Tuesday 18 August 2015

Spooky's House of Jump Scares

You know, when I download a title from Steam that costs exactly £0 and has a name like this I'm not exactly expecting a masterpiece.  Hell, I'm not really expecting anything more than a couple of horror themed jokes and a game that you can finish in about 10 minutes. 

Well I was fucking wrong here

Spooky's House of Jump Scares is a strange game.  I've actually forgotten what the plot is even though it scrolls for you every time you load up the game but I think it's about someone with an interest in history hearing some stories about this old house and going in to check it out.  As soon as you get inside you are confronted by Spooky, a cute ghost that tells you that the house contains 1000 rooms and challenges you to get to the end of it.

Game play for this game is very simple, walk through a bunch of corridors and press E when you get to the end of each room.  Occasionally, the game will throw a puzzle or two at you and you must spend a little time to solve those but most of them are just things like "find the key" or "read the bit of paper with the door code on it".  While the game play isn't particularly great and the story isn't anything new or interesting it's the way the game delivers it horror that makes it a real success.

Now the horror aspect to this game is really hard to talk about because part of the reason it's so effective is that you aren't expecting it to take the turn that it does.  The first few levels are populated with cute little cardboard cutouts of  animals and cartoon skeletons but don't let that put you off because if you press on you really are in for a bit of a surprise.  I really don't want to say any more than that but let's just say that by the end of the game, even those cute little cut outs had me jumping in my chair a little bit.

The game also features multiple endings which adds some replay value but a single play through of this games 1000 rooms can be a little draining so getting the other ending is not something that I have got around to yet.

The game is free to download and play on Steam and I would encourage you to give it a go.  It's a hard game to talk about but don't read anything other than this going in and you're in for a really good time.  Sometimes it's the simple stuff that gets under your skin the most.

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