Charnel House Trilogy, The (Video Game)
Ted Hentschke
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Developed by Owl Cave studios
Not Classified by the ESRB
Available on PC
I get a good deal of game codes in my inbox. Some of them I don’t review because I decide that they aren’t really something the fans of DreadCentral would be interested in (when I was covering more films I frequently got sent westerns and black comedies. Think along those lines, but with games). I won’t publish the names of any of the games I pass over, because I don’t want to give any negative impression that I do not like these games. Other games I don’t write about because I couldn’t be bothered to play them. These are games I am either just not interested in or think will be terrible. I will similarly not mention them here, because I am a respectable critic, and if I am going to trash talk someone’s hard work, I could at least spend a full review doing so with detailed reasoning and full dick jokes.
I am surprised I played through The Charnel House Trilogy, because it fits the second category in two ways. I really do not have any interest in overdone indie nonsense, which both pixel art and most horror adventure games fall squarely into the category of. The combination of the two should make me burst into flames like a vampire in the sunlight, but for some reason the inner hipster in me rebelled against my base reactions and made me want to give it a try.
At this point, the narrative arc would demand I say something like, “but boy am I glad I did,” but in all honestly, I’m not. I’m not upset I gave the game my time, just apathetic. It left me empty, which for the video game equivalent of a short story, is the absolute worst reaction I could have. The game has some interesting things to say, but in a blatant and overwrought manner. Anything that isn’t over explained adds up to nothing, which is a shame because I kind of dug some of the more surreal horror elements.
Split up into three chapters, the game follows Alex Davenport and Doctor Harold Lang as they make the journey to Augur Peak via an old and mysterious train. Calling them chapters is generous, and even saying they are levels is a bit pushing it. Each segment boils down to some version of an interactive corridor, rubbing item against stuff without consequence until the story continues.
The first segment, titled “Inhale,” introduces us to Alex, a girl struggling through a breakup. She’s nerdy and quirky in that way that has become in vogue recently, but is likeable and relatable enough that I could look through the cliché. Alex is about to embark on a spiritual pilgrimage to visit her friend at Augur Peak, the setting of her favorite pulp horror novel. Since the game is entirely a narrative experience, spoiling anything would ruin it, so I will just say that some spooks happen, intrigue develops, and poetry is waxed.
The second chapter, titled “Sepulcher” follows Doctor Harold Lang, an archeologist who is headed to Augur Peak for research. The segment takes place on an old passenger train, where things are not at all what they seem. To me, this felt like the weakest segment. It didn’t possess the variety of dialogue and observations that the other two did, and required almost no thought for any of the puzzles. It was a series of treks back and forth from locations, waiting for the next preset event to open up another room. It is muddled and boring, best exemplified with the first “puzzle.” After talking to the ticket taker at one end of the train car, he suggests you go to the bar at the rear. After walking all the way to the door leading to the next car, you find that it is locked, and have to go back to the ticket taker to get the key. After getting the key, using it on the door, and walking all the way through another train car to get to the bar, you find that the door to the bar is locked as well. This requires you to walk all the way back to the ticket taker, who suggests you now go and talk to other passengers. So, I had to walk back and forth 4 times just to accomplish nothing. That is the tale of the tape for the whole segment.
It felt like it was developed separately, as part of a game jam or something, since it doesn’t fit into the overall narrative nearly as well as the segments that follow Alex. The mechanics feel less polished and design is sloppier, with less item descriptions or innovative solutions. If you look at their website, Sepulcher as listed as a stand alone game, so my theory is likely correct. They probably had an idea, built the other chapters around that, but didn’t bother altering the original segment to better fit the new vision. A bit sloppy, and it comes across that way.
The third segment, titled “Exhale,” once again follows Alex as she takes her turn exploring the mysterious train. This segment required a bit more thought, and provided some concrete answers that the previous chapter did not. It did a lot to expand the story that the game was trying to create, and though it lost some of the surreal mystery of the previous ones, I prefer the more solid storytelling. It managed to stay psychological and compelling in a more visceral way. Once again, I can’t really say more than that, since it would ruin the narrative to spoil anything, but I will say that there are optional plot elements that you might just miss your first time around.
After completing all three chapters, you are given a cutscene explaining that the whole game was just a preview for something coming out in 2016. Yup, you just paid 6 bucks for an interactive trailer. At that price tag, it is reasonable that the game only takes a couple hours to beat, but it still feels a bit cheap to spend all that time unearthing a mystery only to have a tentative “coming soon” be my only reward.
So that’s about it, my whole spiel on The Charnel House Trilogy in two pages or less. Quite short for my typically rambly style, but theres really not much more to say. There were some interesting bits that I liked, but spoiling them would betray the spirit of the game. It isn’t my type of game, and follows an arthouse trend that I feel people only like because they want to feel like they are part of some kind of intellectual “it” crowd. People that review this game and hyperbolize about it likely do so to distance themselves from what they see as the plague of Call of Duty screaming bros, in a way that nerds have always isolated and attempted to self identify since Dungeons and Dragons. Theres nothing horribly wrong with the game, it just doesn’t feel like a game.
As a critic, I’m supposed to be objective and view things as they are despite my particular genre preference, but I’m also supposed to give my own take on how I felt about the product. To me, it all boiled down to an underachievement, a half baked possibly good idea that never had to prove itself with a real conclusion. Substituting mystery and shrugs for a plot is lazy writing that asks the player to create their own answers and go wild with fan theories so that the author doesn’t have to. I’m sure that this game has a market, but the market is not horror fans or gamers looking for excitement. If you like this kind of artsy adventure game, there is stuff in here you will definitely like. Otherwise, you will be let down.
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Game
Categorized:Horror Gaming Reviews
