I'm the guy that localised the English dialog for this game and have tested it maybe more than a hundred times over the course of five years. I love this game! I love it so much that I even tested a full run yesterday, the day before release, and still had a ton of fun with it.

It's so different to anything else out there for Lovecraft fans. One thing that might confuse some players is that it's not meant to be played exclusively to "win" or to "beat it"... it is an immersive trip into the world of the story.

No matter how you play it, there will be an ending that lives up to your style of play.

Actually, the "bad" endings are the ones that are the most true to Lovecraft's stories and are just as much fun as "winning".

It can be played so many times in so many ways and has so many surprises to offer. Don't expect to see everything on a first run.

It is a true "role-playing game" as well. You can be a nice guy, or a bit of a jerk. You can get involved in the mystery, or try to ignore it.

But it probably won't ignore you back.

Dreams in the Witch House is a point & click -quasi-adventure with additional survival elements for depth and breeze of fresh air to the formula. Art style and presentation in general feel somewhat reminiscent of LucasArts classics from the DOS era while staying true to itself. Mellow color scheme paints a picture of restrained times and mystery tends to have a more vibrant tone. Soundscape is appropriate and atmospheric. All in all, both spirit of the early 20th century and Lovecraftian theme seem well realized.

Puzzles aren't very difficult (if you know some P&C), often have several solutions and they among other things can vary between playthroughs. Survival/management aspect can be handled with a little planning ability and adjusting to RNG such as rainy day mixing them up. Succeeding demands paying attention and going over same routines can be a little stressing. You could say it's pretty much like typical broke student life. Story and narrative are built around player's actions and can lead to variety of epilogues, but events of the novel can also be quite closely followed.

Perhaps the game could benefit from more streets, parks, and relevant places intertwining instead of having a map with handful of spots to visit. One could also see insanity, other "perks" and social interaction expanded. Nevertheless, game is good time and a solid offering. Iä.

This is absolutely more of a survival game than an adventure game. I love adventure games and I certainly have no problems with fail states in adventure games especially if they are based more on story decisions you make in the game or going into dangerous areas and getting killed (i.e. the Laura Bow games where the murderer can literally kill you if you go into the wrong room). I do feel that any adventure game that has a fail state because you missed an item necessary for a puzzle are atrocious game design decisions that should not have made it out of the 90’s (i.e. specifically Kings Quest 5 which had multiple such fail states that would end the game…)

This game literally picks the worst possible option which makes it far more of a survival game. It has multiple stats you got to keep up and if you don’t keep them up you die. It makes the game so incredibly boring and tedious. Instead of me learning more about what is going on, I have to spend so much ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time not freezing to death or getting eaten by rats. I don’t find this game enjoyable to play. While the story seems interesting I never really learned much of what was going on as eventually the game just ends.

I just don’t know who this game is really for. I guess people that love survival games? I also found the puzzles to just be real obtuse. I just never had any real idea what I was supposed to do. Armitage generally asks you questions about your “investigation” but I had no idea what he wanted. He kept wanting info about a witch but no one seemed to want to talk to me about the witch. Maybe if I didn’t have to spend all my time looking for food and firewood I could have figured it out.

I wrote my master thesis and assumed that would do something for the plot but as far as I can tell it did not…and that took up a crazy amount of time. I guess in the end this game reminded me a lot of very very early adventure games that didn’t really understand how to craft stories or puzzles that would lead a player to understand what they were even supposed to do. Something like Kings Quest 1 or Police Quest which were obtuse to the point of unplayability.

An open world cosmic horror adventure games is certainly a great idea…but the way this is executed is not it. All the survival aspects should have been jettisoned and more time should have been spent on crafting interesting characters like Alison and Elwood and made far more locations to visit and puzzles to solve. If you wanted different endings that’s great, but you need to make it based on story decisions…maybe befriending Elwood leads to certain clues appearing that leads you on a completely different trail vs befriending Alison or Armitage. Each day the game could make it clear you can choose to hang out with one of those 3 characters. Instead of having to constantly study to up “occult” or “math” or “exam” scores…just have it be story decisions. As in every day you can go to the either the special library to study the occult, go to class to prepare for exams and then have story beats occur at those locations every single time you do it. Instead the bulk of this game is just level up stats that you don’t really understand what the point of them are.

