I recently completed all four games in the 1000 doors series, and this one was my least favourite.

I like the new gameplay mechanics added in this game, such as the use of the cat, and other tools, but there is a lot wrong with everything else.
For a game released in 2018, the rendered cutscenes are an awful quality. It breaks the immersion and it's painful to watch.
The voice acting is awful, for example, a Yeti that sounds like they hired some random person off the street to voice it.
The main character often commentates throughout the story, and it sounds completely out of place. Mainly because she's speaking out loud, as if she knows the player is listening.
Comparing the graphics to the earlier games, I don't like the graphics and visual style. The original games were creepy, and the graphics looked somewhat realistic and dark. In this game, it feels very Scooby-Doo-like. The overall look is more like a cartoon.
And my final complaint may be a little more personal. The game seems to find as many excuses as it can to create obstacles. There are moments where you come across a pile of hay, and you need to acquire a tool to dig up the hay, to get an item underneath. Firstly, how does the character know there's an item under there? Secondly, how do they know they need that item? Thirdly, why can't she just dig the hay with her hands?

Personally, you should go and play the originals.

I did enjoy the game. It is a solid HOPA with variety of puzzles, special features and a cat that is your helper. I didn't encounter any bugs and issues unlike players from other reviews.

PROS:

* Solid 4 hours of gameplay
* Beautiful graphics
* Good music
* Interesting plot
* Bonus chapter
* Variety of puzzles from very easy to more challenging ones
* Right amount of HO scenes
* Quite dynamic
* Not too much backtracking (and you have an interactive map)

Cons:

* Really annoying voice and comments from the main character, reminds me of a not very smart twelve year old who is surprised by everyday objects
* No steam achievements/badge

Very buggy. I was unable to continue an HO because the game no longer recognized/responded to clicks, so I couldn't get any further in the game. It also glitched several times when clicking on an interactive item - the boxes would open with flashing lines across the entire window, after which it could take closing it several times before it could be interacted with. It's too bad, the game itself seemed fun, as far as I got; but now I'm stuck with an unplayable, unrefundable (too many hours :\ ) game.

*Contains spoilers*

Let me start by saying I LOVE the House of 1000 Doors series. Nothing can ever beat the first one, but the second and third were excellent as well. Now to talk about the fourth. While the characters had a huge ramp up with their graphics and design, the rest of the game was a crash and burn failure, totally not up to par with the first three. Not only was the game enormously bugged with glitches in almost every other scene, the cut scenes were terrible quality, you just had to cringe your way through it. I will admit it was an interesting premise to test yourself against the other members of the house, but I really enjoyed all the characters as "good guys" and was not thrilled with having to fight them. Also, after the bonus game in Serpent's Flame, I was expecting the fourth game to be about Kate learning about her ancestry with the people of light, maybe even a little romance with Rafael, not some teenage nobody as the main character. Overall, I was extremely disappointed with this game, especially the glitches which nearly made gameplay impossible, but if you haven't played the first three in the series, absolutely do so, they are incredible!

I’d probably go with a mixed review if I could. This game is the fourth in the series for House of 1000 Doors. Like the others in this series, this game has some good points, such as the instant travel map and the built-in walkthrough. However, there is a lot of pixel-hunting and I didn’t like the new mini-games, so I’ll go with a thumbs down.

This game introduces a new protagonist and some new game mechanics. No additional games have been made in this series, so apparently the changes weren’t that popular. It’s still a hidden object game and I could live with Emily as the main character instead of Kate as in the first three games. However, I didn’t like the new mini-games which appeared every time you use the power of light to fight evil. When Emily tries to cast a light spell, you have to trace a pattern. In the bonus chapter, when Kate tries to use a light gun, you have to click on a spinner when it gets to the right color. These are tests of reflexes, not logical puzzles. Having to do them once would be bad enough, but having to do them repeatedly gets to be really annoying.

For me it´s the weakest part.
Sadly they have changed so much that the series has lost its charm.
But it´s still a good point and click adventure :D

Es ist der schwächste Teil.
Leider haben sie so viel verändert, dass die Serie ihren Charme verliert.
Trotzdem ist es ein gutes Wimmelbild :D

It is an ok hidden object game. It was a bit sparse on the hidden object scenes and it did drag on a bit to me, but I wasn't too bad.

Works without any issues on Linux with Proton (5.13-5).

I quite like the first 3 games in the House of 1000 Doors series with the 3rd game being my favorite in the franchise, even though the games aren't anything great, they were just fun, simple, short games, and I enjoyed them! However, the 4th game in the series is not very good. While it's certainly not awful, it's definitely the worst of the 4 and the only one I personally don't recommend.

Let's start off with the things I actually like about this game. The gameplay is probably the best in the series, though like the previous entries, it's still not all that excellent. There's tons of new mechanics that adds some diversity in the gameplay. My personal favorite new feature being the cat. However, I do wish some of the mechanics were used more, and I also don't like how the game literally shows you when to use them sometimes. I really hated the 'hidden object scenes' in the first 3 games since they felt like boring time padding, however in this game, while I still find some of them to be pretty bad, they definitely made them more entertaining. And even though I think it has the best gameplay, the puzzles are also way to easy compared to the other games. Also apparently, according to other reviews, there is a lot of glitches in this game, but I never personally ran into any on my playthrough. Overall, the gameplay is the best in the series in my opinion, though it's definitely not perfect. If you liked the gameplay from the first 3 games, then you will probably like this game, I myself don't really like the gameplay in any of the games so I still didn't really care for the playstyle, but it's definitely subjective.

