Why don't they laugh?

Generic indie horror game with boring gameplay and an unoptimized engine. At first glance, this is not another case of gloomy houses where nothing works. Although the outside walls are covered in graffiti, you can quickly notice that there is light coming from the windows. In addition, there is a nice man waiting for you with a pretty simple request. The man comes from a family circus performers, but he wants to sell his house since he has grown too old. He hires you to search the massive mansion for documents and valuables and provides you a set of keys that open the majority of the doors within. Although the voices feel normal at first, you quickly realize they are AI generated. The house is big, with more or less intriguing rooms. Some corridors have little details, and rooms seem abandoned, with stains all over the place, broken furniture, and random items strewn around. Each room is distinct and stands out thanks to a few unusual object, however there are also large rooms that are too empty. There are also several strange rooms with massive mushrooms that appear to be broken; one opens despite the fact that the door is supposed to be shut, and another allows you to clip through the floor. Exploration is not rewarding because you can't open any closets or drawers, or inspect items. The only thing you can grab are coins for simple slot machine mini-game, and look for books, notes, and cats that count towards collectibles. Since books and notes stay on their spot, you can never tell which ones you already found. Your main task is to locate five documents. A useful map labels all of the rooms on both floors, making it easier to navigate. However, certain doors are unique and require a distinct key. Looking for items is not fun. Because the game provides no waypoints, the entire experience seems like fumbling around in the dark. Even though some things and notes are slightly highlighted, they can still be missed. This is especially true for keys, which would be impossible to locate without an invaluable hint system that displays icons in important locations. After the fetch quest, the game turns into a generic horror game. You’re supposed to find something while avoiding the game’s monster. The map doesn’t show what or where the item is, and you are returned to the basement each time you get caught by the monster. There's a way to avoid it, but this become a problem due to the following main issue. The massive open house comes at the cost of poor optimization. It is so awful that it nearly spoils the entire game and renders it unplayable unless you turn the quality down to the lowest setting. However, this may not always help because the framerate can jump all over the place just by moving the camera. Having such high requirements for a niche game is a poor decision because few people will be able to play it. The last factor is a very high price. Because of generic and unoptimized gameplay, the price should be lowered by half or more.

I'm fully surprised that this is not released as an Early Access title. Just considering the minimum requirements listed on Steam, and comparing them to my superior system, the game just runs absolutely terrible. I had to spend the first 25 minutes doing every possible tweak to in-game settings, external settings like Nvidia CPanel, etc, just to hit between ~20-120 FPS. I had to disable shadows entirely (Low settings), putting it on just medium almost bricked the game (for context, there's a CINEMATIC setting for shadows in the game options, which is more than ULTRA). I couldn't even move the cursor properly in the menu's as soon as shadows were set to medium. Same with Global Illumination. In most of the cinematics, the VRAM skyrocketed to sometimes 6GB above limits (I have 12GB VRAM available), dropping to 10-20 frames. Honestly, none of this is good enough. When that's said and done, I really tried to enjoy the game for what it is, but I assure you that I had to fight through it. Loved the narrative, the theme and the story of the game. I truly hope that the developers has the necessary resources to work on- and fix those things. I'm happy to check back and see if any updates are released along the way, and I will hop back into the game to recalibrate this review, but for now, I will leave my review as negative, even though I hate to. I do like the music and generally the audio of the game, especially when being near the Circus, it's almost comforting. The game also does a good job at creating an overall atmosphere. Had a good amount of chilling moments, even after 5th time of playing through the entire story. [b]EDIT:[/b] Noticing a lot of small performance-related updates being made, and the support for 1440p seems to have been removed. None of these updates solved any of the issues I mentioned in this review, unfortunately. The game is just as laggy as it was before. I also noticed that they re-hauled a lot of the rooms and content in the game, giving it a new and more sharp look, that's good to see! [h3]Why don't they laugh? - Full Gameplay (QHD 60FPS)[/h3] https://youtu.be/hMLD5wRzG_E [table][tr][td] [b]Don't miss out on any new horror game — Follow me:[/b] [h3]🔗 [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45181118/] Steam Curator page[/url][/h3][h3]🔗 [url=https://www.youtube.com/@gamescoperhorror/videos]YouTube channel[/url][/h3] [/td][/tr][/table]

Once I got past the frame drop woes, the game's story did intrigue me. I like that it featured voice over work even if it may be AI. Helps with the immersion for the story imo. The story revolves around us findin documents etc for the house owner as he plans to sell it. This house is huge lol. It's more like a mansion. Durin' my play time I didn't manage to find any documents but did explore the house a bit. I liked the atmosphere. Things would fall over etc while explorin'. Not sure if there are any monsters present but it did keep me on edge. Hopefully more updates comes to whip the game into better shape. Right now now I give it a middle thumb for effort. Gameplay Impressions: https://youtu.be/S1m8brhe7ko

