today’s theme, courtesy of the rng-gods: two games ft. a visit to a supernatural being in their home
An Account of Your Visit to the Enchanted House & What You Found There by Mandy Benanav
Playtime: 55 minutes
The one where: pretty much the title, plus a lot of cute interactions with the occupants of the house
This is a warm, gentle, fairytale-feeling story set in an enchanted house. You’re not alone—the house is chock full of eccentric inhabitants. The mood the game evoked in me was . . . slightly supernaturally charged, but in a safe, soul-expanding way (like a deep purple sky at night after a warm summer day?).
The writing is really a highlight throughout:
The writing style reminded me a bit of Diana Wynn Jones, a bit of Clive Barker if Clive Barker were happy.
I really like the ending and the theme. And the game panders directly to my personal preferences, in this case meaning that there is an octopus:
I particularly appreciated that the occupants of the house all had opinions about, and feuds with, each other. It would have been easy to leave them all sectioned off, and un-interacting, but giving them those interrelationships really makes the house feel a lot more . . . lived in.
Probably the set piece of the game is a delightful bookcase, full of texts real (We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay) and imagined (Oneiric Orology: Mountaineering in the Realm of Dreams by Shaz Guillard, The First Unicorn by Peter S Beagle, my personal favorite: Eight Arms for Hugging).
This game was very well done. I felt an appropriate amount of challenge throughout to fit the mood (not zero, but not a lot either). At one point I got hung up, but a quick glance at the walkthrough sorted me out (making the mouse mousse—I was concerned because I knew I had seen eggs in the kitchen before but now the kitchen didn’t even have any selectable options—turns out the eggs are sort of just auto-provided by the game, but that could have been better signaled since you just finished collecting all of the other ingredients).
The one nagging question the game left me with—does The Lady like, say goodbye to everyone else in the house? She must, right? RIGHT?
| Front matter | ||
|---|---|---|
| Could better set the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game PLUS |
Love the cover art, don’t know if I’m ready to identify as a spooky batch.
Overall, just a very well-done execution of what it’s trying to do.
Gameplay tips / typos
- in the study, the dialogue starts referring to the owner of the house as The Lady before the PC gets that information from the skull