There’s nothing quite as fun for someone like me who has played so much to experience something new and different. I try not to have anything against titles that perhaps feel a little too familiar, but when you see the same ideas and styles of play without much differentiation on a regular basis it can be challenging not to get a little cranky. That makes a weird title like this, mixing together strategy, horror, and some roguelike elements, quite a lot of fun to at least explore and discover.

Trying to describe the gameplay is a bit of a challenge, since it isn’t quite like anything I’ve played before. Part of the differentiation is the overall pacing of it, which is decidedly slower than your typical roguelike, and quite a bit more careful. Your goal is to essentially rid each haunted mansion you visit of a variety of evil spirits that will range in their aggressiveness and lethality. The challenge is that you’re pretty well always going to be short on the resources needed to deal with them, so in order to get the job done you’ll need to be smart and a bit crafty, utilizing different rooms and elements you’ll find like fireplaces to your advantage.

One thing you’ll learn pretty quickly is to carefully try to listen for what may be ahead in the next room, as that will give you critical clues to the potential number of spirits as well as their types, helping you to be better prepared for what may be coming your way. While you’ll have the option to do things like shoot through the door when you have the right equipment, more often than not you’ll need to lure them to their demise by being smart and quick. Whether that involves getting them to chase after you until they step in a trap, or even making noise in an adjoining room to get them to do things like fall into a pit, you won’t have a load of tools at your disposal, you’ll just need to be careful how you use them. The thing is, with the pacing and what can get to be the pretty repetitive nature of play, this won’t appeal to everyone, but I do at least appreciate the effort to do something quite differently, and I’m sure there’ll be gamers out there who feel the same way.