Murder House

5.6 This is quite a mixed bag overall but I did enjoy the tension a lot more to outweigh a majority of the negatives I had. It's majorly split into 2 parts, the prologue portion which takes about 30 mins casually to finish. And then the main tape which takes about 90 minutes ish to finish. The prologue was ROUGH, the camera immediately starts off terribly and I had no idea what was going on. Fumbling the controls out the booth, the camera was still a major pain as it was either super far away running through the mall or practically in my forehead showing nothing infront of me. It was really quite a sour first impression. I did really like the action 3 way camera, it is just a major shame that this is never utilised again. The strange homage to Silent Hill with just an ear piercing loud noise, I completely missed a little portion of the room to miss an item initially. Eventually then getting the key and not really having an idea on where to use it aside from spamming the use button in the main locker room as there was no clue to which portion of the room the numbers were. That aside the setup for the main portion was a lot better. The narrative setup was fine and showed character, the somewhat strange voices worked out with the story too albeit things were still a little corny in that regard. I felt the flow a lot more considering the confusing nature of the prologue. At the same time I did feel that on the whole the house's flow did feel a little one directional, but at the time it's a super small location and the highlight was in other areas. The tension that is built up is good, the main introduction continues to go and just when you think 'oh this is gunna activate him' it continues to stretch that which is a nice change up to this genre. The downside of that being that it also kind of happens too late, after that point I only bumped into him once and had to run into another room to hide. That's exceptionally somewhat disappointing as it does generally feel like there's a lot of pre-empt to show places to hide and well to the killer in general. I did hear him stomping around but through somewhat careful moving around, didn't bump into him. I really liked that saving used pencils, very similar to ink ribbons. albeit the game is short enough that it was somewhat redundant but I still appreciate that. As I touched on earlier the ending was a nice enough turn but it never quite landed on the whole. Still a good experience, I just wished if it was longer, with more killer presence and the house was just bigger to allow more movement through it, along with more puzzles. It could really improve a lot of the game. I am keen to play more Puppet Combo games eventually.

A great horror i screamed my ass off multiple times

Murdered the house

best puppet combo game

laughterhouse

Quite fun! Just played Skinfreak and didn't like Murder House quite as much, but nonetheless it was an enjoyable experience. The authentic PS1 controls are as janky as you could imagine, but they add to the charm. I would be interested in doing a playthrough of the game in first person. I liked the other elements akin to those classic games such as the limited saves and finding items to open locks and doors. Same as Skinfreak where I've never been a fan of that style, but this game makes it enjoyable. The prologue is easily the most obnoxious part to play, though. There are some hyper-specific item uses that drove me insane as I ran around the place trying to figure out what to do. Voice cast does a solid job as well. The story is pretty short with the majority of the gameplay being the setup, which really surprised me. I did as much as I could before the killer showed up, so maybe that's why? Finding items and where they went never felt like a major chore to me, and the house wasn't so complicated I couldn't remember where anything was. I also found I didn't run into the killer nearly as much as I expected. Maybe it was luck, but it was rare I felt like I was cautiously traversing the house. As for the ending, part of it is disappointing, but the absurd aspect of it I actually ♥♥♥♥♥♥ with. I heard the post-credit scene was tacked on after release with the possibility being that there was a negative reaction to the original ending. If that's the case, I didn't feel it added much. It was still an interesting twist, but the original ending was good enough in my opinion. Looking forward to the next game in the Torture Star bundle! I'm eyeing Bloodwash for my next playthrough. I heard Puppet Combo has several games on I believe itch.io(?), so maybe I'll jump into those once I've finished the bundle. Highly recommend this one for a quick, fun throwback to classic PS1 horror games.