You may or may not have heard of White Day: a labyrinth named school before. The game was originally released over 20 years ago, remade for mobile in 2015 by developer Sonnori and then finally released for PC and PS4 by publisher PQube in 2017. Now, over two decades after its original release, White Day has made it to the Switch!
But what’s so special about White Day that it would be remade and re-released this many times? White Day is a Korean horror game where you play Hui-Min Lee, a new student at Yeondu High School. He discovers the diary of a student left behind and for some reason, waits until nightfall to go back to the school and give it to her. Walking into the school, he abruptly finds himself locked in and encounters a variety of female students wandering about after hours for various reasons.
Doesn’t sound particularly exciting, does it? Well, at first it isn’t. Then the janitors show up and it turns out they walk around with flashlights and baseball bats looking for students. After witnessing a particularly brutal attack, you’ll certainly be wary of crossing any janitors! Most of the gameplay in White Day consists of sneaking around the halls solving puzzles and unlocking things so you can get to the auditorium and escape the school through the only unlocked exit. You don’t have any weapons aside from wits and patience and you’re definitely going to need both.
As you wander the halls of Yeondu High, you’ll find a variety of weird devices, locked doors, strange plants, glowing sigils, and a whole lot more. The game guides you to the next key checkpoint each time so you have an idea of where to go, else you’d be hopelessly lost. As you walk around mostly in the dark, the janitors randomly hear you and come running, blowing their whistles and brandishing their deadly bats. If you successfully hide, you’ll be ok and on Normal difficulty or below, there’s an eye shown on screen indicating janitors are still close by. On Easy or below you’ll even get texts with clues as to how to proceed.
The majority of White Day consists of solving puzzles around the school, timed events, and quick time events. Figuring out how to unlock a door or access an area takes up a lot of time and if you simply walk down the halls the janitors will hear you and then the bludgeoning begins. Instead you’re forced to creep slowly in a crouch down halls, waiting patiently in rooms and around corners. Sometimes it can take upwards of three minutes or more for a janitor to leave and as soon as you pop out they’ll hear you and come running if you forget to crouch! There’s a lot of waiting around built into White Day, one of the holdovers in design due to the game’s age. In fact, there’s so much waiting that it can become frustrating when all you want to do is play the game.
Aside from the ever-present threat of being beaten to death, you’ll also have to solve some riddles and puzzles. Most of them are fairly straightforward but require a significant amount of backtracking and, much like the janitors, end up a bit frustrating as you return to a place all the way across the school to pick up something from a box you were right next to 20 minutes ago. Once in a while, you’ll get to a portion of cinema that abruptly incorporates a quick time event as well. These are fairly simplistic and generally just involve dodging here or there with the left stick (no weapons, remember).
But the gameplay isn’t really the selling point for White Day. Games like Outlast have refined these recipes much more effectively. White Day has managed to stay relevant for as long as it has because it’s legitimately creepy as hell. The ambience, the methodical gameplay, the lack of weaponry, and the script itself are all quite solid. In fact, the supernatural mystery unravelling around you is honestly quite compelling. There aren’t just janitors in this school after all. There are also ghosts. Ghosts of the dead left over from the Korean War when this school used to be a hospital to be more specific. As you talk to your schoolmates, you’ll learn bit by bit about the dark history and present of the school you’ve transferred too.
You’ll also get to choose to flirt with the girls you talk to as well, because of course you will. Hey, what red-blooded teenage boy wouldn’t flirt with girls in schoolgirl outfits late at night in the middle of being chased down by death-dealing janitors and ghosts? It’s just common sense. Seriously though, flirting has an impact on the direction the game goes and can lock or unlock access to some events. Most notably, your decisions unlock access to encounters with ghosts and there are a ton of things you can entirely bypass in White Day, meaning that you don’t really get the full experience of the game if you don’t take your time and make the right decisions. The best path through the plot isn’t the easiest to achieve either.
Missing the ghosts would be a shame too because they’re arguably the most interesting part of the game aside from the overall plot. Ghosts kind of abruptly just show up and startle you, triggered by finding the right notes and going to the right locations. There are 20 ghosts to be found and you definitely won’t find them all in a single playthrough without a guide but each experience is pretty cool and there’s a backstory for each ghost. A lot of detail was put into this portion of the game and it’s honestly a shame more players won’t experience it. There’s definitely a missed opportunity here to add more terrifying gameplay than the janitors (who get tiresome eventually) as well.
Naturally, a 20 year old game that was remade in 2015 looks more than a bit dated. White Day is an old game and it definitely shows, especially in the texture mapping. But the character designs are excellent and realistic and the overall design of the school, the ghosts, and even the facial expressions is so good that even after all this time, you can forgive the age of the game visually and play it on a modern console. These issues are minimized even further if you’re playing on the Switch in portable mode, and honestly, tossing on White Day in the dark on a Switch with headphones is terrifying. The stereo sound has you jumping at every noise and creak!
Speaking of sounds, another reason White Day has endured so long is the excellent sound design. Crank up the stereo on this one because the ambient sounds will have you jumping at shadows almost as badly as in a Silent Hill game. Making things as creepy as possible is key here and sound plays a huge part of that. Weird rattling, wind blowing, and other noises abound as you’re trying to determine if that was a creak from the school or the quiet jangle of the janitor as he searches for you. When they do come closer, the sound telescopes in, conveying the distance audibly until they finally reach visual range and the chase is on. White Day is a master-class in sound design and the tradition soundtrack that accompanies it is excellent as well.
That’s not to say there are no flaws in White Day. Homing in on an object to pick it up can be a hassle as you have to wait until the white circle brightens to grab things and it’s very difficult to evade the janitors once they see you. Even leaving a lot of doors open, trying to slam then in their faces, and then running out a different one isn’t always effective and it’s a bit of a learning curve to manage to escape once you’ve been seen. Waiting around for the coast to be clear is also frustrating because you literally just have to sit and wait, making short gameplay sessions an inconsistent exercise in frustration. Some of the timed events can be a hassle too, with unclear goals and a bit too much running about.
For its age, White Day: a labyrinth named school is a spectacular horror title that has withstood the test of time. Some of the mechanics are showing their age and the game definitely requires more than the average level of patience in some aspect, but this is still a game that will have you jumping at the wind and that’s more than can be said for many more modern horror games. It also showcases Korean gaming, something that the West doesn’t get to see nearly as much as we should because there’s some great content coming out of South Korea. Overall, this is solid game that will give you hours of play and more than a bit of replay value for your $30 if you want to experience all the ghost events and get the best ending. If you like the more psychological style of horror games, you owe it to yourself to check out White Day: a labyrinth named school.
This review was based on a digital copy of White Day: a labyrinth named school provided by the publisher. It was played on a Nintendo Switch in both docked and undocked modes and played equally well in both. White Day: a labyrinth named school is also available on PS4, XSX, and PC on Steam.