Well, this game turned out to be exactly what I expected. After my experience with the dev's last game, Home Safety Hotline, I was pretty conservative with my excitement. That is a game that should have been a home run for me - I am a sucker for PC simulator type games (Cyber Manhunt, Greyhat, Simulacra), and I also love …
Read more
Well, this game turned out to be exactly what I expected. After my experience with the dev's last game, Home Safety Hotline, I was pretty conservative with my excitement. That is a game that should have been a home run for me - I am a sucker for PC simulator type games (Cyber Manhunt, Greyhat, Simulacra), and I also love horror / found footage type games. But it just... didn't really go anywhere.
Here, you have a great concept for an almost Inscryption / Among Ashes / Buddy Simulator 1984 / Pony Island type game - a abandoned 80's cd-rom game of Solitaire that was banned after parental complaints.
The game plays like a text-based dungeon crawler with 90% of the playtime being straight up solitaire. And yes, the game does expand on the Solitaire mechanics with wild cards, curses, combat, and other variations - but it just never really hooked me.
Unlike Inscryption, which single-handedly made me fall in love with deck builders and SIMULTANEOUSLY was an incredible meta horror game, this just... does neither very well. The Solitaire gameplay is just easy and mindless, and the added complexities only made it more tedious and confusing rather than challenging and exciting.
But the meta horror stuff? Very tame, very expected. If you've played other games in the genre, I just don't think this did anything different than I have seen before. Granted, I bailed before the ending... but that was after playing hours past I had lost interest.
If you want a truly amazing and mindbending meta horror game - Among Ashes all day. Incredible game that gets under your skin and fully utilizes the meta aspects of the narrative. If you want amazing addictive gameplay combines with an interesting and unique horror game - Inscryption. And I guess if you want a watered down and easy solitaire meta horror game... play this.
2.5/10
Read less