The Haunting of Joni Evers

The reviews that are most valuable to any individual player probably have more to do whether you share an interest in the same type of games, so I’ll start with the type of gamer that I am. I love story-rich games, ideally where I can make real choices that impact game play or solve a crime, etc. Open-world action RPGs (think lots of side quests & talking NPCs), adventure (solving puzzles) or interactive novels/FMVs make up a large portion of my game library. Summary: Enjoyable story with a good arc and a lot of supernatural sprinkled in Pros: +Interesting family story narrative + Nice arc to the whole thing +Good atmosphere +Voice acting didn’t make me want to mute the sound Neutral: *This has to be your type of game – this is not survival horror (which I’m not a huge fan of) & you’re never in actual danger. You cannot die. *The gameplay is walking around and interacting with different items & listening to the main character talk Cons: -There is no option to move faster, which would have been nice when you’re going back and forth in the house -There is no option to make the talking go faster, which also would have been nice at points

If you liked games such as Gone Home and What Remains of Edith Finch, I can pretty much guarantee you'll like The Haunting of Joni Evers. Good story, good voice acting, *really* good writing, immersive spooky vibe that doesn't rely at all on cheap jump scares, absolutely my sort of horror game. I really hope the developer has more games in the hopper cause this was a hell of a debut title.

I have a feeling that this review will get a big long-winded and personal, so here is a TL;DR for those without a lot of time: This is a best-in-class narrative adventure game. If you like things like Gone Home, Firewatch, The Suicide of Rachel Foster, Titan Station, or any of those kinds of games, you should have an amazing time with this one. It is about 3.5 hours long and an absolute pleasure to play in one shot. Now for the more long-winded, personal tirade. [b]This review will contain spoilers[/b]. The idea of writing about that game is a bit intimidating to me. It is a perfect 10/10 experience for me in so many ways. As far as being a walking simulator, it is best in class. They give you the option of choosing how much guidance you would like to receive. Want to have an objective reminder to tell you where to go next? Or do you want to figure it out for yourself? You get to decide. I loved that bit of flexibility. Joni herself is an outstanding narrator. She is believable and human and her internal monologue is realistic and does not feel like a put on for the sake of the game. The environment of her big, haunted house is intimidatingly large at first, but you quickly come to learn the layout and it becomes far more easy to wrap your head around where everything is. The game did something that very few games can do. Despite the fact that it was a sweltering summer day, I felt like I was in a haunted house on a dark and stormy night. That was how able this game was to pull me into its world. I love that feeling. It is the best thing that a piece of art can do, aside from leaving you with something to think about. And boy, this game does that as well. The horror elements were perfectly used. Like any good horror story, the scary parts are a metaphor for something else. In the film the Babadook, for example, the titular monster was a metaphor for mourning and loss. The skull man in this game, to me, is clearly a representation of that ever so tempting ability within all of us to hide behind our bitterness and resentment and cut ties with our own past, even at the cost of the happy memories. The actual subject matter hit extremely close to home for me. That is what makes it so difficult to write about. Joni is bitter. She is the one who did not leave. She is the one who feels abandoned. She has a life. She is the best damned mechanic in the county. She is not going anywhere. It is everyone else that left her, and she is extremely resentful of the way that this feels. Her mom left first. Joni did not understand why, and it seemed like neither did her father. Her sister, Sara, was young enough to not even really remember their mom. We can infer from her internal monologue that her dad, sister, and grandmother have all left fairly recently, abandoning her to this big, historic house all by herself. Joni feels like she had to step up and be a mother figure to her own little sister after her mom left. She is angry at her dad’s weakness. She is angry at her mom’s unforgivable abandonment of them. She is angry at everything. And the scariest thing is… I completely understood why. The situations are not exactly the same, but I feel very similarly to Joni sometimes. I am also one who stayed. I have been through this myself. Everyone else left. And it fills me with anger whenever they imply that it is at all my fault that we do not have the relationship that maybe we should have. ♥♥♥♥ that. I did not go anywhere. I am 100% on team Joni here. Joni ends up destroying the relics that are all deeply associated with the memories of her absent family members. She does not even realize that she is doing it. She is hiding behind her pain and her anger, but throughout the course of the game, she comes to realize that she is also haunted by the connections that she has to the good times. The positive memories. The love. All of that was real. The love that she felt early on is just as real as the anger that she feels now at its absence. By giving in to resentment and anger, Joni is also losing the positive memories of the life that gave her form and made her the person that she is. This is an extremely difficult thing to accept. I do not think that I have reached this point in the process, personally, but I was very happy for Joni when she did. At the end of the game, [spoiler]when she is calling and leaving a voicemail for everyone in an attempt to reconnect[/spoiler], I was a sobbing mess. This is an absolute triumph of storytelling and some of the best of what you can do with a video game. Absolutely incredible.

