When I started my Grouvee account, I thought about how much I generally enjoy most games I play and I probably wouldn't have many, if any, 1-star reviews. Well looks like I'm starting with one of my first reviews being one of those! My main criteria for a 1-star is that I can confidently say "I wish I hadn't played this." That is exactly how I feel about Horror Story: Hallowseed.

I don't have a lot to say about this game except that it just wasn't good. It's made by pretty much one person (not counting voice acting and such) and I do think that's impressive when pretty much any game comes from a very small team, let alone one person. And the graphics are really quite good even if it were a small team of developers. I also think a lot of the game is "on the right track." The concept is there and it's mostly doing things right, but just about every aspect, the story, the setting, the characters, and even the premise all just feel like "a good start" that never really gets to that enjoyable level. This paragraph is the most positive I can really say about this game.

And that's kind of the issue. No matter how impressive a feat it is for one person to make a full game, even a short game, if the result is not a good game, I'm not going to enjoy myself. The game moves glacially slow. It took about 3 hours but as short as that is, it feels more like an hour of content stretched out by extremely slow walk speed and long, uninteresting cutscenes. I'm not sure I'd really describe the game as having puzzles and the resources are so absurdly plentiful that there's no real concern there either. So gameplay is ultimately the classic walking sim and I do mean walking. There is a "run" button, but it's still so slow I couldn't always tell I was running. Also it's alt, which killed my pinky. The story is pretty drab with some very cut and paste generic exorcist vibes that don't really bring anything new to the table. The voice acting is rough, though a bit amusing how into it the lead guy gets a couple times. Compounded with the fact there's this heavy-handed character arc that goes 0 to "I found the Jesus and am now all powerful and faithful for some reason" in a heartbeat, the voice acting almost made it feel more like a parody. To make matters worse, this game is $20 even though it feels like a tech demo. In fact, I'd think it was a promising demo if that's how it was couched but as a finished product for that price, just yikes. The most I enjoyed out of it was that I played it streaming on discord to a friend so I had a companion to help poke fun at it. That said, my friend kept having to look away because the motion blur was so bad it was giving him motion sickness and I couldn't find a way to turn it off.

I wasn't going to bother mentioning too many specifics, but I have to note that this game has easily the worst chase sequence I've ever seen. You walk into a corridor, the screen flashes black then comes back, if you take another step or two you instantly die and respawn way back because you were killed by an invisible monster that was right in front of you that you were somehow supposed to know was there so you could 180 and run back to a little shrine of protection until it for no apparent reason gives up and walks off. I actually feel like the way I'm describing it sounds better than it was. I don't see how anyone could possibly survive that part on a fresh playthrough given how there's very little clue what is threatening you or what you need to do and the death is so instantaneous you have no time to try to catch on. Sudden and surprising danger can be an effective horror element that keeps players on their toes but apart from some games doing it for a specific stylistic reason, I don't think it's ever good design to have a part that will almost 100% kill players the first time and the only way to pass it is to just respawn and try again with knowledge of what's there. That's even worse for a horror game in that it cheapens the threat of death and paradoxically makes the game less scary.

Writing this out, admittedly feels a little mean, if honest. I mean, especially for a one-person passion project, in most cases, I'd probably just rather not leave a review so as not to diss something someone clearly worked hard on...but not only is the game way overpriced, after browsing some Steam reviews and seeing the way the creator has handled himself with even the most basic of criticism, I don't really feel so bad. This is normally not something I'd really care about or bring attention to. Like, he mostly just came off to me as super defensive and dismissive at first, which is cringey, but okay, I get that criticism can be hard and sometimes leads us to lash out, we've all been there at some point. I know I have. But then I got kind of fascinated and kept looking through more reviews and it got pretty bad...Dude has a serious victim complex and seems to think criticisms of his game are attempts to "cancel" him. He argues with people about what they didn't like, suggests that "other players didn't have this issue [so maybe you should just figure it out and stop complaining]," literally linking longplays to suggest that some streamers liked the game or didn't have technical issues or get as stuck, etc. On one negative review, I kid you not, he closed his reply with "I am sending this review to my lawyer." So uhh yeah, I have no qualms. I would say I hope he grows and improves as a developer and maybe his next project will take lessons from this one, and sure, I hope the best. But threatening legal action against people over basic–and trust me, quite valid–criticism...I will hope instead that he figures some things out on a personal level first. Either way, Horror Story: Hallowseed is not a game I'd really recommend to anyone in the state I played it.