An English Haunting
I finished An English Haunting yesterday. I felt kind of misled about this game. I thought it was going to be about investigating a haunted house. It is about that, but that doesn't happen until the end of the game. The story takes place in London in 1907 and you play as a professor named Patrick Moore. He and his colleague Nelson Ward have been working together to prove the existence of ghosts, but when Moore discovers that his colleague has stolen money from the university and disappeared, the university threatens to shut down Moore's supernatural investigation department unless he can prove ghosts exist. Now thrown out of his home by his fiancee's parents too and penniless, he has an uphill battle, and he needs to find where Ward went.
That is what most of the game is, trying to find Nelson Ward. Don't get me wrong, I still found the plot interesting, it just wasn't what I was expecting. You get to explore a variety of locations in London and including a brief harrowing jaunt in Scotland. The music in this game was absolutely fantastic from the authentic songs you would hear from that era to chilling atmospheric horror tracks. It's the best fitting soundtrack for a game I've heard in quite a while. The puzzles are pretty traditional to point-and-clicks. Nothing I felt I had to beat my head over, but there was a little bit of out-of-the-box thinking required. I did get stuck a few times. A couple puzzles were a bit stretching on the logic.
There did seem to be an imbalance between the dialogue and the puzzles though. There seemed to be a lot more of the former. There were lengthy dialogues and it left me feeling like there wasn't quite enough gameplay. There are some intense scenes that really played up the horror. Scotland really got to me, and the finale in the haunted house was a pretty great payoff. I wasn't expecting Lovecraftian horrors. However, I will say the climax was short lived and then the game was just over and ending on a cliffhanger in true horror movie fashion. I wish it hadn't taken so long to get to the actual haunting. There were a couple spooky parts before that, but I wish the game had been more about that then trying to find Moore's missing colleague.
Overall I did enjoy this game though. I wish there was less dialogue and more puzzle solving, but I like this era of history where spiritualism was all the rage. You get to have Sir Arthur Conan Doyle join you towards the end, which was fun. He was always into the supernatural and even Harry Houdini makes an appearance trying to debunk a psychic. Again, I enjoy the authenticity, so props to the developer for staying true to history. This game's strengths was in its writing and the music. Here's a screenshot. Nothing to see here except some ectoplasam.
Now getting away from all the horror it's time to shift to something more cozy. It's called Midnight Ramen and I guess you're just listening to people talk and making them ramen? I'm not sure exactly, but it looks like it would be up my alley.
That is what most of the game is, trying to find Nelson Ward. Don't get me wrong, I still found the plot interesting, it just wasn't what I was expecting. You get to explore a variety of locations in London and including a brief harrowing jaunt in Scotland. The music in this game was absolutely fantastic from the authentic songs you would hear from that era to chilling atmospheric horror tracks. It's the best fitting soundtrack for a game I've heard in quite a while. The puzzles are pretty traditional to point-and-clicks. Nothing I felt I had to beat my head over, but there was a little bit of out-of-the-box thinking required. I did get stuck a few times. A couple puzzles were a bit stretching on the logic.
There did seem to be an imbalance between the dialogue and the puzzles though. There seemed to be a lot more of the former. There were lengthy dialogues and it left me feeling like there wasn't quite enough gameplay. There are some intense scenes that really played up the horror. Scotland really got to me, and the finale in the haunted house was a pretty great payoff. I wasn't expecting Lovecraftian horrors. However, I will say the climax was short lived and then the game was just over and ending on a cliffhanger in true horror movie fashion. I wish it hadn't taken so long to get to the actual haunting. There were a couple spooky parts before that, but I wish the game had been more about that then trying to find Moore's missing colleague.
Overall I did enjoy this game though. I wish there was less dialogue and more puzzle solving, but I like this era of history where spiritualism was all the rage. You get to have Sir Arthur Conan Doyle join you towards the end, which was fun. He was always into the supernatural and even Harry Houdini makes an appearance trying to debunk a psychic. Again, I enjoy the authenticity, so props to the developer for staying true to history. This game's strengths was in its writing and the music. Here's a screenshot. Nothing to see here except some ectoplasam.
Now getting away from all the horror it's time to shift to something more cozy. It's called Midnight Ramen and I guess you're just listening to people talk and making them ramen? I'm not sure exactly, but it looks like it would be up my alley.