I certainly wanted to like this game as I love cosmic horror stories, but this story just felt impenetrable and starting another playthrough when I know how tedious these survival mechanics are greatly dissuaded me. A better version of this game is Unavowed or Scarlet Hollow. Both tell cosmic horror stories and both get rid of the awful survival mechanics or fail states of early adventure games and focus on the story and massive player choices affecting the story.

An excellent yet unforgiving Lovecraftian adventure.

PH’NGLUI MGLW’NAFH CTHULHU R’LYEH WGAH’NAGL FHTAGN!....::cough:: excus ::cough:: :cough: Excuse me! Had something in my throat there...think I might be coming down with something from that rat that bit me...anyway, on to the review!


-Starts right up, no major setup headaches
-Excellent pixel art backgrounds and sprite design
-Fun story and gameplay. :Cough:...AZATHOTH...
-Attention to detail everywhere in this one. From the fake writings and old court records to the custom sprite movements for specific tasks. I always notice this kinda stuff and I always appreciate it!
-This is an engrossing game to play. I'm close to 20 hrs in and there are still somethings I may go back to discover. This is interesting because I am def not a 100% completionist kinda guy and yet I want to see what some of those other achievements are.
-Lovecraftian games have become one of my fav genres and this is def in the top tier.
-Some great horror sequences. Hair on my arms was standing on end in a few parts lol.


-Including RPG/life management features can be a difficult thing to get right in a P&C title. Over do it, and you alienate P&C fans. Under do it and it just becomes a hinderance (kinda like real life). :cough:..YOG-SOTHOTH...
-Many features in this game utilize a random seed generator. So things like the correct book to read or where you find a certain item will change each time you start a new game. I appreciate the work put into this, however it just makes it difficult to get thru a tricky part of the game. In the worst cases it adds busy work (the whole researching court documents things is a pain I don’t have time to re-read 41 pages of documents so I can answer a question correctly.)
-Despite the level of detail and work put into making this feel like an immersive experience, I had the feeling at times that I wish there was more. More locations, more characters, more stuff to investigate. I think its the repetition of some of the RPG-ish elements that made me think this. I don’t always know what the hell I’m trying to point out in these reviews and this is one of those cases. If anyone can better describe this feeling feel free to let me know in the comments.
-Though I found the music to be atmospheric in this game its long play time can make any sound track feel repeitive.


-Has my most hated of P&C puzzles, the dreaded Music puzzle (duhn-duhn-duaaaAAAHHHHHHH.....)
-As of this writing, it looks as though the developer is still making changes to some of the balance systems (how much you get paid, the rate sickness increases, etc). Though positive changes are welcome, I'm still pissed I had to rake the lawn multiple times for 2 freakin’ dollars in a game world where a newspaper is a dollar?! Between that and the fact my room had bodies buried in the world makes me think the landlady is a total b$*@%.
-I don't think this game should have had variable difficulty levels. I started at normal difficulty and failed miserably. Easy mode was, well, easier but still pretty challenging. I guess its nice that the developer is catering to sadists and adding not only a hard difficulty, but also an Ironman Mode with only one save slot that can be used when exiting the game. I am not against difficulty levels in P&C games, but to me its inclusion in this game does not add to the experience and only serves to make things artificially difficult.
-It’s easy to waste a lot of time in the first play throughs. Some hints towards what are good actions to take early on would have been helpful.


Lovecraft and P&C games are a match made in heaven... or should I say Azathoth's court at the center of infinity. Whatever floats your boat. The developers of this one have put in a lot of effort to stay true to the genre as well as making sure the players get their money's worth. Despite the caveats list above, I think this is an excellent P&C game and recommend it to all of my fellow P&C afficionados out there! Now if you excuse me, I have to go draw my nightly Elder Sign in witches oil under my bed and down a bottle of 1920's sleeping pills.

Until next time friends! ::COUGH::COUGH::...CAHF AH NAFL MGLW'NAFH HH' AHOR SYHA'H AH'LEGETH, NG LLLL OR'AZATH SYHA'HNAHH N'GHFTEPHAI N'GHA AHORNAH AH'MGLW'NAFH

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This game offers all, a lover of Lovecraft and adventure can wish for ! Great story, a lot of the development is due to the player, what we discover, what we want to know, how far we want to go..... for sure I will play this more than once.

A wonderful experience - highly recommended, don't miss this game !

I struggled to afford anything because I had spent all my money on expensive food in cafes at the start of the month, I did badly in my exams because of lack of sleep, I hallucinated, had a nervous breakdown, and was chased by muggers and unspeakable horrors at night.

