Undiscovered House is a short indie horror title that hits all of the boxes on the 'standard horror game' checklist. The simple premise is that you're driving home from work, you wreck your car avoiding some strange entity in the road, and you make your way to a random house. Turns out that said house has some creepy cult-like maniac lingering in the corridors, so it's in your best interest to find a way to get out as soon as possible.

There are three very typical areas to the game; the house, the sewers, and the hospital. The beginning of each area serves as a checkpoint, as there is no save function otherwise implemented. The gameplay is your typical key and item finding, and none of the objects are particularly difficult to hunt down. There's a decently functioning flashlight with a battery mechanic, but I personally never had to change to one of the six or seven batteries that I picked up since power indicator only dropped one bar, and I used the torch pretty liberally.

It's very easy to tell that Undiscovered House is the work of a solo developer, and it's most likely their first full-fledged title at that. Unfortunately, there's just nothing here that warrants a recommendation at the pricetag of $6 CAD, especially since the entire game can be completed in about 30 minutes, if you don't get lost in the second area like I did. Sure, there are some decent spooks, and the audio lends to a fairly tense atmosphere, but this is a dollar game at best. There's not even really any storytelling in the actual game, you have to get almost all of it from the store page. There were three or four notes thrown in some drawers in the first area, but it feels like the developer gave up after that. Undiscovered House isn't terrible by any means, but it just doesn't stand out in the sea of indie horror games already out there.

The Horror Network Curator | Group Click for Gore

The developer provided a free copy of this game for review, through The Horror Network's Curation page.

When I happened upon this house (in the video game not real life xD) I thought to myself "wow, this house hasn't been discovered yet and perhaps someday I'll be brave enough to be the man who is the man who is the one who is going to be the guy who is going to discover what is going to be going on inside of the goings on of this humble abode". This thought resonated in my mind for several minutes. However, overcome with horror I found myself unable to bring myself to be able to go inside. Horror permeated my mind "this is it" I began to believe "this is how I die (also in the videogame not real life again xD) but anyway, once the door opened up and beckoned me inside of the abode that was the aforementioned previously undiscovered house I came to realize that now the title of the game was incorrect because I did finally discover what was going on and WOW!!!!!!!!!! No longer undiscovered but still very much a house. Like I was saying, once I knew, I couldn't turn my mind away from the terror and now I realize that my life will never be comfortable again once I discovered the secret of the undiscovered house that was now discovered by me and it's a secret I will take to my grave (in real life). You will feel the same way as I feel I am sure once you spend a little time getting to know the house and it's residents (not to spoil anything of course, haha) lets just say if you're into chills, thrills, spills, kills, paying bills, and puppy mills than this is a game that might deserve your consideration. I will however say as a word of warning to you and yours this holiday season that it is pretty spooky and at points I might go so far as to say downright horrifying and if that's not something that you personally want from a videogame that you are sitting down to play in the evenings after work (or school) then I would say this game is NOT FOR YOU!!!!!! For once you discover what was previously not discoverable then oh man oh man oh man you'll know the answer like I do and that might be it for you, Jack.

God bless you thank you for taking the time to read my review

much love

and all the best

thanks again

8/10 ran like a dream (on my 3080 ;) )

https://youtu.be/q682q7rSoBU

(Video above features my playthrough of the demo, which encapsulates a fair portion of the first act. The released version on steam was largely unchanged from the demo so it's still a good preview should you want to view one. I have the remaining gameplay available to view on my channel should you get stuck/want a little more footage to preview)

An enjoyable little ride. It's a little lacking in the scare department, but the level designs are pretty quality, and there's a lot to search and explore, and there's a decent puzzle aspect to it. It's a relatively quick game which I state as an FYI for anyone who might have budget concerns. I finished my playthrough at a little over an hour, so you are paying $5 for a game that will not take that long. However, that's not nearly as egregious as some other indie horrors on here, and as I said, I did have fun playing it. I'm assuming this is the dev's first full game, so with that, I give kudos and look forward to seeing what he might have in the future. Thumb leaning slightly up on this one.

INTRODUCTION.

Undiscovered house is your typical indie horror game that focuses on exploration, and small amounts of puzzle solving.
The game itself is pretty cheap, for $2.99 you could get it for the loose change in your steam wallet you have after buying a different game.
However while the game has a few fun story elements, I would not suggest getting this game.

SPOILERS BELOW!

THE GOOD.