Great for fans of Gone Home, I really liked the narrative as well as the environments and the exploration aspects. It was spookier than I thought it'd be, but I'm also a scaredy-cat. The puzzle mechanics were easy to figure out and suited the story well. BUT I was playing on Steamdeck and struggled with slow loading textures, stuttering, flickering lights (not the spooky kind) and a few crashes. I don't think there's a way to adjust graphics in this game to make it work better on the Steamdeck, apart from v-sync, motion blur and cinematic aberration.

Hope you enjoy slowly rotating objects

It is a walking simulator with flashback events about the protagonist's personal family story. Relaxing, slow and more artsy than anything else. I like the sad music. This is a pure play walking simulator. If you find those boring, might want to look elsewhere.<Get it now!

The Haunting of Joni Evers ist eine Art Walking-Simulator-Adventure mit leichtem Gruselaspekt. Als jemand, der Horror überhaupt nicht mag, war ich entsprechend skeptisch. Erstaunlicherweise liegen die eigentlichen Schwachpunkte des Spiels aber ganz woanders. Man spielt die titelgebende Joni Evers, die in ihrem grossen Haus plötzlich seltsame Vorkommnisse erlebt. Schritt für Schritt stellt sich heraus, dass irgendein Wesen offenbar versucht, sie anzugreifen – und dass sie sich mithilfe von Familienerinnerungen dagegen wehren muss. Spielerisch bedeutet das zu grossen Teilen: durch einen Raum laufen, Gegenstände suchen und dann dazugehörende Gegenstände suchen. Mit anderen Wortehn: eher mühsames Suchgameplay. Durch das Ganze entdeckt man mehr und mehr von der bewegten Familiengeschichte von Joni Evers. Und das ist tatsächlich der interessanteste Aspekt des Spiels und auch der eigentliche Kern des Spiels. Denn der "Heimsuchungs"-Hintergrund dient in erster Linie als Grundlage für ein psychologisches Familiendrama. Und das ist okay gemacht. Aber eben nur okay. Am Ende blieben mir zu viele Fragen offen, und manches fand ich schlicht unbefriedigend. Besonders die Storyline rund um die Mutter war für mich bis zum Schluss ziemlich schräg. [spoiler]Das Spiel scheint darauf hinauszulaufen, dass die Mutter aus gutem Grund abgehauen ist, was ein toller Twist gewesen wäre. Tatsächlich ist sie aber einfach nur eine egoistische Trulla.[/spoiler] Und genau das ist das Problem: Die Geschichte hat nicht die Tiefe, die es bräuchte, um das ziemlich durchschnittliche Gameplay wirklich zu tragen. Dazu bleibt auch beim Heimsuchungsaspekt der Story viel zu viel offen. [spoiler]Wer der Bösewicht ist, woher er kommt und wieso er angreift bleibt auch nach dem Schluss ein völliges Rätsel ohne auch nur den Hauch eines echten Hinweises. Und das ist einfach sackschwach.[/spoiler] Das Gameplay selbst ist zwar nicht schlecht, aber eben auch nicht wirklich gut. Es gibt ein paar nette Ideen, aber insgesamt ist es zu eintönig und oft zu langfädig. Und das bei einem Spiel, das noch nicht mal vier Stunden dauert. Immerhin: Die Grafik ist okay, der Soundtrack ebenfalls. Aber auch hier: nichts Besonderes. Positiv zu erwähnen ist, dass es kein echter Horror ist. Es gibt ein paar milde Jumpscares und leicht gruselige Motive, aber nichts, was wirklich in Horrorgefilde abdriften würde. Für mich war das gut auszuhalten und daher kein Negativpunkt. Wer Horror hasst, aber nicht komplett allergisch auf Jumpscares reagiert, kann es also trotzdem spielen. Fazit: Alles in allem ein okayes Spiel. Wer auf psychologische Familiendramen steht, bekommt hier eine durchaus interessante Geschichte mit einem halbwegs gelungenen Storybogen. Man muss sich aber bewusst sein, dass das Gameplay eher öde ist und die Story trotz aller Ansätze letztlich etwas flach bleibt. Und wer echten Horror erwartet, ist hier sowieso falsch. Immerhin bedeutet das, dass es auch für Horrorhasser spielbar ist. Alles in allem ein okay Spiel, das man spielen kann, aber nicht gespielt haben muss. Entsprechend: Eine Empfehlung mit Vorbehalten.