An accurate simulation of university life. 10/10.

Another day, another Lovecraft-inspired game. However, the difference from other games that tries similar things, is that Dreams in the Witch House actually succeeds at what it tries to do. It got a nice atmosphere that feels like it could be part of Lovecraft mythos, and it got interesting gameplay to boot – beyond the traditional point & click stuff. I played the demo last year and was impressed with the game then already, so it makes me happy the full title retains the feeling I got from the demo. Atom Brain Games created something truly special here, and now we can only hope that they continue on this track for the future. But enough of that, what about the story, and how does it play?

You play Walter Gilman, a student of Miskatonic University with an interest in the occult. The location is of course Arkham, which is an infamous city when it comes to Lovecraft lore. It’s a place where strange powers manifest more easily than other areas – in other words, a great spot for the occult! Your aunt and benefactor have rented an apartment in the “Witch house”, and each week she will send you an allowance of 10 dollars so you can live and study. The game revolves around Walter’s life as a student, and it’s quite possible to ignore the occult and focus on your studies. But as these things go, the mystery of the city will eventually seek you out, and it’s a hard thing to ignore if you are like me and have a love for a good mystery. The risk of this is that you open something that will be hard to close once opened, and the further you get into this riddle of the dark arts, the risks get bigger with Walter’s life at a stake. Yes, you can die in the game! Not going to spoil anything here, but the story is great, and the way it’s told is good as well. It’s slowly being told in segments spliced between more of the mundane moments of student life, and often it’s dependent on your investigations which adds a feeling of you having to actively seek out the truth. This is a superb addition to the game since it rests the narrative progress on the shoulders of the player. I should add that this is a tale based on one of Lovecraft’s writings that goes under the same name. If you know the plot since before, you will know what is to come since it follows the same story beats, however, the narrative in the game is not set in stone which allows you to dictate how it ends through your actions.

What makes Dreams in the Witch House stand out, beyond the story, is that the game has actual gameplay more than clicking and combining items as most classic adventure games, even if that is a thing too. Right from the start you will come to the knowledge that student life in Arkham is arduous and dangerous, especially if you take the plunge into the occult. You will have to balance money, time, what to study, what to eat, and try to maintain your sanity. It’s a survival game in the middle of your typical adventure, and I found it highly immersive. For example, to survive night terrors you might have to buy sleeping pills for your precious few dollars, otherwise, your lack of sleep might spiral out of control into insanity or worse. Do you eat, or do you waste dollars meant for food just for one good night’s rest?

The best part is that the game lets you plan it out by yourself, and gives you no help past the tutorial screen. In my first playthrough, lots of things went wrong, I starved, I got sick, missed classes, and got haunted by visions beyond what my mind could sustain. And when it comes to looking up information for historical events and other things to proceed with your investigations, you will have to go through lots of “indexes” to search for clues, and at times it feels really involved and often it leads to interesting events. Walter also has stats, like health and sanity, but there are also occult and math. I would say the occult skill is the most important if you want to take part in the mystery. It lets you read old tomes, and decipher standing stones filled with mysterious texts which leads to cool stuff for the narrative. Probably more so than the other stuff, but since it’s all a balancing act, other academic work will suffer which in the end will affect how much money you earn. It depends on how rounded, or “normal” you want Walter to be. Roleplaying at its finest, at least when it comes to point & click. I should also add that there are puzzles to solve in the traditional sense when it comes to adventure games, and most of these puzzles are randomized from playthrough to playthrough to add to the replay value.

The visuals are nice, it’s pixel art in style, as is typical for adventure games, however, it’s well-made and looks beautiful beyond what the quality of the price suggests. It’s cheap (around 10 euros) and got graphics past what is required. Lots of things are animated, like movement, interaction with items, and so on. It helps with the mood, and certain scenes do truly stand out, like the dream sequences of the alien planet. There is no voice acting (not that it is missing), and the sound for effects is okay. The music was good at times, specifically the one tune that plays when something sinister is going on. The reason this one stood out to me is that reminded me of X-com TFTD. Very similar in the tone of the music, as in ominous. You can tell something bad is going to happen when that tune plays. There are a few other pieces, but they do repeat a lot and sadly get a little obnoxious, so I would say the music is the weakest part of the game. Not saying it’s irredeemable bad, but it probably could have been better.

