Prototype Mansion - Used No Cover

I love the idea, game even started on a great note and I thought I would like it. Three crashes later only 40 mins into me playing it, enemies taking way to many hits (even on normal) with little ammo to be found, and the fact that I have to shoot the cats to save my game, I think I will have to pass on this title. With a little more polish, balancing and a different save system, this came can be great.

Constant crashing:/

I liked the campiness and the nods/jokes of old survival-horror games. I didn't have any issues with crashing and I was having a rolling good time... until the first cat appeared. Being like many folks, I went over to see if I could pet it, and Lady Detective instead said "F#$8 off cat" (uncensored). Excuse me? Our MC hates cats? Okay, whatever. Like her much less, but continue on. Then a note in the library says cats are save points, so I go back and think maybe now she will be nicer to the cat. But nope... instead the game hints at and eventually I realize to save the game, you have to SHOOT THE CAT!? Excuse me? What kind of sick person made this game that you just shoot harmless cats that are not attacking you or doing anything other than just chillin? I decided I just wouldn't save since I knew it was a short game, but then while I was shooting a zombie, the gun auto aimed at a cat in the room while I was still firing. To say I was upset was an understatement, much less my viewers as I was streaming the game at the time. At that point, game was yeeted off my computer. Nothing in the description of the game implies such a horrible mechanic, so here is my warning for fellow cat owners and fans.

It's a great and very short homage to Resident Evil. Playful tone, handles nicely, appropriate difficulty balancing and item placement, immaculate map design, very clean and concise pacing and presentation. Prototype Mansion has diary notes, it has secret guns, it has New Game Plus, it has (optional) tank controls, it has ambient items you can interact with for mundane observations...it has the works. The humor is tongue-in-cheek and self-referential, so your mileage may vary in that regard. Takes about an hour to beat on a normal run. If you're looking for a bite-sized nod to classic survival horror, complete with extremely crunchy PS1-era audio-visuals (and an option for a CRT filter to boot), this game will absolutely be your jam. ============ 10-23 UPDATE ============ Egg on my face, reader. Prototype Mansion previously suffered from some fairly substantial technical issues which I mentioned in my original review, making it somewhat difficult to recommend to people. But the dev has swooped in like an absolute champ and, in response to this review, dropped a patch that literally fixes all the bugs I mentioned below. I ran a quick playthrough to test these fixes, and these issues do actually appear to have been solved. I can now wholeheartedly recommend Prototype Mansion to anyone considering a purchase - it is absolutely worth your time and money. I'm going to keep the original review's text (in spoiler tags) for posterity, and so that people can appreciate just how tricky the bugs were that got fixed. Huge hat tip to Jupiter Lighthouse Games for their willingness to implement fixes for a 5 year old game! ============== [spoiler]Unfortunately, this game is a bit of a technical mess, and I ran into a ton of problems during my time with it. I'd have runs where all enemies randomly vanished from the game, or all healing items and ammo vanished, or items I'd already picked up were duplicated after saving and reloading from the main menu, etc. These bugs would often never subside until I deleted my old save and started a new one, which I ended up having to do several times. Only a few hard crashes to desktop, but I ran into one particularly egregious game-breaking bug where dying and reloading in a certain wing of the mansion resulted in my save file becoming an infinite loop of loading into an instant death animation, saving during my death, and then repeating ad nauseam, with no possible means of recovery. Ran into this exact same issue on two or three separate attempts, and had to restart on a new save each time. Even on the run where I eventually finished the game, I had a crash to desktop right near the end, and when I reloaded the save it had been inexplicably switched to Easy mode (I was playing on Normal originally). Had a similar issue happen another time where the game silently switched to Hard mode. This makes Prototype Mansion a difficult game to review on a thumbs-up vs thumbs-down basis. When the game was functional, I totally adored it. Unfortunately, those moments of joy were interspersed with a lot of frustration that had nothing to do with the actual substance of the game, and everything to do with its scaffolding, which frankly should not ever be the case for a game that has been out for 5 years. In the end, $5 is about the upper limit I'd be comfortable still recommending people buy the game for, especially as the devs have clearly moved on to other projects, meaning this game is not liable to ever be fixed. For that reason, I'm giving Prototype Mansion a thumbs-up, but you should absolutely keep all this in mind before purchasing.[/spoiler]

Sick feel and atmosphere. Haven't finished it yet, but I'm really enjoying the old-school vibe with 640x480 on vhs+crt effects. Great job guys! Keep going never stop

A great parody / homage to classic survival horror. If you loved the original resident evil and alone in the dark games this one is worth a go.

[h1]The game wants you to shoot cats to save.[/h1] I refused to save and tried to make it through on a 1CC / deathless run, but the game crashes often (about 5 times in my half hour of playing..) The last crash occurred during initial load screen, unable to even run around at all. Have not played since. It's unfortunate because the game seems like a cool homage to classic Survival Horror. Has a cool graphical style and builds immersion well. If it ran more reliably I might change my rating. As-is it is broken.

Great sense of humor. Reminds me of RE 1 with some of the downsides that make it feel like home. Stylized and I have a computer science major friend who says "You can see they put effort into this." Its absolutely clear. I do love all the stylized graphics and the genuine SURVIVAL horror gameplay. I honestly can't wait to get into this and start the next installment when I'm done.

I dont know what to say about this game, at first i liked it. I have felt like i was playing Resident Evil 1 but a parody of it. Then the music start playing and i realized that the main track that is playing i heard in other horror type of game. The music and sound effects fit the game. The graphic is stylized in a good way you feel like you went back some years. Now the gameplay, movement of the character is responsive and animated quite good, you can't aim it says that you can but it only allows your character to shot. So when we are talking about shoting I realy hate that sometimes enemies die from 3 shots and another time from 5 and the boss is a bullet sponge. The events that push you through the game are made well, the save points are let me say unusual. Some people say the game is crashing for them, but thankfully I only experienced 1 bug when reset of the game fixed it for me. Now to the most importent question. Do I recommend this game ? Yes, i do even if i was a little angry in some places i still had a lot of fun. It's not so expensive, but have in mind that is the first episode of the adventure.

This is not a "bad" game per se. I appreciate the effort put into it. The controls are fluid. It does a good job of emulating the graphics, tone and audio of the games that inspired it. The answer to one of the puzzles (I won't spoil it) is pretty clever and refreshingly unique. The comedy - which is obviously one of the game's main selling points - is well done. What happens after you get a game over is pretty funny and creative (I also won't spoil that.) That said, I personally found it too frustrating and flawed to enjoy. Even on "Easy" the game is too unforgiving (much more so than the games it emulates!). Much of the time the enemies spawn in excessive numbers or in locations that are really unfair to the player. I eventually stopped playing after attempting to beat a room with three enemies you need to sneak by at least a dozen times. Whatever strategy was necessary for that part was NOT intuitive. I won't say the developers don't deserve their success. I've done enough game dev to understand how hard it is to even finish a game (to say nothing of creating a good quality one!) I think more skilled gamers than myself would probably like it. I wish the devs the best of luck on any future projects they invest time into.