Dreams in the Witch House

I played the hell out of games like World of Horror, Dredge & Strange Horticulture, and this game were the perfect answer for my cozy/horror craving. You can choose to play as a typical lovecraftian character - frantically researching the occults and getting pulled across dreamscapes - or you can buy sleeping pills and earplugs so you can write your thesis and get A+ on your exams like a good student. There's a day/night cycle. There's a weather system and a simple city map where you can buy supplies and get a hot meal or coffee with friends. Walter can choose to study in the library, or inside his own room while the rain is outside and the fireplace is crackling. It's hella cozy if you ignore the monstrosities waiting to prey on Walter when he's asleep.

This is a very authentic Lovecraft adaptation that properly conveys the charm of the material. Instead of bombarding you with blood and dead fish and octopuses and nightmares with ominous voices telling you what to do from the get-go, it actually grounds you into a fairly normal setting and then gradually gets weirder from there. How crazy things actually get is also largely determined by the player's actions, since almost everything except staying alive is optional in this game. At the core of it it's actually a simple genre:survival simulator.
I really like how all the item interactions actually make sense unlike many old-school games of similar type, yet some of them also have subtle and/or unexpected uses. Furthermore, the game uses RNG in a very effective and sensible way, where you almost never get screwed by it (although playing on Hard and getting a poor present at the start of the game is fairly irritating). The gameplay is effective; you have enough things to worry about that managing time and money becomes gripping, the graphics are nice, the music is great, the characters clearly have their own distinct voices. The plot is, well, largely the same as the source material, which happens to be one of my favorites from Lovecraft.
Aside from a few item interaction inconsistencies and a couple of grammar errors (and the fact that I was too familiar with the plot already), I really can't find much fault in it.

This is such a unique experience, I don't even know what to call it: A resource and time management point&click adventure game?

You play as first-year student Walter Gilman who's cramming for his next exam while living on a small allowance in a rickety lodging house. Things are not easy, the wiring is faulty, the weather is terrible, and you get only three logs of firewood for the whole week. And then there are these unexplainable noises from the attic, and has that rat a human face?!

As Walter, you have to manage your health and sanity, allow time for sleep and studying, you have to borrow the right books, and speak with your professor about your theory that you are hopefully also working on. Every hour of every day you have to make decisions how to best spend your time: Do you do some odd jobs for your landlady for a couple bucks? Or should you rather spend a few more hours on your maths skills? Do you visit your neighbor in the evening and ask for a board to cover the rat hole in your room, or do you visit the event you read about in the newspaper, and that promises some distraction?

The game is surprisingly complex, and there is not just one optimal way to play it. In my first try I died through an unfortunate series of events, and was surprised how different many details in my next attempt were. The weather, items that you find and where you find them, when certain things happen - all that is randomized to some extent.

I had a lot of fun uncovering the story, how to make it to the end, and then how to not doom the world to some Lovecraftian horror and achieve the best ending.

The game makes an autosave each morning, and you can make your own saves whenever you want, which makes it easy to experiment, and you don't have to start at the beginning each time if you want to try for a different ending.

I had a great time with Dreams in the Witch House. If you like a challenge and don't mind jotting down some notes, you should definitely try this one out.

Great Lovecraftian point-and-click adventure game following the events of H. P. Lovecraft's story of the same title. It has some light survival mechanics and an interesting gameplay loop with lots of replayability.
First of all: I'm a huge Lovecraft nerd, having read nearly everything he wrote, and this game is pretty faithful to the specific short story and broader Cthulhu mythos. If you are an HPL fan - play this game. For example, the books in the game (where you can gain occult knowledge at the cost of your sanity) are from both IRL esoteric literature (e.g., Blavatsky, Kramer, Glanvill), and also from mythos literature (Necronomicon, Book of Eibon, etc.). It's great to see all of this in the game. And even just the little nods to exactly how HPL phrased things is entertaining. For instance, in our room there is a "curiously angled corner" - just how he would've described the place. HPL's love of adverbs is not forgotten and the text of the game and our character seem to have been written by the master himself. Basically what I mean is that it's a really great Lovecraft adaptation all around.
Secondly: Gameplay is fun and relaxing. It's a chill game overall - despite the unfathomably terrible cosmic horrors lurking just over the rim of sanity! Which is sort of funny. Speaking of, the in-game health/sanity mechanic is implemented well. The town is cute. The university is cosy - overall it's a pleasant experience. I've played it three times over at this point and I have to congratulate the developer on this gem of a game. Make another one please! :)
And anyone requiring (or moaning about the lack of) an expensive voice-over in a game like this should learn to read. VA is a waste of resources and often an immersion killer. I'd rather have two such games than one with all the dialogue voiced.

Loved it! After playing Dredge I wanted to play another Lovecrafty-ish game. It gave me more than I asked for: The atmosphere, the typical "is it all happening or is it only in my mind...? am I dreaming?"
Gameplaywise: You have your typical horror survial features with sanity, sleep, hunger, you have to manage your money and I adivise playing the game at least twice because trust me, the first time you will f* up everything. However, this way it's way more intense and spooky. The second run I would advise playing on easy since that way you can focus on exploring all that the game has to offer. It does have multiple endings so you get a nice reward for playing it another time.
On a spook level from 1-10 I would say it's a solid 6-7. I like the spook but I'm too scared to play like real hardcore horror games. So if you are like me, searching for a mild adrenalin rush while still enjoying story and gameplay, this is a game I can really recommend.<3

The hybridization of RPG, point and click, and not having to pixel hunt for everything makes this a fantastic game if you like any of the elements it offers and the emphasis on learning in your first playthrough and taking that knowledge back to a new game to do it better next time is a great touch for replayability.

I loved this game, just a great mix of everything I want. Cosmic horror, point and click adventure puzzle, pixel graphs, dating sim style stat building survival horror..... It's such a great game style and very replayable (I wish I had time for another, I think I missed a whole subplot). I'd also love a couple of areas to be developed (maybe more in depth friendships or friends being more involved in the plot)so I can't wait to see what they do for the sequel. I still have the music stuck in my head and I love the animation of Walter in his little bed looking so comfy.