Murder House

My first few minutes with Murder House had me doing something I rarely do in horror games anymore: actually sitting upright. The prologue drops you into a 1985 shopping mall after closing, playing as a small boy named Justin, and the moment that pink, dead-eyed Easter Bunny costume fills the hallway it becomes clear that Puppet Combo has built something with real intent behind it. This isn't nostalgia bait dressed up in VHS static. It is a short, precise, handcrafted horror experience that knows exactly what it wants to be. The structure splits into two acts. The prologue is essentially a self-contained short film, functioning like the cold open of a classic slasher, and more than one reviewer has argued it is the strongest section in the game. The main story then shifts to 1988, placing you in control of Emma, a Channel 9 intern whose news crew has broken into the abandoned home of the executed Easter Ripper serial killer Anthony Smith. The gameplay loop is firmly in the Resident Evil school: explore room by room, solve item-based puzzles to unlock new areas, and save progress using scarce pencils instead of typewriter ribbons. Door-opening animations are present and can be toggled off in the menu, a small touch that says a lot about the care put into option accessibility. The house itself is compact but well-designed, each room feeling like a believable space rather than a level built to funnel you somewhere. As the sun sets outside, a deep red haze rolls over the property and the tone shifts hard. The Easter Ripper himself is the mechanical centerpiece. Once he begins stalking you, options include running until Emma's stamina bar depletes, hiding inside wardrobes or under tables (with the risk he checks and drags you out), using a fire poker or a firearm to push back, or simply turning off your flashlight and hoping. Death triggers one of several varied kill cutscenes, gory enough to have gotten the console release banned in Japan. Three strikes and you are reloading from your last pencil save. The audio design is a noticeable step up from earlier Puppet Combo titles: jump scares feel placed rather than random, and the slow-burn tension between encounters is where the soundtrack by MXXN and Clement Panchout does its best work, a low synth dread that fills silences without announcing itself. Both third-person cinematic camera and an optional first-person mode added post-launch are available, and the first-person mode in particular suits the tighter chase moments well. The honest criticism is that the experience is short, clocking in around two to three hours, and a handful of players have found the default third-person perspective difficult to navigate in tight spaces. The save system, while thematically appropriate, can feel punishing if you die close to a section with no pencil nearby and loading times are on the longer side for an indie of this scale. The second half of the main game is also slightly less inventive than the prologue, a common complaint in the community. These are real friction points worth knowing about, not deal-breakers, but friction points. For anyone who grew up on Clock Tower, the original Resident Evil, or the sort of VHS horror that lived in the back corner of a rental shop, Murder House is the most coherent, most atmospheric, and most story-complete thing Puppet Combo has released. The voice acting leans into its B-movie register (Emma's interior monologue while examining objects is a particular highlight), the pixel-level craft in the house layout rewards careful exploration, and the ending lands with the kind of satisfying, over-the-top campiness the whole game has been building toward. It knows when to end. That matters more than most people give it credit for.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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