Dreams in the Witch House
Whether the dreams brought on the fever or the fever brought on the dreams Walter Gilman
did not know. – H.P. Lovecraft, The Dreams in the Witch House
Arkham, Massachusetts 1929. Walter Gilman, a promising math student, has just moved to the city and is starting his studies at Miskatonic University. The Dombrowski’s boarding house where he resides has a bad reputation, but Walter doesn’t mind the old rumors… Until the dreams start. A hideous scheme is underway, and if Walter is not careful, it could cost him more than his life. It could cost him his soul.
Dreams in the Witch House is a unique mix of classic point and click adventure and open world RPG. The gameplay is nonlinear and many of the elements are generated randomly, making each playthrough different.
You have two months to prepare Walter for the dreaded May-Eve. How you spend the time is completely up to you: concentrate on studies, get friends and stay in good physical and mental state. Or explore the old rumours, read the forbidden books at Miskatonic University, and work on your occult thesis. Or just stay in bed, and hope that it all goes away!
Based on the short story "The Dreams in the Witch House" by H.P. Lovecraft.
- Open world sandbox meets point and click adventure game
- RPG elements: money, health, sanity, and many character stats
- Day / evening / night – cycles and changing weather
- Several endings depending on player’s actions
- 10 – 20 hours of playtime
- Original soundtrack by genre favourite Troy Sterling Nies (The Call of Cthulhu, The Whisperer in the Darkness)
- Creeping tension: otherwordly threats intensify gradually
- 320 x 180 pixel graphics
- Plenty of detailed animation and visual effects
Steam User 53
I'm the guy that localised the English dialog for this game and have tested it maybe more than a hundred times over the course of five years. I love this game! I love it so much that I even tested a full run yesterday, the day before release, and still had a ton of fun with it.
It's so different to anything else out there for Lovecraft fans. One thing that might confuse some players is that it's not meant to be played exclusively to "win" or to "beat it"... it is an immersive trip into the world of the story.
No matter how you play it, there will be an ending that lives up to your style of play.
Actually, the "bad" endings are the ones that are the most true to Lovecraft's stories and are just as much fun as "winning".
It can be played so many times in so many ways and has so many surprises to offer. Don't expect to see everything on a first run.
It is a true "role-playing game" as well. You can be a nice guy, or a bit of a jerk. You can get involved in the mystery, or try to ignore it.
But it probably won't ignore you back.
Steam User 15
Dreams in the Witch House is a point & click -quasi-adventure with additional survival elements for depth and breeze of fresh air to the formula. Art style and presentation in general feel somewhat reminiscent of LucasArts classics from the DOS era while staying true to itself. Mellow color scheme paints a picture of restrained times and mystery tends to have a more vibrant tone. Soundscape is appropriate and atmospheric. All in all, both spirit of the early 20th century and Lovecraftian theme seem well realized.
Puzzles aren't very difficult (if you know some P&C), often have several solutions and they among other things can vary between playthroughs. Survival/management aspect can be handled with a little planning ability and adjusting to RNG such as rainy day mixing them up. Succeeding demands paying attention and going over same routines can be a little stressing. You could say it's pretty much like typical broke student life. Story and narrative are built around player's actions and can lead to variety of epilogues, but events of the novel can also be quite closely followed.
Perhaps the game could benefit from more streets, parks, and relevant places intertwining instead of having a map with handful of spots to visit. One could also see insanity, other "perks" and social interaction expanded. Nevertheless, game is good time and a solid offering. Iä.
Steam User 8
Another day, another Lovecraft-inspired game. However, the difference from other games that tries similar things, is that Dreams in the Witch House actually succeeds at what it tries to do. It got a nice atmosphere that feels like it could be part of Lovecraft mythos, and it got interesting gameplay to boot – beyond the traditional point & click stuff. I played the demo last year and was impressed with the game then already, so it makes me happy the full title retains the feeling I got from the demo. Atom Brain Games created something truly special here, and now we can only hope that they continue on this track for the future. But enough of that, what about the story, and how does it play?
