In the House of Silence

In the House of Silence is a coffee break rogue-like that you can likely beat quite quickly - and after doing so you will probably scratch your head a bit and go 'what was the point of this?' The core mechanics of the game can be boiled down to two things: 1.) Two Health Bar Mechanics - one for your actual hit points (upon when you run out, you die), and one for your sanity (which decreases every step you take). Regarding Sanity, when you run out of it, it resets back to a maximum (albeit lower then the previous maximum) and when you run out of sanity too many times you die. 2.) Mutated Abominations will run around the levels, and when they see you they will attack you. Killing them gives you bones which you can take to mutators to mutate yourself - ultimately turning yourself into a Mutated Abomination. Looking at the core concepts, there are interesting enough. The games ultimate failing though is that there is very little content outside of the core concepts. Going through the game I found very little difference from one enemy to another - I would just bump into them until they died and that would be it. Going through the levels there wasn't anything really to make them feel unique - they were just cavernous areas I would just try to sprint through. Picking up items was pretty well just simplified to 'health pickup, sanity pickup, and escape pickup'.... Far more needs to be added to the game to really make it stand out as something special. Maybe make it so that sanity is linked to your mutations - and as you mutate yourself you find yourself going insane faster, or as you go insane, you find yourself mutating into more of an abomination (until there is little difference between you and the enemies you fight through, and thus you become another denizen of the dungeon). Making it so that interaction with the enemies you fight is more interesting would be worthwhile too. Maybe have skill use in the game, have enemies moving faster or slower then the character, have traps you can lure enemies into and kill, or something. Having the maps show interesting features like bottomless pits that enemies can be pushed into or other tactical features could be something to consider too. One could also go the Shiren the Wanderer or Binding of Issac route and have loads of items that can be picked up and made use of to modify the character or just an endless supply of consumables to use on enemies. Hopefully more content can be added into the game or existing content can be expanded more is what I'm aiming at here.

Пошаговый классический рогалик в стилистике и атмосфере Лавкрафта. Мутируем за кости погибших врагов, чтобы усилить одни и при том ослабить другие наши конечности и другие части тела. Уничтожаем путем прямого контакта встречающихся на пути мерзостей, следим за уровнем психики (наши шаги). Очень атмосферно стилистически, в том числе из-за звука, но бедновато геймплейно. Нет возможности развития между забегами, маловато контента как такового. Но при том очень хочется, чтобы игра развивалась, потенциал есть, так что скорей да, чем нет. Немного из забегов https://youtu.be/qm8PO0O2ZsU Инди-находки ждут вас тут https://store.steampowered.com/curator/37645702-Unknown-indie/

