Caltrops - Reviews - This actually seems like a reasonable skeleton of a plot

Forum Overview :: Reviews

by skip 12/31/2013, 1:00am PST

fabio wrote:

This game tries so hard to be a haunted house sim and make you think there's some supernatural aspect to it. Did the family die horribly? Am I a ghost? There are strange noises. Lights flicker. The uncle who owned it went crazy and it's now called "psycho house" by the locals. The answering machine has two messages by a frantic sobbing woman. You find books on poltergeists and notes of strange shadows. A crumpled note tells you not to tell the parents what you find in the attic before the writing is cut off. The hallway to the attic is bathed in creepy red light. You find another note telling you to expect the worst in the attic. The very end was tense as you found your way to the attic and made your way up. Reminded me of finally fixing the elevator in System Shock 2 and approaching the office of the chick you'd been talking to the whole time.
SPOILERS

spoilers wrote:

The parents were in a troubled marriage and were away on a couples retreat, the younger daughter ran off with her high school lesbian lover. The end.

I'm sure it's ultimately an execution issue, but you're making this sound more interesting than it probably is. Instead of some bogey man coming out of no where or the family being eaten by Satanists or some other retarded plot hacked together from FearNET, they all just left without worrying too much how it would affect you. The horror is fully realizing the self-absorption of a sister and parents who value their romantic entanglements more than welcoming back a daughter or sister who's been gone an entire year. Narcissism is better than some ghoul since ghosts are indiscriminate and attack everyone while your family is theoretically supposed to love you enough to buy you a "Welcome Home" cake. It sounds like they got waylaid by the lesbian angle, but there's an interesting idea buried there.