HorrorStory: Hallowseed the beggining of a new world of fear!

 

HorrorStory: Hallowseed is an atmospheric first person psychological horror walking sim with deeply rooted lore. It was developed by Jeff Winner, published by Fulqrum Publishing the game retails for $19.99 as of the release of this review and was published in October 2021. I did purchase the game during a steam sale. It took me about 4hrs and 30 min to complete with both endings. 

When I started to playing HSH, I was blown away by how beautiful the atmosphere was, it was truly breathtaking. From the texture of the trees in the forests, to the dark, dirty and dilapidate visuals of the house set the dev did a fantastic job, I have absolutely NO issues with the atmosphere that was set for me. Now the sound design, was top notch. I had in ear buds, so all of the sound went directly into my ears and oh my lord, was it haunting. The sounds that got me the most, is when the female demon was singing i felt uncomfortable and disturbed and I loved every second of it. The other thing I would like to commend the dev of is the ambient sound and background music. WOW is all I can say, it was both something I would want to listen to while i fall asleep and something that would give me violent nightmares!! Now most of the voice acting was done by the dev and a few others, it by no means was bad. It was well done, I do feel there could have been some tweaks during a few scenes that could have had more of an emotional impact, but I love the fact the entire game was fully voice acted.

The game play was smoother than butter, I experienced no frame drops or choppy loading screens. The movements were exceptionally smooth no matter how many times I got scared and flailed my mouse around the screen nothing froze up. The gameplay areas were pretty well staggered and I felt that I didn't spend too much time in one section. The controls were very easy to use, there is no inventory screen, which I felt worked well in this situation as there was nothing you were crafting or combining items, it was simple. The game used a simple corner method of inventory showing you in the corner what you have in hand. Again, its simple, clean and it works. I do have to say something that made this game truly unique was the save mechanic - you played a piano to save your game any melody or smashing of they keys, and no you cant play the intro to "Black Parade" because you can only use the white keys.

The story was awesome and left s a few things open to interpretation and left it open for a possible sequel in the future. The events in the story (without spoiling anything) was well paced and I felt through out the game I didn't gain all the information I needed to understand the full story until nearly the end of the game,  and even then, I had some questions that needed answered. So I will have to leave it up to interpretation. 

When it comes to character design, this is something, in my humble opinion that could make or break a game, especially when you have amazing visuals and intense sound design and the character design sucks. This is not the case here, although I would have to say my one complaint I wanted to see what the protagonist looked like! However, the demons, side characters and other antagonists were well designed and realistic!

SOUND DESIGN & VISUALS:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐9.5/10

GAMEPLAY: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ⭐⭐⭐ 9.5/10

CONTROLS:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 9/10

STORY:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 8.5/10 

CHARACTER DESIGN:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 8/10

Overall Score: 8.9 / 10

Final Thoughts

HorrorStory: Hallowseed is a great game. There I said it!  The dev (Jeff) was so incredibly sweet and sat with me during my entire playthrough and helped me on some areas that i was stuck on. He was so humble and I sensed how proud he was with his creation and I was honored that he chose to spend the time with me and my community. This game is well worth the time to play and I really don't have much, if anything bad to say about it. It is 100% worth a playthrough. Well done Jeff! I loved every second of this game!