I also quite liked the soundtrack and the visuals. The soundtrack is quite good and it's probably the most consistently good in the series (though the 3rd game still has my favorite soundtrack from the series). The visuals are also pretty great, just like the previous games. Even though I really like this games visuals, it's probably the worst visually of the 4 games, since a lot of the areas all have the same colors and overall look very similar. The previous games all had tons of diversity in the areas visually, but in this game, a lot of the areas blend together. And for some reason, every fully animated cutscene in this game is a WAY lower quality than the rest of the game. But either way, the game still looks pretty solid, and has a decent soundtrack.

Now on to the things I don't like about this game. Starting with the story. The previous games stories weren't necessarily great, but they were atleast interesting, fun and unique. But this games story is the generic "Stop the evil darkness with the power of light!" The story is just downright lazy, boring and uninteresting. And nothing interesting happens throughout the entire game, and it simply ends with Emily defeating the darkness with light and all is saved! Hooray! . The only thing even remotely engaging that happens throughout the entire game is the ending of the bonus chapter where Kate is turned evil by the darkness, it was the only thing even slightly surprising the entire game. Even then it's not all that interesting, since she turns evil in the main game aswell, so we already know that it isn't a huge deal that she was taken by darkness. And it's also probably just setup for a 5th game which is pretty disappointing since that means they'll probably just keep doing this boring darkness storyline. . Also the story effectively has absolutely nothing to do with the previous games outside of returning characters, so there's pretty much no point in playing it if you want to know the rest of the story.

Speaking of the characters, I really don't like the characters in this game. In this game, there's a new protagonist, instead of playing as Kate like in the first 3 games, you now play as Emily. And she's in my opinion much better than Kate since she has a lot more personality. I like that she actually talks outside of cutscenes now, it adds more personality to her character. But even then, Emily still isn't an excellent character, but she is definitely the best character in this game, and she's really the only good character in the entire game. One of the main reasons I like the first 3 games much more than this one is because they actually have a unique cast of characters. But in this game, the characters have as much personality as a rock, and trust me, rocks don't have much personality (I have a lot of experience with them). Every character is basically the exact same, just with different designs and voice actors. They all just ask you to help them and that's all they do, they have no other character trait. And the Lancasters have much less personality and are way less interesting in this game then they were in previous entries. And the voice acting in this game is abysmal, the previous games all had bad voice acting, but this one takes it to a whole new level. The Lancasters all have completely new voice actors, I guess they couldn't get the original VA's to come back, for some reason. And the new voice actors are soo much worse than the first 3 games. It sounds like they have absolutely no energy and are just reading the script. And the new characters' voice acting is not much better either.

Overall, House of 1000 Doors: Evil Inside is by far the worst game in the series, and I really don't recommend playing it, unless you really like the gameplay of the first 3, or you are just a diehard fan of the series. Just stick to the first 3.

Well this was longer than I was expecting... Are you still reading this? If you are then i'm impressed, but also sorry that you had to read this really long post. Are you happy? Are you happy that you spent all this time out of your day just to read this really long Steam review rant of this game? Are you happy that you will never get this time in your life back? I hope you are happy with your choices.


But yeah it's an alright game, just the worst in the series.

If you're a casual player of hidden object games, then skip this one. It's far too frustrating for the casual player. It looks like it should be good -- it has decent story, art, and music -- but the gameplay ruins it.

PRO:
+ Decent story (typical for a hidden object game, but enjoyable nonetheless)
+ Good artwork
+ Good music

CON:
- Many Interactive areas (which are necessary to progress) do not change the cursor, so you have no idea you can interact with them until you start randomly clicking everything on the screen.
- Interactive areas marked with the gear often do nothing if you cannot interact with them yet -- when you click them, there is no text or other indicator to inform you what you need to do (or even that you need to do something else first).
- Many of the objects in the hidden object scenes are hidden inside of containers (cabinets, chests, etc) and you need to interact with those containers to un-hide the objects, but there is no mention of this (no different-color object name, etc) and there is nothing to indicate the container is interactive (the cursor does not change when moving over the container). The only way you solve these scenes is by using hints, using the built-in strategy guide, or randomly clicking all over the scene.
- One hidden object scene has "Stamp" as a required object, and it's up to you to determine which of the multiple stamps in the scene is the one they want (the same scene is used twice, with a different stamp required each time).
- You need to use your light gun to destroy infected objects in many scenes. To do this, there is a circle separated into four green segments and four red segments, and a rotating target indicator. You must click the mouse button when the rotating target indicator is over the green segments. Two of these are easy to hit, one is moderate difficulty, and one is very difficult because it requires very precise timing.
- One of the mini-games is the standard memory tile game (flip over the tiles, two at a time, and find matching images), but the tiles rotate position after every attempt (even successful matches).
- Some of the objects you need to find in the hidden object scenes are mislabeled and/or do not look like the named object.

It took me just over 9 hours to fully complete this game (main game plus bonus chapter) on the default "Casual" difficulty, and very little of that time was enjoyment. Must of it was frustration, mostly due to the fact that I didn't know how to progress the story because I didn't realize that interactive areas were interactive (because of the lack of indicators). Whereas I enjoyed the other House of 1000 Doors games, I struggled, with little enjoyment, to finish this game, only because I hate leaving games unfinished.

If you're a pro at hidden object games, you might not have any problems, but if you're a casual gamer, it's best to avoid this one.

Issue with HOG in wine cellar.... unable to pick up last cork?