Horns of Fear

This could have been an excellent atmospheric puzzler if they could have just decided on a tone and stuck with it. Any genuinely creepy moments are instantly undercut by bad jokes and random unnecessary pop culture references. It's like a restaurant that tries to serve ten different types of cuisine; pick one and focus. The game is called "Horns of Fear" and there's a dark menu with spooky music. There I was, thinking "heck yeah, this is gonna be spooky!" and then.........the protagonist is named Jim Somrinor. Why is the main character's name an anagram? I guess the people who made this like The Doors? And then they didn't trust us to get the reference so they had another character specifically mention the reference. Why is Jim Morrison so important to this game? Gameplay is standard adventure game fare, except it's WASD instead of point-and-click. You poke around the mansion, learn more about the stuff going on, and find clues to solve puzzles. Most puzzles involve encountering a locked door, finding a bunch of symbols that relate to the door, and then finding a cipher that allows you to convert them into numbers or letters. They're just challenging enough to engage your brain …

absolutely fantastic game :)) !!!!

I'm always conflicted as to recommending something that is functionally a high quality Newgrounds game when it cost money. However, it's also nice to know someone with a small or solo indie effort was compensated for their art. Besides, I got it as a gift. It's got puzzles, some solid, some a little wonkey as adventure games tend to be, but over all fun and satisfying. Some jumpscares, but none too egregious or annoying. This is not a wait for the screamer game like FNaF and such, and it is suitably creepy, charming, and engaging. To make it short, much like the game length; nice effort. I'd love to see more from these guys-or this guy as it were. Check it out if you like horror with some puzzles.

Concept 10/10 The actual gameplay 6/10

I did not get too far, but there's some gameplay issues that made me drop it. This game is much closer to a point and click adventure game than survival horror, I was hoping it was the latter. But I like point and clicks too, so I was happy to keep playing. But a couple unnecessary design choices made it a slog for the hour or so I played. 1) you can only pick up items if you have found the puzzle that requires them. So if you like to scan a room for all items or interactable hot spots, you would have to come back multiple times and do it again - super tedious, and like... why? Also, the movement speed is very slow with no run toggle. So this just adds to the tedium. There is no map, no notebook to record hints, etc. So this all adds up to a frustrating slog that I lost patience for early. It's doubly frustrating because all of these issues are so easily remedied, but for whatever reason this is what the dev decided. Otherwise, the game seems good. I liked the gouache looking, painterly art style. Some of the rooms are visually interesting and the lighting is great. I was interested in the plot as well. I will GLADLY play this again and update my review if the dev decides to m…

The puzzles were pretty solid, got stuck for a bit but that's okay.