Let's note first off that this developer for the past many months has been launching a similar type of game about once per month...

And it shows when you play this game which is his newest title at this time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwlPw4L6TzA

Now, let's be fair, if you watch my first play and initial first impressions in the above video, you'll see that the ultra cheap death after playing this game for 20+ minutes triggered me. And to be honest, I think almost ANY player who had to start all over because of such a cheap death would be frustrated as well. That's also assuming that they played this horrific game long enough to experience such a frustrating death.

What the developer has here does show some level of effort, so it's certainly not the worst stuff available on Steam these days, and is still much preferable to just a lazy asset flip.

There's lots of things my moderator and I mention in my initial review of this game that the developer could take to heart and use to improve his game(s)...

- Making the flashlight spread out light as it expands outwards rather than being just light or complete darkness would be a HUGE upgrade! And if the developer wants to know how to do this in GameMaker, I use the same engine myself. I will make a quick demonstration video and upload it to my channel soon to show how little effort would be needed to improve his flashlight look ten times over!

- Adding an interact button so that you can interact with items, blood on the floor and make the game just way more enjoyable. Adding clues and notes and things to actually interact with would go a long ways to giving this game much more "heart & soul"

- Adding a save game feature, or at least adding check points so that you don't need to start completely over should you die

- Removing cheap deaths from this game like the one I experienced in the video

- Adding exciting chases that actually matter to the game. Maybe use that interact button I mentioned to allow the player to "hide" in certain items already in the game such as closets or even beds. ..How hard would it be to just make the players alpha = 0 to have them hiding while a monster passes by? - This could make the game 10x better and more fun alone

- Adding collectibles besides keys to get through doors. Perhaps making different colored doors require keys of the same colors

That's just a few ideas.

The real question is... Does this developer really care enough to put "Quality" over "Quantity"? All of the ideas I've given him would be fairly quick and easy changes that could go a long ways to improving his game(s).

As it is, this game is a 1 out of 10 and "not fun" at all as I mentioned in the video.

I'll be more than happy to re-review his game should he actually show us he cares enough to make changes. ..He doesn't need to necessarily make the changes I suggest, but he needs to show us he cares about making this game better and a much more enjoyable game to play.

Dev.. "Is this game right now a game YOU enjoy playing yourself?" ..If you can't honestly say "yes" to that question, how in the hell do you expect your customers to enjoy it?


NOT RECOMMENDED. 1 out of 10.

Usual walking around, key search, avoiding traps.
It can be played once.
The only negative I can point out is that for me, the game regularly crashed at the start of the "Basement Layer 2" level, it took 4-5 attempts to play through this level.

Don't let the time fool you, I got lost and wanted to map it to write up a guide later, and yeah I definitely glitched out a couple times. Even so, it's a good horror exploration game, fast-paced, heart-pounding, creepy as ♥♥♥♥. Trite, but fun! The art is fairly hideous and if you're epileptic DO NOT PLAY, you will have a seizure in no time, but I really enjoyed it!

9/10 would scream and curse at ghosts / demons slaying me again.

Simplistic adventure horror with broken with broken save mechanics.

Ghost In The Barn House is a template flip from Anamik Majumdar, who keeps reskinning the same lame GameMaker Studio game template and re-releasing it on Steam with a few minor changes. The GameMaker Studio template he keeps re-releasing is just a basic retro pixel (couldn't he rip off a template with proper graphics??) 2D top down/platformer stealth/action game. Here's some other results of his copy+paste school of "game development":

• Haunted Jail: Alcatas
  
• Ghost in the Barn House
  
• Gaze at Maze
  
• Smash Halloween Pumpkins: The Challenge
  
• The Chills
  
• Gregor Hills Haunted Hospital
  
• Jaxon The Thief
  
• House Number 666
  
• My Haunted Doll
  
• Axizon Labs: Zombies
  
• The Haunted Exmone Theatre
  
• Rescue Rina
  
• The Haunted Tunnel
  
• Heltons Haunted Hotel
  
• Gaze At Maze

These are all basically the exact same GameMaker Studio game template with a different skin and a couple of things changed. No professional effort was made in terms of game development, using a game construction kit requires no game development talent, and unsurprisingly produces products that have little to no value as games, especially when compared to the work of professional developers who create genuine products for gamers.

No matter how many times this guy copy+pastes the same game, it's not suddenly going to become anything but garbage. Rehashing the same game over and over again is just a cheap nasty cash grab. While Anamik Majumdar occasionally breaks Valve guidelines for partners and attacks reviewers, any legitimacy he may have is eracticated by the way he pumps these copy+paste asset flips out and bulk sells keys to crapware bundle merchants like DailyIndieGame.

As usual, my recommendation is to never give money to asset flippers and construction kit copy+paste scammers, so don't reward this one.

Easy Achievements, 100% / ~30min.

very scary