Another short little actually this and LiEat weren't made in RPG Maker but the similar Wolf RPG Engine RPG Maker experience with a surprising amount going for it! I played the original version of the game, not the 2020 remake on Steam, but it remained a really lovely experience!
Its visuals are quite good for one of these games. If you told me this was the remake's graphics, with its uniform art style and nice hand-drawn cut-ins and character portraits, it'd be totally believable (the remake is even a good step above this and looks really good looking). It greatly elevates the game's really unsettling vibes and left me rather creeped out at points. In general the game is really well put together, above many of its peers.
Despite a short length, the story told had just enough meat to it to keep me hooked onto it, with an ending that really caught me off guard and creeped me out. Various details about the mansion the game centers around are dropped throughout that change the way I reflected on earlier parts very effectively, adding to the permeating creepiness.
The gameplay itself is fairly standard, exploring the mansion filled with various puzzles to solve. Most of the puzzles were perfectly fine, though a couple rather contrived ones forced me to a guide and exclaim "how the fuck was I supposed to figure that out". I'm calling out the puzzle where I had to deliver an imprisoned lady's eyeballs ripped from her head by heading back upstairs, filling up a bucket I acquired previously in a courtyard pond, using it to douse the fireplace in another room, and dropping the eyeballs in a hole behind the fireplace that I am 95% sure does not logistically line up with where her cell was located beneath. But besides that and one or two other puzzles, no real issues!
The game doesn't leave anything behind that will keep me really thinking about it months from now, but it still provided a good, bitesized, creepy time! The fact I'd be willing to pay for the remake the re-experience it even more improved, which I couldn't even say for Ib--one of my favorites of the RPG Maker bunch--feels like a testament to the game's quality.
Its visuals are quite good for one of these games. If you told me this was the remake's graphics, with its uniform art style and nice hand-drawn cut-ins and character portraits, it'd be totally believable (the remake is even a good step above this and looks really good looking). It greatly elevates the game's really unsettling vibes and left me rather creeped out at points. In general the game is really well put together, above many of its peers.
Despite a short length, the story told had just enough meat to it to keep me hooked onto it, with an ending that really caught me off guard and creeped me out. Various details about the mansion the game centers around are dropped throughout that change the way I reflected on earlier parts very effectively, adding to the permeating creepiness.
The gameplay itself is fairly standard, exploring the mansion filled with various puzzles to solve. Most of the puzzles were perfectly fine, though a couple rather contrived ones forced me to a guide and exclaim "how the fuck was I supposed to figure that out". I'm calling out the puzzle where I had to deliver an imprisoned lady's eyeballs ripped from her head by heading back upstairs, filling up a bucket I acquired previously in a courtyard pond, using it to douse the fireplace in another room, and dropping the eyeballs in a hole behind the fireplace that I am 95% sure does not logistically line up with where her cell was located beneath. But besides that and one or two other puzzles, no real issues!
The game doesn't leave anything behind that will keep me really thinking about it months from now, but it still provided a good, bitesized, creepy time! The fact I'd be willing to pay for the remake the re-experience it even more improved, which I couldn't even say for Ib--one of my favorites of the RPG Maker bunch--feels like a testament to the game's quality.