What a wasted opportunity. I'll start with the pros first.
Decent, creepy story. The atmosphere is definitely influenced by P.T. and theWhat a wasted opportunity. I'll start with the pros first.
Decent, creepy story. The atmosphere is definitely influenced by P.T. and the story itself is a little unsettling.
The graphics are pretty good and again, they nail the atmosphere.
Unfortunately now we will get to the cons:
Crappy puzzles. The puzzles rarely feel organic and are as about as natural as finding random keys in random places that open random doors. Or doing subtraction in order to place stuff on the wall in the correct places. Some of the puzzles are of the "Try every inventory item and see if you have the thing they' re trying to match it with" variety; You'll wander around for 30 minutes trying to figure out what the developer is trying to get you to do. That gets in the way of the creepy vibe and feels like you're playing a lame adventure game from the 90s.
Some items will spawn during certain parts of the story within rooms you've already visited. They give you no hints that you'll need to re-visit those rooms, so the expectation is you'll have to make sure to revisit every room when you're stuck. Once in awhile you'll notice cockroaches marching towards something interesting, but it's not noticeable enough.
You have a few puzzles where you need to use a little force to open something. You will have two tools that could easily pry open or knock open something like a cupboard but in this universe, there is only one correct way of opening that cupboard. The claw of the hammer can be just as useful as a crowbar, just saying. That is lazy design and demonstrates how linear this game is and just how little agency the player has.
Even more infuriating is how they limit you to carrying a limited number of items so you have to store items in a safe. This is pointless as this is NOT a survival horror game. It also doesn't really give you any hints as to when you'll need specific tools, so you do A LOT of back tracking. There is absolutely no reason why there should be a storage box system in this game other than trying to drag out the length of the game. Because it's just so fun to realize the developer wants me to open something with a hammer even though I'm already carrying the crowbar...something that could also do the job. So there goes five minutes as we climb back up the stairs to get back to the safe.. It also ruins the suspense.
There are too many jump scares. This game turns into a Spooky's House of Jump Scares by the end of the story. Seriously, every five minutes you will encounter a jump scare. It went from scaring me to completely pissing me off. I do love how the house seems to become more alive by the end, but I don't need a sudden jolt every fricking five minutes.
Finally, I finished this in six hours. That's a $35 game for six hours. If it wasn't for the graphics, this game reminds me of many of the titles on Itch.io. I don't think this is worth $35 and I would wait for a sale before you buy it.
So I'm giving this a 6. If they had just made this a walking simulator with maybe a few tools you had to find to make your way through, it would have been an 8. Next week, I wont even remember this game.… Expand