(Due to the nature of early access games changing, I am just making a note that this is during the 0.4 update.) So, I played In the House of the Silence in the very first version. Although I did have fun with it, I could have best described it as a flash game as far a depth went. Every single run you would be able to get the same mutations and become and unkillable monster. The most recent update has brought the ability to scale back to to reality. I launched the game once the update hit and started my very first run. The starting room was for the most part the same, an old familiar friend which I will be seeing a lot. Entering the first floor I am greeted with a snake with the head of the player. It appears the old monsters have been patch-worked together with the parts of the players. Easily bashing the snake to pudding, I continue on my slaughter-spree of the amalgamations until I find a bone altar. Standing before me, is a great and mighty shop menu. There is a currency now in the form of the pieces of all which I have slain. Unlike before, where I just got an upgrade, I am presented with the choice of body parts. "Oh cool, I'll take a predator leg. Oh wait, I need to replace something? Uh.....Wait. If I replace an eye, I can get so much more damage and speed. *replaces eye with raptor leg* DEAR LORD, I CAN'T SEE, WHY IS IT SO DARK." I'm sure this may seem like common sense. Replacing your eye would definitely impair your ability to see, but you know what, I have a second eye and a dream. Exiting the first floor with my new and improved sight loss, I proceed to smash the monstrosities (that I can find) into even finer pastes. It is now that I start to notice that the enemies look like that have replaced their eyes or arms with the same parts I have been offered. In fact, the ones that replaced their eyes don't appear to be able to find me. AN EPIPHANY. Just by looking at the monsters I can determine how much of a threat they pose. (Not that anything could pose a threat to a man with a leg sticking out of their eye socket) As I progress, a rising issue becomes more apparent with each step. The sanity meter in the bottom right of my screen keeps decreasing, but my supply of pills to stave off my runs untimely conclusion was low. And not only was the supply low, due to my loss of some eyesight, my ability to find more pills was also hampered. Something needed to be done. I had bones to spend....maybe an altar will give me a way to save me from myself. And as luck would have it, I find an altar! The price of a single part has doubled! Okay okay. I can choose another predator leg, a basic human arm, or a demonic looking eye.... None of these will help with my sanity issue. The predator leg was pretty nice for damage increases. I ain't no basic human, so the arm is not it. But the eye...I could be able to see well again... So I did what any sane, rational thinking person would do. With my second eye replaced with another raptor leg, I was blind as a bat. Well...this sucks. I literally can't see now. Well at least I have my map still. Wandering in the newfound super darkness, I surprisingly manage to kill a few more enemies and make it to the next floor. My pill supply has run out and it seems clear my run is coming to an end. I aimlessly move, desperately searching for the pills or exits, or perhaps a final bone altar to undo my past mistakes. This is all to no avail as my first sanity effect goes off. My last refuge in the dark, the map has been pulled from my grasp. Now completely blind, I wither slowly into insanity. The new changes to In the House of Silence has moved the game from feeling like a proof of concept, and more like a game. Before the game was too easy, and the systems in place didn't seem to have anywhere to go. This version has it's own balance issues, but it is clear this system can be expanded on. I look forward to the future of In the House of Silence. TLDR: I was allowed to replace both my eyes with raptor legs and died because I was blind.

This is a horror-themed coffeebreak roguelike. There is not much depth and RNG plays too big a part in whether you will survive or not. The levels are small and dull with a very small visible area around you. You fight monsters and lose hp which is only regained by using hearts found on the floor. There's also sanity which is like a hunger clock and can be regained with a pill also on the floor. When you kill monsters you get bones which you can use at a "mutator" to mutate yourself to get better stats like a meaty arm or a sword instead of an arm etc. And that's everything as far as I know. The game is way too simple considering the price tag. It's just not worth this price at all. The 7 day roguelike coding competition is on at the moment and I have no doubt most of the 7 day roguelikes are more interesting than this commercial offering. An annoyance is the slow speed of play. You walk slowly unless you use the run key. The default (at least you can redefine keys- that's something) is shift which makes you think you hold it down in conjunction with the movement keys but no- it's a toggle. Press shift to go into run mode. I don't know why you would ever not want to. When monsters are in your field of view though you move a lot slower as they take turns to move so the more monsters on screen the slower turn to turn is. When there's 4 monsters on the screen it's really irritatingly slow. But again- that price. ADOM (the first one, not Ultimate ADOM) is cheaper than this and has so much more complexity and depth it's not funny. Please do yourself a favour and get that instead.

A very solid start for a roguelike with a great aesthetic. While I hated the style of writing in The Night Land the world building by William Hope Hodgson was fantastic and I'm happy to see it being used. I hope early access allows it to flourish.