[h1][b]No laughs here, just the sound of crickets[/b][/h1] So starting up the game, it doesn't detect resolutions above 1920x1200. Not clear if a multi-monitor setup has any influence on that. I was able to find where to go beyond 1200p by sifting through file directories until I stumbled across GameUserSettnigs.ini located in this file path: SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Why don't they laugh\Kensington_Hall\Saved\Config\Windows. From there you can set the resolution among any other setting that may not be shown in the main menu....or so I thought. Even after that change, the game will force override the resolution back to 1200p or 1080p. There is no controller support from the main menu or indication that there is controller support prior to starting the game, you also can't access the pause menu when using a controller. FPS cap only allows for 30 or 60, 120 should at least also be added in my opinion. There isn't any way to change the FOV either. Also the header & capsule images in the Steam client are misspelled to "Why don't they laught?", bit of a peculiar oversight. You can sort of see what I mean when checking the Steam Assets for the game on SteamGridDB. DLSS version is a bit out of date at 3.7.0.0 with the current version at 3.7.20.0 at the time of writing this review. Performance isn't great, all settings are set to Ultra with the frame-rate dipping often even at High settings. This isn't exactly Crysis or Cyberpunk 2077 so I'm not sure why this is going on even at 1080p. More on the actual game portion of this title, you play as a home nurse on a new assignment to take care of a old guy named Mr. Kensington with a run down estate littered with rotting circus equipment. It's a little strange in the sense that the circus wagons are something you would expect in a 19th century attraction, not in a modern setting. The voice acting is strange, somehow disconnected from normal human conversation. Reminds me of old 90s games on the PC like Encarta or some old I-Spy hidden object game. Anyway, after Kensington greets you and invites you to stay in the guest room, you're encouraged to explore more of the house. The bathroom across the hall from him has some unique design choices like a urinal & an open shower that's sure to make a mess without a curtain or doors. Moving on from this exciting exploration, you find your room next to his but you'll need to pick up the key on his dresser that he didn't mention. Opening the door, you can see his hospitality knows no bounds as your lodgings are in fact a storage room with a bed from something out of a medieval village. This is also where controller support ends as you cannot put your backpack down using the left trigger. Leaving our things behind, we revisit Kensington to find that he is cooking bacon on the table in his room although cooking in this case is just fiddling with your hands out of sight. Naturally we seem to ask "What's an aroma?" rather than "What's that aroma?" as script reading is more of an art than a science here. After eating nothing but bacon, we are then prompted as the player to go through a few dialogue options. Note that while you can't move using K&M, you certainly can using the controller. Subtitles also have grammatical errors but we'll ignore that as Kensington talks about his grand estate covered in graffiti. I started to skip the optional dialogue choices as their conversation rapidly felt like I was trapped in a room with ChatGPT & Alexa. Kensington then bids us goodnight and to go to bed, or take abruptly take a walk outside as the rain has stopped. However our objective tells us as the player to go to bed. So I decided to walk around the front to see if there was anything notable, there isn't at this point but the walking/running speed on K&M is much faster than using a controller. Waking up the next day, we are in a conversation with Kensington behind us while we are looking at the ground which is how any normal conversation would go. He talks about circus stage names with a transition to his task of you finding relevant documents to facilitate the sale of the mansion while he goes into town. Before we go further, I noticed the lip sync on the characters to be pretty good but their faces have no expression at all which is a little strange as the prior conversation with Kensington has a lot of arm gestures & movement. (.....this voice acting must be AI generated, there are segments in the dialogue that sound incredibly inhuman.) Anyway, now it's time to play Slender: The Eight Pages, or at least I'd like to say that's the case. There's no external threat when exploring the manor for folders, it's a few tame jump scares with a lot of audio triggers leveraged to try and scare you. The manor design isn't good, a lot of wasted busy work and large stretches of just walking around for no reason. I can see what they're going for with this creepy circus atmosphere but this game really needs to be an early access title, a lot of work needs to be put into not only the horror elements but the environments as whole. I can't recommend this game at this time but if you're looking for something similar in the horror genre, check out [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/296630/Kraven_Manor/]Kraven Manor[/url]. It's been made free on Steam some time ago and has a lot more scares to experience. [quote][i]This review is provided by the 𝓕𝓾𝓷𝓴𝔂 𝓙𝓪𝓵𝓪𝓹𝓮𝓷𝓸𝓼 [/i]([url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/27264611/][b]Curation Page[/b] [/url] | [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/FunkyJalapenos] [b]Steam Group[/b][/url]) [I]and the support of readers like you, thank you.[/i][/quote]