You play Walter Gilman, a student of Miskatonic University with an interest in the occult. The location is of course Arkham, which is an infamous city when it comes to Lovecraft lore. It’s a place where strange powers manifest more easily than other areas – in other words, a great spot for the occult! Your aunt and benefactor have rented an apartment in the “Witch house”, and each week she will send you an allowance of 10 dollars so you can live and study. The game revolves around Walter’s life as a student, and it’s quite possible to ignore the occult and focus on your studies. But as these things go, the mystery of the city will eventually seek you out, and it’s a hard thing to ignore if you are like me and have a love for a good mystery. The risk of this is that you open something that will be hard to close once opened, and the further you get into this riddle of the dark arts, the risks get bigger with Walter’s life at a stake. Yes, you can die in the game! Not going to spoil anything here, but the story is great, and the way it’s told is good as well. It’s slowly being told in segments spliced between more of the mundane moments of student life, and often it’s dependent on your investigations which adds a feeling of you having to actively seek out the truth. This is a superb addition to the game since it rests the narrative progress on the shoulders of the player. I should add that this is a tale based on one of Lovecraft’s writings that goes under the same name. If you know the plot since before, you will know what is to come since it follows the same story beats, however, the narrative in the game is not set in stone which allows you to dictate how it ends through your actions.
What makes Dreams in the Witch House stand out, beyond the story, is that the game has actual gameplay more than clicking and combining items as most classic adventure games, even if that is a thing too. Right from the start you will come to the knowledge that student life in Arkham is arduous and dangerous, especially if you take the plunge into the occult. You will have to balance money, time, what to study, what to eat, and try to maintain your sanity. It’s a survival game in the middle of your typical adventure, and I found it highly immersive. For example, to survive night terrors you might have to buy sleeping pills for your precious few dollars, otherwise, your lack of sleep might spiral out of control into insanity or worse. Do you eat, or do you waste dollars meant for food just for one good night’s rest?
The best part is that the game lets you plan it out by yourself, and gives you no help past the tutorial screen. In my first playthrough, lots of things went wrong, I starved, I got sick, missed classes, and got haunted by visions beyond what my mind could sustain. And when it comes to looking up information for historical events and other things to proceed with your investigations, you will have to go through lots of “indexes” to search for clues, and at times it feels really involved and often it leads to interesting events. Walter also has stats, like health and sanity, but there are also occult and math. I would say the occult skill is the most important if you want to take part in the mystery. It lets you read old tomes, and decipher standing stones filled with mysterious texts which leads to cool stuff for the narrative. Probably more so than the other stuff, but since it’s all a balancing act, other academic work will suffer which in the end will affect how much money you earn. It depends on how rounded, or “normal” you want Walter to be. Roleplaying at its finest, at least when it comes to point & click. I should also add that there are puzzles to solve in the traditional sense when it comes to adventure games, and most of these puzzles are randomized from playthrough to playthrough to add to the replay value.
The visuals are nice, it’s pixel art in style, as is typical for adventure games, however, it’s well-made and looks beautiful beyond what the quality of the price suggests. It’s cheap (around 10 euros) and got graphics past what is required. Lots of things are animated, like movement, interaction with items, and so on. It helps with the mood, and certain scenes do truly stand out, like the dream sequences of the alien planet. There is no voice acting (not that it is missing), and the sound for effects is okay. The music was good at times, specifically the one tune that plays when something sinister is going on. The reason this one stood out to me is that reminded me of X-com TFTD. Very similar in the tone of the music, as in ominous. You can tell something bad is going to happen when that tune plays. There are a few other pieces, but they do repeat a lot and sadly get a little obnoxious, so I would say the music is the weakest part of the game. Not saying it’s irredeemable bad, but it probably could have been better.
One surprising aspect of Dreams in the Witch House is the price, as mentioned earlier. I got it for around 10 euros here on Steam, and from what you get, it is quite remarkable. You can not go wrong by investing in this game. It is well-written, entertaining, and suspenseful providing a lot of different endings that are dependent on what you do ingame. It also maintains the style of Lovecraft, which is something many “inspired” games fail to emulate. A top-notch game, for a top-notch price, recommended!
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Steam User 7
This game offers all, a lover of Lovecraft and adventure can wish for ! Great story, a lot of the development is due to the player, what we discover, what we want to know, how far we want to go..... for sure I will play this more than once.
A wonderful experience - highly recommended, don't miss this game !
Steam User 9
Dreams in the Witch House achieves what few point and clicks do - instant replayability!
