Haunting At Cliffhouse

After the death of her husband, Sarah decides to escape from everything and find a little peace and quiet. Her destination is Cliffhouse, a beautiful mansion by the sea, the same place she and her husband once planned to visit together. A few other guests are already staying there, while the mansion itself is run by a family connected to a dark secret involving three brothers, the women they loved, and a restless spirit that still haunts the family to this day. I recently played another game from the same developer, and even though this one is older, originally released back in 2012, it still runs flawlessly on modern computers. Naturally, expectations should match the limitations of that era, so you’ll have to accept the locked resolution and black borders on the sides of the screen. The visuals are built from pre-rendered 3D scenes that can look a little grainy at times, but they still carry a nice amount of detail. There are only a handful of animated elements like flowing water or a flickering fireplace, so scenes are very static. As with most adventure games, your main task is exploring the mansion and searching rooms for interactable spots by clicking with the left mouse button. Thankfully, there are never too many hotspots in a single scene. You discover them by moving the cursor around and watching for a color change alongside the name of the object or area. The game does not offer hints for finding every interaction point, though many of them exist simply to enrich the world and atmosphere. Whenever Sarah interacts with something, she comments on it. In many cases, you can click again for additional dialogue, but afterward the interaction disappears permanently. I actually liked this approach because it clearly tells you that the object is no longer important for progression, saving you from unnecessary backtracking later on. The primary objective revolves around collecting specific items and witnessing a series of visions. All of the objects are sitting in plain sight around the mansion, while others require extra steps of combining them. Usable items are easy to notice because they stand out from the backgrounds, almost as if they were layered directly on top of the pre-rendered scenes. The inventory opens with the right mouse button, and items become active after selecting them with the left mouse button. One small annoyance is that clicking outside the inventory does not close it, meaning you have to press a separate “OK” button every time. Still, that feels more like a relic of older adventure game design, which is understandable because the game is made on an engine designed just for that genre. Fortunately, even though you collect plenty of objects while exploring the mansion and nearby areas, the item usage and combinations are logical enough that progression rarely becomes frustrating. Puzzles are another important part of the experience and include familiar concepts like pattern matching, image reconstruction, and memory challenges. A few stand out as more unique, such as matching months with Chinese characters, though the game thankfully provides hints so you are unlikely to remain stuck for too long. Every solved puzzle rewards you with a vision from the past, revealing more about the characters and the tragedy surrounding the mansion. These scenes are essential for progression, but the game never tracks them with checkmarks or completion markers. You simply continue exploring until all visions have been uncovered, after which the story shifts into a more linear finale leading toward the ending. Overall, the pacing feels smooth and enjoyable, without frustrating pixel hunting or aimless wandering, making it comfortable to finish the game in a single sitting.