As someone who’s quite fond of the PSX aesthetic niche in modern horror games, I find it a bit disheartening that so many developers don’t understand what made those low-res games so good, beyond the nostalgic coat of paint. That being they were genuinely fun to play. Timeless, making the most of it despite technical limitations. Not every aspect will hold up well, but that’s inevitable. Expected, even. The benefit of making a modern homage that harkens back to the era is the ability to fix the messy details that only contribute to frustration. This is my first Puppet Combo game that I’ve actually played myself, and I’m hoping that it’s a fluke that I found it so underwhelming, with little having been done to build on the genre.
On the graphics I just want to preface that I couldn’t even play the game effectively once I got to the nominative house, lest I be at a severe and eye-hurting disadvantage. I had to change it from VHS to the 1999 aesthetic. I’ll congratulate the variety of options; you’ve got VHS, 1999, 1995, and 16mm, in addition to a CRT filter, which is particularly cool. It’s just a shame the game is so prohibitively dark I didn’t even want to use them.
The beginning sections were without a doubt the strongest part. Short, yet promising more. I was familiar with the convenience store part before playing it, as I saw a couple youtubers play it previously when it was a demo. Yet even knowing how scripted your interactions are it still felt tantalizing to see where it would go. Then I made it to the house, and I slowly lost all hope, much like the main character probably did. If anyone ever played Granny (2017) way back when that was still talked about, know this game is super similar to it. After getting captured by the baddie in the final act, you wake up in an upstairs room with little instruction on how to escape.
On your first inevitable death you’re given a grim lesson on the parameters of sound you’re allowed to make before you alert the killer or his mother. And it’s harsh. Every time you’re caught you lose a day and start in a new room. By crawling through vents, creeping around dark corridors, and hiding in closets and under tables you have to find a way…. out of the house. With a much cleaner polish, this is just Granny on a larger scale (it’s a big house). Strike one to this nice little formula is the questionable decision to limit you to a very small inventory. In my mind that should only come into play in one scenario: when storage management and annoying backtracking is negligible. This game satisfies neither criterion. What this means is that you’ll likely find yourself with a hoard to rival Smaug’s gold pile before long, except instead of treasures beyond compare it will be rocks and old bandages. Yummy. Too bad you didn’t bring your Fitbit along to track your steps as you micromanage your inventory across this godforsaken labyrinth of a house like this is Minecraft. So reminiscent is it that I can almost hear the phantom screams of my brother telling me to give him my precious diamonds. Who does that duplicitous usurper think he is?
But for as feral as my brother can get, it pales in comparison to the sheer determination of the killer in this game. This guy is nuts. With ears like a hawk, speed like a track star, and screeches like a pig I feel like this guy would make a great candidate for a Most Annoying in Show award. Of course, his mom is even worse. That scooter-wielding broad is two parts granny, three parts Terminator. She doesn’t kill you outright, but if she sees you in her considerably wide radius of sight as she traverses the house for her warden-ly rounds then you’re dead meat. The game needed a much bigger breadth of breathing room when it comes to where you’re safe and where you should be on edge. Enemy patrols are slow but constant, making sneaking more of a chore hampered by the too-wide detection of cameras and enemy lines of sight. A slog in other words, and a doubtless strike two.
The next and final strike against the game is its save system. You find tapes around the house and put them in TV to save your progress. It’s an old time-wasting relic that has no place here. Doubly so when considering the fragility of your character’s glass head and the stingy amount of saves rationed out. This could have been solved one of two ways while keeping the save method the same. One: make significant progress auto-save the game. Or two: make tapes not take up space and add a TV or two in the main areas.
To reiterate, Stay Out of the House, while nailing details that evoke the era it emulates, does little to polish it. Under the cluttered, messy details of moment-to-moment gameplay is a promising love letter to classic slashers and PSX games, but unfortunately this isn’t Minecraft. And I don’t have a pickaxe durable enough to dig to the treasure that makes this game worth playing.
On the graphics I just want to preface that I couldn’t even play the game effectively once I got to the nominative house, lest I be at a severe and eye-hurting disadvantage. I had to change it from VHS to the 1999 aesthetic. I’ll congratulate the variety of options; you’ve got VHS, 1999, 1995, and 16mm, in addition to a CRT filter, which is particularly cool. It’s just a shame the game is so prohibitively dark I didn’t even want to use them.
The beginning sections were without a doubt the strongest part. Short, yet promising more. I was familiar with the convenience store part before playing it, as I saw a couple youtubers play it previously when it was a demo. Yet even knowing how scripted your interactions are it still felt tantalizing to see where it would go. Then I made it to the house, and I slowly lost all hope, much like the main character probably did. If anyone ever played Granny (2017) way back when that was still talked about, know this game is super similar to it. After getting captured by the baddie in the final act, you wake up in an upstairs room with little instruction on how to escape.
On your first inevitable death you’re given a grim lesson on the parameters of sound you’re allowed to make before you alert the killer or his mother. And it’s harsh. Every time you’re caught you lose a day and start in a new room. By crawling through vents, creeping around dark corridors, and hiding in closets and under tables you have to find a way…. out of the house. With a much cleaner polish, this is just Granny on a larger scale (it’s a big house). Strike one to this nice little formula is the questionable decision to limit you to a very small inventory. In my mind that should only come into play in one scenario: when storage management and annoying backtracking is negligible. This game satisfies neither criterion. What this means is that you’ll likely find yourself with a hoard to rival Smaug’s gold pile before long, except instead of treasures beyond compare it will be rocks and old bandages. Yummy. Too bad you didn’t bring your Fitbit along to track your steps as you micromanage your inventory across this godforsaken labyrinth of a house like this is Minecraft. So reminiscent is it that I can almost hear the phantom screams of my brother telling me to give him my precious diamonds. Who does that duplicitous usurper think he is?
But for as feral as my brother can get, it pales in comparison to the sheer determination of the killer in this game. This guy is nuts. With ears like a hawk, speed like a track star, and screeches like a pig I feel like this guy would make a great candidate for a Most Annoying in Show award. Of course, his mom is even worse. That scooter-wielding broad is two parts granny, three parts Terminator. She doesn’t kill you outright, but if she sees you in her considerably wide radius of sight as she traverses the house for her warden-ly rounds then you’re dead meat. The game needed a much bigger breadth of breathing room when it comes to where you’re safe and where you should be on edge. Enemy patrols are slow but constant, making sneaking more of a chore hampered by the too-wide detection of cameras and enemy lines of sight. A slog in other words, and a doubtless strike two.
The next and final strike against the game is its save system. You find tapes around the house and put them in TV to save your progress. It’s an old time-wasting relic that has no place here. Doubly so when considering the fragility of your character’s glass head and the stingy amount of saves rationed out. This could have been solved one of two ways while keeping the save method the same. One: make significant progress auto-save the game. Or two: make tapes not take up space and add a TV or two in the main areas.
To reiterate, Stay Out of the House, while nailing details that evoke the era it emulates, does little to polish it. Under the cluttered, messy details of moment-to-moment gameplay is a promising love letter to classic slashers and PSX games, but unfortunately this isn’t Minecraft. And I don’t have a pickaxe durable enough to dig to the treasure that makes this game worth playing.