high school. It looks like it might be an investigation story, trying to solve what really happened at the end of the first game. It looks interesting; once I finish this first game, I’ll definitely jump into the sequel.
Because this is a South Korean game, I felt it was only right to play it in its original Korean language (with English subtitles, because I don’t speak much Korean). English dubs on Asian works just feels weird to me.
But I lived overseas for almost a decade, so I’m used to hearing foreign languages. It feels more authentic to me to hear something in its original language. I know a lot of Americans don’t like to hear foreign languages in their movies or games though (or read subtitles while watching something), so there is English in this game if you prefer.
I also turn on subtitles anywhere I can, because I have ADHD and my brain won’t focus on auditory signals. So being able to read while someone’s talking helps me to stay focused and in-tune with the conversation. It helps to provide context in some of these screenshots though, which is a bonus.