I ended my first go at Dreams in the Witch House as a failure but I went asleep dreaming of it (dangerous territory haha) and couldn't wait to get back in to a fresh save slot.
My second playthrough was an astounding success and so my advice to would be players is to just keep thinking, trying, failing, and eventually things will be pieced together and you'll be rewarded with an unravelling story with multiple solutions to each roadblock.
You got this.
Steam User 7
Found out about the game quite a while ago when the dev posted about it on the Lovecraft Subreddit. I have been eagerly awaiting this game since then and have decidedly avoided playing the demo to not get spoiled in any way. Wanted to jump into the game without knowing what to expect. Of course I'm familiar with the original story, but I didn't know anything really about the gameplay, except of what I've seen in screenshots and parts of the trailer.
I haven't played for long yet, but you can absolutely feel how the dev put so much heart and thought into it. The artstyle is really nice and discovering new rooms and areas is very satisfying because there are so many nice details to admire. The animation is also quite good, and I was pleasantly surprised by the sound design. The music really fits the atmosphere and especially the sounds used in certain scenes really are high quality and just fit perfectly to create a tenseful, creepy atmosphere at times.
The game is also much deeper than one would expect from just a point and click adventure, as it incorparates certain RPG elements, which is a nice addition.
Overall I'm really impressed so far. I'm a big Lovecraft nerd and I absolutely jump at everything that's even loosely based on Lovecraft. This is certainly in the top tier level of Lovecraft games, I can already tell.
The dev is also seemingly quite active on Reddit and instantly helped me out with some unique resolution question, because I'm playing on a very big screen, which is not doing any favors to the retro artstyle. With his help I found a way to play this game in a better way and now I can truly appreciate the beautiful visuals of the game.
Anyway, I've already written too much... A big THANK YOU to the dev, who oviously truly put his heart into the project.
I hope we'll see more of him, maybe even more Lovecraft based stuff.
I ABSOLUTELY recommend this game, for this price it's an absolute steal, especially if you like Lovecraft. Even if you're not familiar with the original story, this game certainly is something to check out!
Steam User 5
This is the best adventure game of the last many years hands down, probably even of the last 10. I'm so thoroughly impressed by it that I don't even know where to begin.
For starters, I strongly appreciate how it doesn't drop the ball at any point. It's great from start to finish. By the end you kind of learn the ropes enough to achieve a smooth sailing course, and for the last two in-game days I found myself with little to do other than preparing for the grand finale, but that felt somewhat thematic. Also, given that the game keeps throwing unexpected problems at you all the time (like, say, the landlady sweeping away your carefully drawn arcane wards while cleaning your room), you gotta watch your back and make sure you don't become too complacent.
On some reflection I also came to the interesting conclusion that Dreams doesn't really have that much of standard 'adventure game' gameplay like combining items or solving puzzles, but it didn't bother me at all here because the entire game feels like a puzzle. The way you gotta plan each day, each *week*, protect yourself from random nightly encounters, solve problems and complications that keep mounting against you is really just insanely engrossing. It has a 'just one more turn!' effect no weaker than games like CIV. There were several instances over the course of my playtime where I wanted to just advance a day or two and found myself sinking for up to 3 hours straight like stupid. The open-ended format where you are left to your own devices only reinforces this.
The general non-linearity also works incredibly well with how interconnected everything is and with how much effort you gotta make to crack all of the game's secrets. I got what I guess is the best ending, but I still feel like I missed a few things, and I'm very curious how some others would turn out if I made different choices. In this sense it reminds me a LOT of games like Quest for Glory - that might be the most apt comparison I can make, I think, with the non-linearity, 'stats', character management for health/hunger, secrets etc. Though on the other hand, the more mundane character of some of the challenges (not freezing to death) or the repetition of actions that don't actually influence the plot in any way (studying for exams) is also strongly reminiscent of Papers Please.
Finally, and what some may consider the most important, it does remarkable justice to the source material. If you're familiar with the short story this is based on, you'll feel right at home, but the game will still surprise you more than once with its own additions or changes, which always feel like staying in line with the core as written by Lovecraft.
Given that I clocked 13 hours on my first, full playthrough, it's also pretty long for an adventure game. Not to mention that I can also easily imagine giving it another spin at some later point.