Dreams in the Witch House Reviews

I see the positive reviews, but I rather disagree, sorry. I didn't like it. I excitedly expected unraveling the eldritch mysteries, but instead of that I had to feed, treat, nurse Walter, bring him to work and schedule dates with Allyson. 10% Lovecraft, 90% Sims. Enough for me, I quit.

Went in expecting a conventional point 'n click & played a unique blend of traditional adventure & RPG that perfectly fits the Lovecraftian mood & story. Wonderful debut, looking forward to the follow-up.

Nails the tone of Lovecraftian horror perfectly. Naturally stumbling upon clues from the world and conversation, while you're attempting to drag your tired, depressed, sick, and beaten body out of out of bed is fantastic. Paced out very well, doesn't go overboard too early on, and knows how to balance the cozy sanity stuff, with the batshit Lovecraftian happenings. Lots of open ended exploration and seemingly even random variation, judging by my first semi-blind playthrough. I had watched a streamer play the first few hours and bits and pieces afterwards, so some mechanics and an early puzzle were spoiled for me, but there just seems like there is so much to discover, that it didn't harm my enjoyment of it one bit. I didn't find the survival mechanics to be annoying, but I did save scum twice, once to avoid sanity loss, and once because I died to something truly spectacular. Beautiful sprite work with nicely detailed character and environment designs, plentiful and mostly interesting flavor text. No unearned jumpscares, and the two that I encountered that may be considered "jumpscares" are telegraphed well enough and left me grinning from ear to ear. Game isn't scary, but consistently atmospheric, surprising, engaging and occasionally very darkly humorous. Killing a rat as a tired college student has never been more amusing. Minor nitpicks: there are a few chase sections that- although they work fine, especially for a point and click- you can sneak around, avoid, and have the enemies lose track of you entirely- but you can accidentally click on things in the environment mid-chase, which can lead to unfortunate results. Some areas had somewhat limited sound effects. The ones used are good and appropriate, but sometimes the soundscape felt very sparse, even though there actually are plenty of ones when interacting with things. Downtown immediately comes to mind, where the cheery "university" music constantly plays with very little natural ambiance of the city street without your input. That cheery song also feels kinda out of place for a Lovecraftian game, but it contrasts nicely with the droning ambiance at night, and is goofy in a good way, since Walter can be kind of a dweeb when talking or inspecting things, at times. Lastly, it hurts that there isn't any voice acting. While the dialogue is genuinely well written, concise, terse, and sprinkled with little character details- it is let down by the fact that you can't put a voice to any of the faces. Also, from what I've seen and read, there isn't anyway for Walter to truly embrace going crazy, you either become an unwilling pawn, kill yourself, or uncover the plot. Would have felt extra evil to target Armitage and your friends, if they begin to notice you lose it. Would have called for alot more programming, writing, and artwork, but as it stands, I don't see any real reason as to why you would sign a certain book, other than to go down a certain path. If instead, the professor, and Allison and/or Elwood (should you meet them) and become friends with them, notice you either lose alot sanity, or uncover a certain occult spell, tried to confront you or rat you out to the cops, that would have been cool. They misinterpret you as a cultist, or abductor and you really can't explain what you're doing, so you either get arrested or you have to kill them or something. Would have been cool, but the game is already great. Highly recommend if you want a paper shuffling, index searching, stat managing, clue hunting, open ended adventure game. Probably the best Lovecraftian inspired game out there, not just because of the references to the mythos, but because of how it makes you feel like you're someone who didn't sign up to be an investigator, who's at your wits end, attempting to piece together a wider mystery, while trying to plan a few steps ahead with immediate priorities. Hope to see more from this developer, well worth the 5 dollars!

This game is HARD and can be so frustrating sometimes. There are very few guides if you get stuck or have a question. That said, it's an incredible fusion of point and click with survival. I didn't expect it to go together so well, but it does a great job. The story is so faithful to the original story, if you like Lovecraft then you will have a blast with this. Don't get discouraged by failures, it's worth it in the end. Study hard and be the hero! (or don't, I'm not your boss)

Interesting point and click survival game. Open ended on what you can do any given day, choosing to dive into the occult or just live your day to day life as things happen. Look forward to their next game.

This is a very faithful adaptation of the Lovecraft short story by the same name. The build up is reasonably slow, and that's just the way it should be. I found myself loving the daily struggle of being broke, having to study and get good grades, working on Gilman's thesis, studying the occult... a really good student simulator in its own right. But it is still story driven, and there are multiple endings available - including two good endings (well, a good and an evil one), which is not how the original story ends. Easily one of my favourite Lovecraftians.