‘hoy folks, Spartan here with another review for the…

oh wait, this isn’t for the game trade, Mr. Cosmia doesn’t even know this game exists!

Yeah, I figured that I might as well use this platform that I’ve been given access to to shed light on games that I find somewhat interesting, but don’t think would be good enough to subject Mr. Cosmia to. Games that are either very short, very complicated or just don’t have enough content to justify a full dedicated review to. That being said, Haunt the House

This is a game released by the Super Flash Bros, a small indie developer who primarily dealt with making flash games (RIP flash, we hardly knew you) that I initially thought was lost when Flash was terminated, only to see it alive and well on Steam along with others of the series that I never got the chance to play. So while it’s still October, I figure I’ll review the whole series, starting with the game that started it all in 2010.

The Story

Unlike most entries in the game trade, HTH has a very simple narrative. You’re a ghost that lives inside of an abandoned mansion, and thirty people have broken in to throw a party. Judging by the garb that they wear and the lack of advanced technology, I’d wager this is set in the 1800s. As they are disrupting your eternal slumber, you must use your ghostly powers to possess the various items within the abode and scare the crap out of the guests to the point they run away in terror and never return. The game warns you though that there’s a limit to how much you can haunt them, as if they’re too scared they’ll do something stupid (which in this case, is leap out of one of the many windows to their deaths, more on that later).

That large paragraph I just wrote can be simplified even further, “You’re a ghost, people are in your house, scare them away”. That’s all there is, there’s no incredibly difficult bosses to fight, no time travel shenanigans with giant robots, no washed up detectives (though SFB DID make a detective game, but he doesn’t appear in this one) it’s just you, your house and the things in it. You’re not give much backstory on who the ghost was or how he died, but given that the chest in his room (why does a ghost need a room?) has an action where a skeleton pops out, one can draw their own conclusion. He’s got a ruffle around his nonexistent neck that reminds me of a clown, so perhaps he was one?

Regardless of his profession he seems to have done quite well for himself, with an expansive mansion filled with comfortable looking furnishings and expensive objects like a station wagon. He’s also a bit of a hunter, as he’s got a mounted moose head and taxidermied bear (both of which you can possess and bring back to life temporarily). Sucks that these jerks have to come in and ruin the peaceful atmosphere, but good thing you can do something about it, which leads me to…

The Gameplay

There’s not a ton to really say honestly, controls are the directional keys and spacebar to possess an object. If you’re not near an object, you’ll let out a little ghostly wail that does nothing, but is honestly kind of adorable. The main thing you’re going to want to do is possess things. Throughout every room in the mansion are interactable objects that you can freely possess and manipulate to your whims to intensify the atmosphere, which is represented by the bar on the bottom of the screen. As you scare the intruders, the bar will gradually fill up, unlocking new actions for various things in the mansion that become more and more unsettling for your victims.

Eventually, when you unlock terrifying that’s when the real fun begins. Everything in the mansion is at its full strength and you can frighten whole rooms with the right setup. My favorite thing to do is to possess the mirror (seen above) which starts with a swinging action, and then use shock, which causes a lightning storm to appear in the mirror. Scares the daylights out of anyone who sees it and more often than not they’ll run right out the door! And when they’re not in the foyer, I try my best to get them there and then possess a chair or plant to scare them to the right. It really becomes a bit strategic as the game goes on, and as the number of guests dwindle you have to think carefully on how you want to tackle certain situations. Is it better to wait for them to be grouped up to scare them? or would it be better to pick them off one after the other? Either way, getting rid of them isn’t hard, but what is hard is getting the perfect rank.

The Ending

After a while of terrifying people, the number of guests at the party have diminished to the single digits, until only one remains. It could be any character model, but for my most recent playthrough, it was a little boy. I decided to call him Krickeltip. Tippy for short.

Though I’m not sure why, Krickeltip was a very fast little boy, capable of clearing whole rooms in a second. Perhaps it was the game speeding him up so I can scare him out the door/window, perhaps it was that children are naturally a lot faster than adults, or the game was glitched and made this child be faster than a cheetah on coffee and speed. In any case, I systematically scared this child so much that he darted for the door as soon as I got him down to the ground floor, completing the game. The ending cutscene has the ghost looking out the window, pleased with his efforts, but then he turns around.

Remember when I said that you shouldn’t scare people too much? well, that factors into your final score. If you keep harassing the guests too much, they’ll leap out one of the windows and unalive themselves. Doesn’t matter if its only from the second floor, whatever sits beneath those windows is enough to kill them. If you DID kill anyone, they would appear behind the ghost, meaning you’re condemning this poor lingering soul to an eternity of dealing with guests that will never leave, which we can all relate is a horrifying ordeal to put up with. Thankfully though everyone left the house with their souls stuck in their bodies and I achieved an A rank after 33 minutes, 20 seconds and 616 milliseconds. A sign is placed outside of the house, which varies from your score. A rank gets “Keep out! Haunted” Which should serve as warning enough for anyone dumb enough to enter it.

Rodent Quota

Even if this isn’t related to the game trade, I’d be remiss if I didn’t address the rodent quota. And unlike my previous entry in the game trade, this game doesn’t disappoint. In the attic there are three mice that squeak about up there, with a black cat sitting poised to strike them, but it never does. And honestly, it just makes complete sense, what abandoned mansion WOULDN’T have a rodent infestation?

Final Thoughts

This is a game that I remember playing countless times on the family computer back in 2010, and honestly it holds up. The game is simple, doesn’t take too long and doesn’t overstay its welcome. With the myriad of objects you can possess. by the time you’ve seen all animations to the point the novelty has worn off the game is over. And that’s a sign of a good game right there. It knows what it is and what it isn’t, and what it is is something simple to play in October to get in the Halloween spirit. Or, a game that lets you scare people to the point of them doing something stupid.

10/10 would play again.