Halloween Stories: Invitation

Given the fact that evil spirits are not something you need to worry about outside of fantasy books and video games, sometimes it’s difficult to get in the proper mood for such stories. Hence, the writers need to do a good job when it comes to setting up the location and the atmosphere, otherwise it doesn’t really matter how the ugly the monsters are.

Halloween Stories: Invitation is a hidden object adventure game in which you play the role of a girl trapped in a haunted house on Halloween. Her goal is to escape as quickly as possible and help her friend Joe do the same, but given the fact that there are a bunch of ghosts trying to kill them, that is easier said than done. As you can see, the story is not award-worthy, but the atmosphere can be pretty creepy sometimes.

The gameplay mechanics follow the established rules of the genre most of the time, which means that you are constantly looking for objects around every scene. These items are then used to complete puzzles and move on to the next area, where the whole cycle repeats again. If you are a HOPA fan, this shouldn’t deter you from having fun, but it can get pretty repetitive and predictable after a while.

Many puzzles also feature mini-games that you have to crack, so there’s an extra layer of complexity to the whole thing. While these mini-games are rarely challenging in the true sense of the word, they can be time-consuming, especially when you have to use trial and error for a few minutes in order to stumble upon the right pattern.

Since this is a horror game as well, there are all sorts of spooky rooms and grotesque images along the way, but nothing to scar you for life or anything of the sort. Instead, the game relies on cheap jumpscares to entertain you, but not all of them work as intended. The sound effects can be a bit exaggerated as well, but then again this is not meant to impress Amnesia players.

Halloween Stories: Invitation is full of cliches and random jumpscares, which is a bit underwhelming to say the least. However, at least the puzzles can be fun, and it’s certainly a much better-looking time waster than your average match-three flick. NOTE: This is a downloader for the game. Once run, the application will automatically download and install the game on your computer.

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