End of October Update!

Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion is a horror game with a cute exterior. You are somehow in the mansion of Spooky the ghost and you have to trek through 1,000 rooms in the mansion to win.

I want to start out by saying that I enjoyed this game! I liked it… but I didn't love it. I'll dedicate the first (and longest) part of my review rant to what I disliked the most. And that is… This game is super duper repetitive!

The goal of the game is to get through one thousand rooms. You just have to run from the beginning of the room to the end of the room and repeat. The problem is that as you run through the mansion, you'll see the same rooms over and over, hundreds of times. The game is free (unless you bought it like me), so I understand that the devs probably had to reuse a lot of the same assets to make it a full fledged game. With that in mind, repeating the same rooms for the full one thousand just feels so incredibly monotonous. I think it also removes a lot of the horror elements. At first, the repetitiveness gives you a false sense of security in the familiarity. Then when the creatures pop up, it's startling! The horror is quickly diluted due to the fact that you'll also see the same monsters over and over again. They pop up randomly and without much build up after their first appearance. One creature freaked me the f*** out the first time I saw it. But after seeing him four more times, I didn't mind. You might die to them once, but when you figure out how to evade or outrun them, then it loses all its horror elements. They do add some monsters and maps as the game goes on, but you get used to it quickly. Maybe if they added more twists and turns or objectives the player could do, I'd like it a little bit more. I was also a little disappointed in the lack of build up or difficulty/intensity as you get further into the mansion. It happens a little bit, but only with some scripted events. Normally I hate being scared, but since it was a lot of the same game, I wanted it to get real scary for Halloween!

Now that I got that out of the way, for a free game, this is actually an excellent game to play, especially during the spooky season. I can imagine it would be a fun game to stream or play with friends. I like the premise and the lore you can gather in the world if you pay enough attention. The sound design is nice. Creepy audio cues and sounds that put you on edge. I enjoy graphics that contradict the theme of games. I love how adorable the graphics are compared to the monsters and storyline.

I don't want to elaborate on the lore or the monsters because that would ruin the fun, but if you enjoy stories/games like SCP: Containment Breach, then you may like this. They are very similar.

I do have the paid version, which comes with all of the DLCs. I don't think these are in the free version, but I could be wrong. I did not beat them all, admittedly, but I tried them all, so I'll give a barebones first impressions review.

Endless Mode: This is what it sounds like. You start at room one and keep going until you die. Some new layouts are added, but since the base game was enough for me, I wasn't much interested in endless mode. This is good for people who want more of a threat level in the game. 

Karamari Hospital:  This one is okay. Its nice that you can explore around a little bit instead of going straight through. There are some new monsters, and it's a shorter DLC. If you like hospital settings, then you may enjoy it. 

Spooky's Dollhouse: Nope. Nah. No way, I'm out. I hate dolls and yet I still loaded this up thinking I'd be able to beat it. This is too scary for me. The new creatures are beyond creepy. I'm too dumb to figure out where to go, and why is there a clown?!? I chickened out and watched a playthrough on YouTube instead. This is a very good DLC. I'll never play it, but I do appreciate its existence. 

I'm not sure why this review was so long, but overall I recommend Spooky. I don't know if I recommend buying it because I haven't played the free version to compare it to my purchased version, but I'm always happy to support indie developers. 

Half Life is just one of those franchises that I regret not playing on release. I never even heard of the games until 2014 when I downloaded Steam for the first time :( I want those nostalgic memories of it! lol

That said, Episode 1 is a fun game. Not amazing, but more Half-Life. It takes place RIGHT after the second game. Gordon and Alyx have to escape from City 17 before it blows up. The controls and graphics still hold up very well. It doesn't feel as old as it is.

There isn't much to say because it's part one of the story and it mostly feels like a small extension of Half Life 2. The same gameplay, characters, and story. I do enjoy having Alyx as a companion throughout the game because I like her character. 

Overall I recommend it on sale. I'll play episode 2 to get the full story and judge it accordingly. If you liked Half-Life 2, then you'll probably like this too!