Let's talk about what I liked first.
* The introduction: I thought the intro cutscene was pretty nifty. With different camera angles, it's honestly quite impressive for what I assume is a solo developer.
* The voice-over: The voice action for the main character was a pleasant surprise. Though I wish they included more lines.
* Bugs: Fortunately, the game includes little to no bugs. The only one I found was the inability to interact with anything or open the pause menu in the sewers. I had to restart the game, which unfortunately reset my progress back to the start of the sewers. (Though I did find out that you can launch a book on the ground by crouching and uncrouching on top of it, which is always a plus)
*Light: The game was a lot brighter than most horror games I've played, which certainly helped with headaches.

THE BAD.

* The puzzles: Many of the puzzles are quite lackluster. And as a major part of the game, is a main reason I can't recommend the game. Most of them are finding objects around the map and bringing them elsewhere.
I think I spent more time actually trying to find the objects I needed, rather than progressing.
For example, in the first area of the game you need to interact with a book on a bookshelf to open a secret door. Unfortunately, the only way to tell you need to do this, is to hover over the specific book with your mouse. A better idea would have been to make all of the books the same color, except for the book you need to pull, which might be discolored.
* The monster: The first time you encounter the monster is actually in the intro cutscene. The monster (which my friends and I named Frederick) appears in front of you while you are driving, causing you to crash. One of the main issues with this is that this causes the game to commit the cardinal sin of horror games: Revealing the monster too early.
You encounter Frederick a number of times after, with him running around corners, phasing through the floor, and appearing in the hospital to try and kill you. This was the only time the game actually scared me, just because it was very unexpected. In the end though, I think it would have been better to have Frederick appear less and later on.
* The voice-over: I really liked the voice actor for this game. My only complaint about it is I wish they made more lines for him to say, and I wish he helped with puzzles. Some simple stuff like "Huh, maybe that gear will be useful" would go a long way, as I had a lot of issues actually seeing some of the items you need to pick up.
* Speed: A minor issue, but in the sewers you are forced to crouch to progress through tunnels. unfortunately you can't sprint while crouched, which makes it very tedious.
* Textures: Many of the wall textures are the exact same. While I know this is hard to fix as an indie developer, it made remembering rooms very hard.
* Writing: Another minor issue, however, the writing was a little repetitive. Overuse of periods, and the same length of sentences make it difficult to stay focused.

CONCLUSION.
Do i think that Undiscovered House is a good game? No, not really. What I do think however, is that it's a good FIRST game. The developer shows promise with their coding skills, and ability to create a story; I very much want to see what they do in the years to come.

Follow "First Person Exploration and Puzzle Games" for more games like this!

I just played their other game, Funeral (review here) and this feels like the same game. The UI is exactly the same; the gameplay is the same; even the puzzles are the same. The only difference is the environments: instead of a funeral home, caves, and volcano, this game has a home, sewers, and hospital. Also this game runs at an unplayable 15 FPS, whereas the newer one isn't that bad.

The game involves walking around looking for keys and padlock combinations. As you walk around creepy things happen. Aside from one point where you need to run away from a hilariously unscary enemy and hide in a closet, there is no fighting or enemies in this game. Most of your time is spent trying to figure out where to go next. The entire game takes 30 minutes to beat.

Overall, just like Funeral, I don't think there's much to recommend here.

Its a good game. A bit on the simple side. Fun for new players to the horror style game play. A couple places in the game tripped me up. I couldn't find the bronze key. And the second set of 4 number codes, I had to watch a video on YouTube to solve. The sewers part is a little boring. Glad to see crouch and sprint were on controls. Some nice jump scares for good measure are in there. End game is very good. I liked the story line. Thanks for the game.

The interact keys 'I' & 'E' randomly stop working. Tap escape and they start working again. That's until you leave the sewer. I can't interact with anything anymore. I don't know what's causing this. I don't have this issue in other games or writing this review. My keyboard is working fine.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 1234567890. See, I told you my keyboard works. The game isn't bad, a little cheezy tho.

Great game had some good scares

https://youtu.be/pBvstuztql4?si=qum8PhXqorBsY-pI

It's a 'hidden objects + walking sim' kind of game. It's definitely not a psychological horror game. You just need to search for objects and that's it! There are no puzzles as well.

Undiscovered House is not particularly good, but not particularly bad either. It looks overall quite nice, with selfmade textures and models, the house itself is filled with several hidden passages, and there were some good scares, but it overall falls into your basic horror game list.

The main issue this has is the entity, that stalks the player. In the first two maps its more of a ghostly being that jumpscares you, sometimes shifting through you, but in the last act it turns into a physical being that can actually harm the player. That just doesnt work at all. And the ending plays a cutscene where you walk into a room, which isnt bad, but it gets triggered when you leave said room.

Thank you Sysreb Games, for providing me with a copy, much appreciated!

Horror/Surrealist centered Curator: KuriKuration