Puppet House is a puzzle-adventure horror with escape room elements. A freak ritual creates a killer puppet, murdering anyone who enters the ventriloquist’s mansion. Detective Rick, seeking missing locals, will soon face his greatest horror.
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Bought this last month on sale, played and finished it today.
Coming in at just under 3 hours, this short horror game probably isn't worth full price, but it does have some value. Parts of it are fantastic and other parts are decent, but nothing special, and some are not so great.
First and foremost this game is close to being a masterclass in non-janky indie game development. It's visuals are crisp, it's performance is extremely smooth (I encountered only a couple bits of stuttering) and its overall visual design is well above average.
Second, its story is pretty decent. Though you'll pretty much figure the hook out almost immediately, it's a good premise that is told somewhat poorly. Notes are basic fare being more straightforward in simple descriptions than with the kind of prose a good horror game should have. There's little mystery to ponder.
Third, though once areas are unlocked you can pretty much roam around at will, but the game is decidedly linear. Puzzles are about as simplistic as you can get and the answers given to you either just before, or shortly after, encountering the puzzle.
Fourth, while not exactly terrible, the voice work is pretty weak. The grizzled voiced protagonist sounds like someone trying too hard to pull off the grizzled voiced detective shtick and the spoken lines are...okay. Sometimes you're like "Why did he say that?" Every other time you're just "Meh."
As for the scares? They are lacking. The settings is creepy, there is some tension to start but it fades mid game and builds back a little bit near endgame. Fortunately the dev doesn't try to make it up with overused jump scares. There's a few, and a couple good ones, but not overdone. The truly tense moments end up being watered down with very generous quicktime triggers that take away any sense of real peril. The setting and the antagonist are still creepy as hell.
Last, the game is pretty much spoon-fed to you, so if you like 100% achievements in a game you'd have to be a really bad player to not get it here.
Ultimately I enjoyed it, but it lacks the writing and gameplay that make games great.