The Vampire House

I played this game a month or two from now, but I loved it so much as I was playing! The characters were fun to interact with and the story was short, but yet a lotta fun with all of the routes you could’ve taken! I like how the romantic themes of this story were optional as well because even if you filled up the max to date one of them, you had the option to keep everything platonic. It’s the kind of game you can finish in a day and leaves you curious with more questions than answers (which I tend to dislike, but found it enjoyable in this case.) I just wished it was written longer with a potential sequel to see what happens as there were some things I didn’t understand while playing. I believe it has a lot of potential and would replay it again for the fun of it, really! (Dang, I should’ve posted this review during October…) Will write another review during October to replay and see what happens again! :D✌️(btw I LOVE to ramble…)

The writing, while simple is compelling and interesting, the characters are as well. I wanted to get to know them and build friendships etc. If you spend enough time with a character, you can choose to go to the halloween party with them, and get a different ending depending on the character. I’ve done this with elizabeth and malka. unfortunately, if you don’t choose enough events with any particular person (6 total per person) you aren’t able to choose anyone and the story abruptly ends. Also, I tried to do all of roxanne’s events, but was on out able to do 5, and the game wouldn’t let me go the 6th.

This story does an excellent job creating characters and atmosphere. It creates a very interesting world, that to be honest, I would like to see more of. The only issue I have with it is that there seems to be a lot of underutilized mechanics, and the replay value, while good, is bogged down by the in-depth narrative. You can learn all these "special skills" and buy new outfits, and it takes a while and some planning to earn them, but they do not amount to much. The replay value all comes in experiencing the story with each of the separate characters, which just basically turns it into a dating sim. You have to bogg through a lot of the early narrative, which is fine, but just is a waste. All in all you have a fantastic story, fascinating characters, with a nice focus on non stat based mechanics. It's weak point is some of those mechanics are underwhelming, and the replay value is left behind by the narrative. Four out of five, glad I paid for it.