After playing the game, I feel pretty confident in saying that this is a title that will be raising its head again in my GOTY article in a few short weeks.
The visuals are a huge part of the game, and the thought that every frame of the game is hand-drawn by one man is something that I found incredibly rewarding as a player. There’s a personality and starkness to the visuals that work perfectly with the 1980’s setting – as if this could have been a game from the time itself, some corrupted floppy disk of otherworldly creation.
The music is also of the chiptune variety, with the creepiness coming from the woozy slowing and modulation of the audio during the rising tension, and the ramping-up of the intensity as your doom meter rises ever more.
Yes, this is all very eldritch in tone, and you will be keeping an eye on many meters here, stamina (physical health) and reason (mental health) as well as the various upgradeable areas laid out for your character, a teenage school student trying to get to the heart of all of the mounting strangeness taking place in her hometown of Shiokawa, as one of the Old Gods rumbles in the distance, growing slowly in strength.
Each run – as this is a rogue-like game – starts with your character in her apartment, where you can gather your thoughts in-between cases – and pop on a quick change of clothes - before selecting one of the five randomly assigned (and wonderfully alliteratively titled) mysteries on your home corkboard; will you tackle the ‘Woozy, Wandering, Wailing witches of West Woking’? Solve the case of ‘The Murdering Macabre Milkman Meandering Menacingly in Middle Morecombe’? Or perhaps get to the bottom of ‘The Strangely Slippery Sausages Sold Separately Somewhere Seemingly Serene’?*
Either way, once you choose your case, you must work your way through the narrative, all the while keeping an eye on your stamina, reason, allies, funds and inventory. As this is a rogue-like, there are myriad random encounters that crop up as stumbling blocks. Some can be handy, others (read ‘most) can be downright creepy.
My first couple of runs very much had me getting used to the point-and-click based interface, and I have to admit that it felt a bit much. However, the game handily highlights points of interest, and will also make it clear when you can level up or use a specific item etc, so you don’t spend too much time floundering.
As the combat is also based on choosing commands and executing them, it’s hardly the most immersive part of World of Horror, but it works with the rest of the presentation, and the rest of the game is so engaging and intriguing it that it didn’t bother me too much.
The thing that does bother me, is having to work out the tedious order of ‘claps and bows’ as a way of seemingly blindly attacking ghostly enemies, and I found myself more often than not just running away from them when possible as it was far less costly than clapping and bowing over and over, all the while getting a good kicking from a foul otherworldly apparition with a single hob-nailed boot on, with a steel toe-cap crafted expertly into the shape of my arse.
World of Horror is an absolute delight to play, blending idiosyncratic visuals and surprisingly flexible, atmospheric chiptune music with immersive gameplay, exciting random elements and creepy story-telling.
The combat and spells are a bit of a weak spot for me, but honestly – I was having so much fun turning over every stone in a bid to see all that the game has to offer that it didn’t dent my enthusiasm as I waded ever deeper into these sinister chapters.
Right, I’m off to go into the woods with a hammer to find out what that mask-sporting cult is up to…after I buy some gems from a canine shopkeeper, natch.
9/10
🧊ICE COOL🧊
* I may have made these up
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