It's the most puzzling puzzle game I've ever played. Many levels give you that mental "oomph" and are satisfying to solve, which is an indicator of a good game. There are levels, however, that, once solved, cause even more confusion. Simply put, some levels demand too much time to solve and are too cryptic. The biggest problem, I think, is that there is too much freedom with what you can do, and it is often unclear what you can and what you can do because the tutorial is very sparse.
This is the only problem that I can find in a game that can be called even somewhat objective. Everything else negative comes from my reluctance to dedicate this game too much of my time. Nevertheless, it is still a good game and a person dedicated enough might find this game as one of his favorites.
Grade: 7,4/10

I don’t know if it’s possible to make a more annoying and boring intro to a game, holy shit it’s bad. I don’t even know what to say abt this game. It looks nice, but you kinda don’t care because you are being distracted by the non-stopping commentaries made by the main character. She has to say something about every single interaction and the ratio of the annoying and unnecessary stuff is outstanding. The story, or at least the small part of it that I got to see is extremely banal: you have to go and find your missing husband. It’s fine, as long as the delivery is good, but it’s not. You just get to the island and the first thing you see is the note in french. Of course, the somber turn is that the heroine can only understand two words: “island” and “death”.
Nah, bruh, I ain’t playin allat

Lunacid has a lot of things going for it, but I still have a feeling that it underdelivers, mainly because of the limited resources. It has a great atmosphere and a fantastic ambiance, but the design in some places is completely lacking or unoriginal. Nonetheless, many areas are still charming. This game is all about exploring, and, for me, it is both its strength and weakness. The exploring is really fun and the game has tons of secrets that you can discover, with or without the help of the internet. On the other hand, a lot of exploration comes down to you finding a healing item or some other potion, and doesn't feel rewarding at all, but only lessens the incentive of exploring the areas more thoroughly. The best part of combat is spells. However, even here, spells work the best not during the combat itself, but during the exploration, when a big share of the spells is directly applicable to the environment and with which you can discover already mentioned secrets. My favorite spell in this regard is "Coffin", simply because of how badly it functions in the game and how absurdly high the number of coffins can get when you finally reach the place you need to get to. As for the combat itself, I mean, it's there, but it does not bring any depth to the gameplay.
The plot of this game is pretty simple, but still compelling, mainly because of the cool environment. The lore, however, feels rather amateur and is sabotaged by some of its aspects like the Egypt-themed area which seems extremely out of place and kinda boring, and the game's size - a lot of areas are too short and seem too insignificant.
Overall, still an enjoyable experience, and a feeling that Lunacid had much more potential, had it had a bit more substance to it.
Grade: 5.2/10

A fantastic game full of emotion. The characters are great, and their interactions are always on par, making you sympathize them with them and be engaged in every bit of their conversations. The main theme throughout the story is delivered fantastically, by being implemented in basically two main plots of the story, making the ending even more meaningful and contemplative. Some may seem the ending to both these plots disappointing, but I think this is the best outcome for it, and the subversion of our expectations at the end is great. In one plot it is more expected, in the other less, but once you get the grasp of the main themes by the end and get the story, it feels harmonious. One problem I have with this game is that sometimes traversal feels annoying because of the limits the area of the game puts on you, which seemingly almost shouldn’t even be there. Even when you accept the limitations, it is sometimes still confusing how in one place you are able to go through and in other aren’t. Overall, a fantastic experience.
Grade: 9,5/10

A very heartfelt game with a beautiful story about a family. I loved how every memory of a character handles death and doesn’t make it explicitly tragic, but rather as an integral part of their personality, almost being a signature of their lives and how they perceived it,. The house is a great visual representation of their personalities too, as well as the symbol of the increasing bizarreness of the family tree and its history. Some stories are weaker, some stories are stronger, but overall it is still a very enjoyable experience, with some very imaginative or just plain nice approaches to perceiving one’s memories.
Grade: 8/10

The only reason it’s not 5 stars from me is that the ps version of this game works abhorrently. Sometimes I would just run from the guys, and the house, in which I want to hide from the said guys, just won’t fucking spawn (like I would just see blurred textures and that’s it, even though from far away it looked fine), and the said guys would just give me a couple of stabs and bid me farewell. Or instead of playing a game I would be watching slideshow, or it would just turn off for no apparent reason. The fact that this game still gets a 4/5 is a feat comparable to only few things in this world. The game is a unique experience and is a work of art. Too bad my laptop is half-dead and it cannot even run Pathologic 2 on minimal settings and I can’t try the pc version.