So you've got this amalgamation of Iter Vehemens ad Necem's anatomy and Infra Arcana's Lovecraftian influences, but in such a manner that does too little of either in order to pull it off properly. You get a part that replaces a mouth, or a heart, or some other organ, but your only options are to replace a head, an eye, your torso, your arms or your legs. There aren't enough body parts to mutate, yet this game emphasizes mutating your body in order to get by. It's too simplistic on that end, and in my honest opinion that's what's holding it back. That being said, I can see this game being alright in short bursts, for those who might like that twin stick shooter Binding of Isaac, as with the way it presents the Lovecraftian side of things, it's more like that and not like, say, truly like Infra Arcana. Which is to say it fails on the horror aspect of it as well. The one time I truly experienced some emotion that resembles some semblance of dread was when I mutated both of my eyes and thus had no range of vision. That's another thing - some of the stats are obviously not explaining what they actually do. I understand that this is early access. That's no excuse for obfuscation. Then again, excuses are like lamprey mouths, everyone in this game will want one, but if you have two you're going to have a bad time. Especially if you replace your eyes with them. I don't know, no one really pays attention to my reviews anyways unless they want to meme. If you still like the idea of a IVAN-lite mixed with a Infra Arcana-lite, go ahead and buy it. I can't in good conscience recommend this game though. It's a mess. Not the glorious trainwreck kind either, more like the Northernlion destroying an entire genre kind.

What is it? In The House Of Silence is an old school roguelike in the style of, well, Rogue. Featuring old school gameplay. What's it look like? A really very subdued visual style prefers to leave most of the admittedly bland scenery in the dark, with only a small circle of light around your character. The monster designs are pretty standard fair, nothing astonishing. The main character has a fun, cartoony style that I really liked. What's it sound like? The sound is bad. A looping music track will slowly drive you insane (pretty fitting for a Lovecraftian horror game) while the sounds of monsters could not be less intimidating. Monster's squeak and pop, which means if you get attacked by multiple monsters it will sound like a black friday sale in a pet store that exclusively sells only the most annoying of dog toys. Is it scary? No! But the game is severely horror-adjacent. Lovecraft-inspired monsters with names like Karth'e'le and such will be attacking you on a pretty constant basis. How's it play? If you are thinking this is a roguelike in the vein of Binding Of Isaac you'd be wrong. In The House Of Silence is an old school roguelike experience. You move from square to square, and bump into enemies to fight them. You start in a church, and go down through different floors fighting enemies as you go. Stamina is reflected as "sanity" and each movement will cost you one sanity. If your sanity meter bottoms out (can be resolved with useful antipsychotic pill pickups) you will be docked on third of your sanity meter. Do this more than twice, and it's game over. The game is tough. Beating the game is purely on luck. You're always looking for that mythical "good run" where the stars align and you find all the health restore and sanity restore items to keep going. You're not completely helpless though, with the MUTATION SYSTEM. The mutation system allows you to spend bones gathered from killing enemies to augment your mortal form. Say you don't like the small circle of light: make it bigger by replacing one of your eyeballs with an angler fish's little head...light...thing. Everything has a trade-off though. If you want to add a deadly predator arm, you'll have to give up one of your human arms. If you get a good roll (what parts you're offered is a random choice of 3) you might want to get a new arm, and that predator arm has to go. It's all an interesting new way to look at roguelike gameplay. There is permadeath. If you die, that's it! The game is over. Never fear though, because the game is short enough to start a new run right away, and even beat it in 30 minutes to an hour (luck dependent). Final Verdict/TL;DR It's not bad. The visuals are fine (if pretty standard), the sound is maddening (someone please fix that), and the gameplay loop has everything you've come to expect from a roguelike. Live. Die. Upgrade. Die more. It's all there. The game is currently in early access so give it time to grow. Hopefully we'll have a lot to look forward to as the patches roll in.

This is an "okay" game and it is quite hard to recommend or not. The main problems I have with it are the mechanics and balancing but it has been updated since I played it. I've got a proper review on this below but one thing I didn't mention in the video is the price tag. From what I've seen of the game I don't think it should be $21.50 AUD. Video Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG76ensFAZg Steam Curator Page: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/10995314-Szamer%2527s-Collection/

Instructions unclear, shoved antlers in my eye sockets. 10/10

I really enjoyed this game! It's very different from what I would normally play, but it's very fun. I can't wait to see where this goes with early access!