Мне очень понравилось ходить по огромному дому и прилегающей территории. Понравилось, что на карте есть подсказки, потому что без них найти несколько маленьких папок и ключей в огромном доме было бы очень непросто. Спасибо авторам. Понравились шутки и дополнительные активности. Игра довольно короткая, но сделать много интересного в пределах одного дома, наверное, непросто. Не понравилось, что я не понял, как открыть первый сейф (увидел код в прохождении). Есть мелкие баги. Следующая игра будет про кинотеатр Томаса?

[h2]Цирк остался, а клоуны уехали[/h2] Героиня игры внезапно становится безработной, находит себе непыльную работёнку - всего лишь нужно помочь дедуле из давней династии циркачей разобрать хлам в его особняке, за что он хорошо заплатит. Приехав на место и отобедав с владельцем поместья, отправляемся на боковую. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3754264327 Утром получаем задание собрать 5 папок с важными документами. Вот теперь придётся побегать по дому, а он пипец какой большой, с кучей комнат и дверей. Начинаем изучать особняк, который завален кучей книг, записок и газет. Я устал читать уже на 6-й комнате, ведь в каждой из них может быть по две книги про цирк, фокусы и т.д, а ещё записка или две. Со временем игра начнёт пытаться пугать: то тут, то там пробежит какая-то девочка. Кстати, с этим есть небольшая проблема. [i]Значит, бегаю я из комнаты в комнату, а на фоне играет музыка, знаете, такая как в Fable, и тут, выходя из очередной комнаты, пробегает эта самая девочка, которая должна была, видимо, напугать меня. Но вот разработчики решили музыку не сменить каким-нибудь внезапным звуком скрипки или ударом клавиш.[/i] Ну да ладно, пугалки - это не самая главная проблема игры. Основной проблемой для меня стала ужасная оптимизация. Я замучился с настройками, переключал с ультра на высокие или средние, но ситуацию это не меняло. Лишь только изменив разрешение на 1080p, я смог добиться плавности картинки. Но эта игра умудрялась неплохо так фризить на Full HD, фризить... С включённым DLSS на баланс, бл@ть! Вторая половина игры более динамичная. Здесь уже будет необходимо противостоять какому-то инфернальному шуту. При этом нужно бегать и открывать сейфы. Лишь с одним сейфом будет хоть какая-то занимательная загадка, на этом всё. Чтобы ввести код на сейфе, нужно пройти девять кругов ада. Нажимаешь на клавиатуре один раз стрелочку вправо, а игра прокручивает тебе цифры два или три раза. В этой же части игры будет тьма кромешная. Фонарик, как в большинстве игр - светит из жопы. С управлением перемудрили. Это надо же придумать: когда берёшь какую-нибудь газету или записку, чтобы её прочитать, для этого нужно нажать пробел, чтобы забрать предмет - клавишу С. Ну почему не привязать всё к правой или левой кнопке мыши? Игру могу похвалить лишь за хоть сколько-нибудь внятную историю. Она действительно неплохая. [code] Проект получился в целом играбельный, порой даже интересный в плане сюжета, но вот все недоработки просто убивают этот интерес. [/code] Больше обзоров и интересного [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/anatomyoffear]тут[/url]

Really like the game so far! The story is stellar, the atmosphere is spot on for a haunted house, and the amount of things to look at and read is absolutely phenomenal! Is there some stuttering in the game? Yes. Does is affect gameplay? Not really since it is so minimal. Are there going to be things jumping out at you every five minutes? No. I felt that this was more of a 'true to life' haunted house situation. Some frights are subtle and others are more in your face. But they are well timed and spaced out to have maximum effect and keep you feeling slightly on edge while exploring. I am very impressed that this is the dev's first game and can't wait to see what they will create next! Here is the first part of my gameplay: https://youtu.be/aHtaK-eVXFI

Well l tried to play this on Steamdeck but sadly it just crashed several times so l just gave up in the end and got a refund. Hopefully gets verified at some point as it looks good.

Атмосферная игра, которая погружает игрока в загадочный, местами жутковатый мир с первых минут. Проект выделяется своей уникальной эстетикой, минималистичным звуковым сопровождением и нестандартным геймплеем. Если вам нравятся неспешные, атмосферные игры с элементами психологического триллера и головоломок, "Why don't they laugh?" точно стоит вашего внимания.

Id like to play the game, but i cant handle the way it lags when using your mouse