Me when the Stanley Parable and Portal: :-O
The first part of the game is almost flawless with great puzzles and flow to it. Perhaps, they were too easy to solve but I didn't mind it. The second half is what kinda ruined the experience for me. The logic of puzzles suddenly lost its integrity and instead of actually keeping this natural flow, the developers decided to throw in a couple of puzzles, in which their solution was almost random. This is where the game started to get boring for me. In the final part of the game, I was just walking mostly solving unimaginative puzzles while the game was trying to compensate it with its visuals. I barely cared about the message tbh, mainly because it is in itself not the most original one, and the delivery struggled because of the conflict between game design and gameplay.
I believe this game and its concept had tremendous potential, but just tripped over the pretentious narrative.
Grade: 6/10

First of all, I think it would be most appropriate to compare this game with "Sunless Sea" and "Sunless Skies", cause it is most obvious that it not only took a lot of inspiration from these titles but also that it shares with them every single major gameplay mechanic. The best part of A House of Many Doors is its writing, which is among the best games I've played. It does manage to transmit the world setting and its different aspects (characters, locations, monsters etc.). It does stay on par with both games from Failbetter Games. It is quirky, witty and mysterious almost everywhere it has to be. Nonetheless, I had a feeling that in every other single aspect, the game falls short and doesn't deliver as much as the other two games did. This might be the budget thing, which I can understand, but with having already experienced "sunless sea" and "sunless skies", I feel that the world is much more empty and doesn't have much to offer. There is almost nothing to do in between locations, therefore, there is no sense of exploration, which, for me, was one of the strongest cards of the other two titles. The world looks too similar everywhere and does not offer any interaction with it. I have heard positive things about the combat in the game and how it is much less annoying than in "Sunless Sea". Tbh, I disagree with this point completely. I agree with the fights being a tad less primitive, but they are also less immersive and still underdeliver in terms of gameplay. At first, it seems complex, but once you get the gist of it, it becomes mundane and boring, and in most of the fights you just have to destroy the guns of your enemies and then just destroy their ship entirely. Immersion-wise, I don't like how you only fight other kinetopedes and cannot fight any monster at all (haven't finished the game and there might be a chance to fight monsters, but in my 12-13 hours I only fought bandits and occultists). Besides, I don't like that this is not implemented in any way into the world itself and is happening completely isolated, like a mini-game. That's why, even though I can accept criticism of the combat in "Sunless Sea", I do still think that it still is good enough for such a game as it is. It gives you much more flexibility in how to approach the battle. All the upgrades that your ship can get, can be used in a fight. In "A House of Many Doors", you depend only on your staff and your guns. Other upgrades play a much lesser role and are needed only for exploring. Exploration in this game, as I said, is boring, it is basically nonexistent. The layout of the map is the same everywhere, with the same houses, the same ruins, and, thus, the same interactions, and the same music, both in cities and outside in the house's rooms. In Both SSs you had different mobs in different map areas, different weather effects, and different visuals overall. In addition, you had different music, which was great and made every other aspect much more colorful and atmospheric. When you approach a port, you are able to see how it looks from the outside, along with seeing the mobs around it and the music playing, which gives you an initial impression of what's to come. In AHoMD, you just go through empty corridors and then suddenly find a city or some other location. The transportation here feels more like a burden and a waste of time between the cities. The areas (cities and other hubs) are done well, mainly because of writing, as I already mentioned. The crew of your kinetopede is, I think, definitely better than in "Sunless Sea", and is either on par or a bit better than in "Sunless Skies". Everyone has their quirk and unique interactions which you don't expect in the other two games. The thing is, again, all these cool mechanics could've been even better if the other elements were done successfully. The last thing: this game is not as challenging as the other games. I had much fewer problems with surviving in this game because the resources were easily manageable, and if there was any real threat to my ship, I could just run away to another room, which wasn't really hard if you juke in the ruins well enough.
Even though I did criticize this game heavily, I don't think it's bad, since it does have its own strong points. I just could not go without comparing it with the other two games, of which I think very highly. I think, it deserves a 6/10 for me, but, if you haven't played "Sunless Sea" or "Sunless Skies", you might as well start with this one, and you might like it more than me.