Pseudo-Haunting Steam Charts & Stats

i like the atmospere of this game

an aesthetic treat with an interesting twist on ghost stories

I don't usually review games that I didn't finish, but I felt compelled to because of how tiresome this game is. First off, play the demo. That will tell you far more about how well this game will click with you than I could with mere words. I made the mistake of buying it outright because it looked cool and it was only $2.79. The concept and presentation are neat, and there is something oddly compelling about this game, but the unbearably slow walking speed turns the experience into a chore. The enemies weren't scary, they were an annoyance I was constantly dreading because I don't entirely understand how the combat even works, and if you die it means you'll be slowly lumbering your way back - which became extremely tedious very quickly. Sometimes you'll walk for what feels like minutes only to find a single piece of paper with some vague lore that doesn't help you, and may actively hinder you if enemies decide to spawn. As far as I could tell, you can't escape an encounter entirely unscathed, as your mental or psychic energy (I forget what it's called) seems to drain as you damage enemies (I suppose it's like ammo in other Survival Horror games). I assume that if you run out, you can't fight back anymore, but unlike Resident Evil or Silent Hill, you don't have the option of running away or avoiding some enemies entirely. When they spawn, the exit locks until they've been dealt with. If you plan to give Pseudo-Haunting a chance, play it on the Easy setting. Normal and higher uses a Resident Evil-style resource system for saves, meaning that if you die, you'll have to redo the last 15-minutes of incredibly slow walking as you trudge through large rooms collecting all the items again while trying to get back to where you were. The game is also littered with spelling errors, with even the difficulty selection spelling "Nightmare" wrong. It's not a bad game, but it's definitely a niche title that won't appeal to most people. Perhaps I would have given it a little more time if I didn't have 1000 other games to choose from across numerous platforms that I could be playing instead.

Ape Hardware’s attempt at survival horror is a complete success. In Pseudo Haunting you are an old person, so you can’t move very fast. But you have this strange ability to astral project, allowing you to move freely (but only on one plane), which makes the puzzle solving and combat a bit tricky, though not impossible. I’m still not sure if I fully did the combat “correctly”, but I had fun the way I did it. They’ve fused their signature grotesque art style, an eerie dream-like atmosphere, and unique story ideas with what others have called “obtuse” gameplay that doesn’t hold your hand. The lack of understanding what’s going on and then figuring it out is what makes the game great. This can be said of all of the dev’s games. I did not find the game to be scary at all, so in that way it’s a stretch to call it horror. But I understood the framework, and if you’ve played survival horror games, it fits into the genre just fine. It was a bit creepy, I guess – and honestly that’s all I’m ever looking for in a game, personally. Creepy. Anyway, if you’ve never played an A.H. game before and you’re unsure, I implore you to please try Psuedo Haunting first. I believe it’s a good entry point. It won't hurt your wallet and it doesn't waste your time at only about 4 hours to beat on normal difficulty. Side note: I love the more dream-like atmosphere and paranormal subject matter going on here. If the dev ever decided to make a super long game that had this ~vibe~ I would play the **** out of it.

Somewhat frustrating at times (I'm pretty sure I finished the game without ever actually understanding the combat system), but oppressive and atmospheric and engaging and about as unique as you'd expect an ApeHardware game to be.

An incredibly unique game with the most original and terrifying concept of ghosts and haunted houses I've seen, and a pretty fascinating story, to boot. Also just brutally difficult on the normal difficulty. Combat is all in the spacing, and sometimes you can't help but get swarmed and overwhelmed. I'd recommend starting on one of the 2 easier difficulties.

A story of ghosts and haunted houses with a quite unique approach, where ghosts are a phenomenon that devours information. There is a perfect cohesion between plot, gameplay and graphics. It's a weird but intuitive game (unlike some other dev titles), composed by a sort of combat, exploration and many puzzles. The only negative point I could point out that it is a very quiet game in the sound section, (despite having coherence with the story). I liked it a lot, lasts 3/4 hours and the ending did not disappoint.

I made an embarrassingly long review on youtube about this game, and I'd like to mention some of the key phrases here. It’s a very challenging game, not only in the sense that the puzzles and combat are hard, it's that the game, as a whole, is challenging. It’s disorienting, it’s unsettling, the sounds are loud, sudden, and creepy, and the story is vague and unclear for the first half. It's fantastic, but it's not an easy play. It’s scary. It’s independent, it’s avant garde and difficult; it’s tough love, it's atmospheric, it's a bit rough around the edges, but it's intelligent, and it's sincere, and it knows how to make you uncomfortable, and it knows how to tell a story. It’s a game that’s worth its price tag, and a game that deserves more of your attention. If I had to have any solid hangups about the game, its that the progression through the levels is incredibly disorienting and it made it very difficult to feel like there *was* any solid measurable amount of progression, as well as the slow-pace and mildly overwhelming visual effects that made me feel slightly ill during my first play session. But the soundscape, visuals, story (even though some of the character dialogue is a bit blunt and tell-not-show), and gameplay are all intelligently made and sincere. I am going to keep an eye on everything this developer does from now on, I'm very excited to see where they go from here. Watch the full review here! https://youtu.be/mTd9iRO-uOk