Puppet Combo is a game developer who is by no means a newcomer to creating unique and outstanding horror titles. He (previously solo, he has recently hired some new team members) has been consistently releasing games since 2012, with most years seeing multiple titles published; primarily on Itch and his Patreon. Murder House just happens to be his first foyer into releasing his work onto Steam. Doing so paid off with a lot of new attention and a rising popularity that he may not have otherwise seen had he kept lurking in the shadows of less prevalent sites.

And what a grand induction onto Steam that Murder House proves to be. Keeping with the signature style of the rest of his catalogue, this title is also a PS1-style retro survival horror game. You play as Emma, a day-one intern for a news channel that is covering the gruesome story of the Easter Ripper; a serial killer that murdered several children throughout the late '70s and early '80s. Of course there's no better place to film a mini-documentary than the infamous house where all of the killings happened. It should be safe though, since he was executed in 1985, right? Well, it doesn't take long before the team start to die one-by-one at the hands, or scythe, of the sinister blood-soaked bunny rabbit.

If you've played any of the first three Silent Hill games, then you'll already know what to expect with Murder House; you'll be finding useful items, keys, weapons, survival mainstays for health and ammo, and interacting with virtually everything to ensure you don't miss something. There's very little direction given on where to go and what to do at first, but once you get into the swing of things the gameplay becomes much easier. With that said, there are still many times where you'll end up wandering around the house with no clue where to go next until you stumble across the progression piece. This title also features tank controls... sort of. They're not as convoluted as a typical tank control scheme, which forces you to press the backwards move direction to move forwards if you're facing the wrong way, but it's a decent modern emulation and it does its part in making the game more difficult.

With the good comes the bad, and Murder House does have some quirks that need to be addressed. For one, being able to interact with an object means that you have to be spot-on facing it. If you're even so much as a bit off on your direction, you'll end up interacting with the wrong thing over and over again. Another problem is that your character will auto lock-on to the killer when aiming a weapon at him regardless if you're facing him or not, but when you let go of the aim it'll put you back in whatever position you were in and completely skew the tank controls. This latter issue caused my death quite a few times, as it forced me into running directly into the killer unless I was already facing him to shoot. Lastly, and with a bit of nitpickyness, a lot of the text dialogue doesn't match up with the voice narration, and the main character's name is even completely different sometimes.

Murder House is an exquisite exposition in '80s gore and a love letter to both old campy slasher films and the survival horror gods; tinges of the original Silent Hill and Resident Evil games are pervasive throughout the 3-4 hour playtime, while just a small pinch of Clock Tower is added in for good measure. There's even a tip-of-the-hat towards Harvester in at least one of the kill scenes, while a very famous Leatherface kill can be seen sometimes when you die to the killer. As an added bit of immersion, Puppet Combo even took it a step further and added several filter options, from VHS, old beat-up rental VHS, to PS1 and beyond, along with several CRT options such as scanlines. He also added an expanded ending in early 2021. The bottom line here is that if you love all of the things referenced already in this review, then there's no reason that you shouldn't already own Murder House.

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Puppet Combo is a game developer who is by no means a newcomer to creating unique and outstanding horror titles. He (previously solo, he has recently hired some new team members) has been consistently releasing games since 2012, with most years seeing multiple titles published; primarily on Itch and his Patreon. Murder House just happens to be his first foyer into releasing his work onto Steam. Doing so paid off with a lot of new attention and a rising popularity that he may not have otherwise seen had he kept lurking in the shadows of less prevalent sites. And what a grand induction onto Steam that Murder House proves to be. Keeping with the signature style of the rest of his catalogue, this title is also a PS1-style retro survival horror game. You play as Emma, a day-one intern for a news channel that is covering the gruesome story of the Easter Ripper; a serial killer that murdered several children throughout the late '70s and early '80s. Of course there's no better place to film a mini-documentary than the infamous house where all of the killings happened. It should be safe though, since he was executed in 1985, right? Well, it doesn't take long before the team start to die one-by-one at the hands, or scythe, of the sinister blood-soaked bunny rabbit. If you've played any of the first three Silent Hill games, then you'll already know what to expect with Murder House; you'll be finding useful items, keys, weapons, survival mainstays for health and ammo, and interacting with virtually everything to ensure you don't miss something. There's very little direction given on where to go and what to do at first, but once you get into the swing of things the gameplay becomes much easier. With that said, there are still many times where you'll end up wandering around the house with no clue where to go next until you stumble across the progression piece. This title also features tank controls... sort of. They're not as convoluted as a typical tank control scheme, which forces you to press the backwards move direction to move forwards if you're facing the wrong way, but it's a decent modern emulation and it does its part in making the game more difficult. With the good comes the bad, and Murder House does have some quirks that need to be addressed. For one, being able to interact with an object means that you have to be spot-on facing it. If you're even so much as a bit off on your direction, you'll end up interacting with the wrong thing over and over again. Another problem is that your character will auto lock-on to the killer when aiming a weapon at him regardless if you're facing him or not, but when you let go of the aim it'll put you back in whatever position you were in and completely skew the tank controls. This latter issue caused my death quite a few times, as it forced me into running directly into the killer unless I was already facing him to shoot. Lastly, and with a bit of nitpickyness, a lot of the text dialogue doesn't match up with the voice narration, and the main character's name is even completely different sometimes. Murder House is an exquisite exposition in '80s gore and a love letter to both old campy slasher films and the survival horror gods; tinges of the original Silent Hill and Resident Evil games are pervasive throughout the 3-4 hour playtime, while just a small pinch of Clock Tower is added in for good measure. There's even a tip-of-the-hat towards Harvester in at least one of the kill scenes, while a very famous Leatherface kill can be seen sometimes when you die to the killer. As an added bit of immersion, Puppet Combo even took it a step further and added several filter options, from VHS, old beat-up rental VHS, to PS1 and beyond, along with several CRT options such as scanlines. He also added an expanded ending in early 2021. The bottom line here is that if you love all of the things referenced already in this review, then there's no reason that you shouldn't already own Murder House. [h1]Rating: [b]5.0/5.0[/b] - An astonishing achievement, this game must be played.[/h1] The Horror Network [url=http://steamproxy.net/steamstore/curator/28221963/]Curator[/url] | [url=http://steamproxy.net/groups/thehorrornetwork]Group[/url] Click for Gore