House of Evil

I want to love what House of Evil is reaching for. A solo developer, a first-person horror set in a real-world Russian manor, a story about an ordinary man chasing his exorcist wife into a building haunted by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - that premise has genuine texture, the kind of handmade mythology you rarely find at any price point. The mansion itself is loosely inspired by a real estate in the Tver region, and that grounding in actual geography gives the fiction a quiet weight that most shovelware horror never even attempts. The design ambitions are similarly earnest. Across more than 40 rooms spread over two floors, a cellar used by a psychiatrist for rituals on asylum patients, a cemetery, and a mirror-world copy of the mansion accessible mid-game, VikTor clearly had a full vision on paper. The craft loop - mixing herbs into potions, consecrating water, learning spells in Latin to use against demons and spirits - sounds more like a folk-horror RPG than a cheap jumpscare box. On its best days, that loop produces something like atmosphere. The mirror world in particular, described as a copy of reality where everything is gloomy and inverted, is exactly the kind of environmental storytelling idea that punches above its budget when it lands right. The trouble is landing it. Steam players have rated this Mostly Negative, with only around 39 percent of reviews positive. Community posts flag broken achievements and unclear puzzle logic, and there are signs of rough localization throughout - the English text carries that translated-under-pressure quality that obscures intent more than it builds mystery. The controls and moment-to-moment feel of moving through these rooms has drawn criticism for not meeting the atmospheric promise the concept sets up. When the crafting and Latin spell system works, there is something worth pulling at. When it does not, you are left wandering rooms that feel emptier than their 40-room count suggests. Who is this for, honestly? Collectors of raw, unpolished indie horror who find charm in the seams - people who played early Chilla's Art games before the audience found them, or who still think about obscure Eastern European horror titles that never got a second look. If you approach it as a curiosity, a one-person portrait of a genuinely strange haunted manor with folk-religion mechanics bolted onto survival horror, you may find more than the score implies. If you need tight controls, clean UI, and a polished horror loop, this will frustrate before it rewards.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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