One surprising aspect of Dreams in the Witch House is the price, as mentioned earlier. I got it for around 10 euros here on Steam, and from what you get, it is quite remarkable. You can not go wrong by investing in this game. It is well-written, entertaining, and suspenseful providing a lot of different endings that are dependent on what you do ingame. It also maintains the style of Lovecraft, which is something many “inspired” games fail to emulate. A top-notch game, for a top-notch price, recommended!

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Lot of randomized elements, and deep gameplay mechanics, that make it a lot more than your typical point and click. They did a nice job with the lovecraft lore. It uses all the best elements of the original story, and the setting is super creepy. Played on the Steam Deck with the Deck Dock and a wireless mouse.

Live the life of Walter Gilman, who has recently enrolled at Miskatonic University to study advanced mathematics. Walter is examining the correlation between mathematics and the occult, and soon it becomes apparent that his interest in the latter is starting to creep into his life, and haunting him in his dreams.

Dreams in the Witch House is a mixture of point and click adventure and role-playing survival mechanics, based on the short story by H.P. Lovecraft.

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Dreams in the Witch House is very atmospheric, with an unsettling sense of impending doom. It’s creepy, unnerving and dark, all familiar Lovecraftian traits, but do the management factors distract from the story?

Walter only has two months before the May-Eve festival, and his demise, which equates to around six hours of gameplay, so you are against the clock. Most of that time will be spent just trying to survive, with six essential facets of his life that he needs to keep under control. Juggling all these factors hardly gives you any time to indulge in the other half of the game, which is the point and click adventure side, and I found that many story lines and puzzles were started, but remained unfinished, by the time the game ended.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2942335933

It is important to know that with so many survival mechanics, you won’t be able to follow a story through to its conclusion without concentrating on one area and forgetting everything else. It will take you a playthrough to get your head around how everything works. The survival elements weigh so heavily on your performance and the ability to complete the point and click adventuring side of the game, that I would only recommend this to people who enjoy survival elements and managing lots of different things at once, within a tight budget restraint.

Managing all your attributes is quite tough with the meager amount of money you have to live on each week. Everything costs money and the ten dollars you receive from your Aunt each week is hardly enough to feed yourself, let alone worry about buying medicines to cure illnesses. You can perform the landlady’s tasks for a pittance of two dollars a day to boost your balance when emergencies arise, but it is often the case that you have to choose which ailment is more severe and deal with it, whilst others fall by the wayside.

The allowance is sent on the understanding that you do well in your studies, and that means revising for exams on the chosen topic, and performing the exam by answering five questions. Reading the right subject matter gives you the answer to the question that will be asked in the exam, but instead of conveniently highlighting the correct answer in the exam, you have to remember it so you’ll need to write it down on a piece of paper for later. I don’t know whether this was for realism but come on give us a break! Almost all of your attributes will have some detrimental effect on your studies if they’re not kept within certain parameters depicted through a traffic light system. If you’re overly tired, hungry, cold, or sick, it will prevent you from concentrating on your studies, and you will receive less points for your efforts.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2940873688

Gaining points in mathematics, by reading your math books, the occult, by reading occult related books, and writing your thesis, increases scores in those areas and has an effect on the story.

You can read in your room or at the University, but to read in your room you will need to acquire a library card, which requires a bit of effort, and if studying at night, a working lightbulb, which breaks endlessly. There is also a rat infestation in your room so you need to buy planks to cover the hole and stop the man rat from bothering you. There is an awful lot of things to think about, including chopping wood and burning it in the fireplace to keep warm, going shopping for food and essential items, visiting the pharmacy for medicines and sleeping aids, cultural events to attend, and even avoiding muggers at night.

Putting aside all of the survival mechanics, there are elements of your traditional point and click adventure game somewhere. There are puzzles to solve, characters to talk to, places to go, and tasks to perform, but you never have enough time to do everything, so pick your challenge and go for it. That is why I said it will take you a playthrough to get the lay of the land and start formulating plans for which avenue to go down. Your first attempt will probably be a little disappointing on the story front, if it was anything like my experience.

I much prefer a good narrative, and like to reach a satisfying conclusion in the story through one play, but the way this game plays out, it is easy to land in a position where you are quarter the way through lots of plots, rather than finishing one line of enquiry. When the game ended, I was surprised, because it felt like the story was just starting to take off and get interesting, and I was disappointed that I was unable to finish any of the story arcs I had started.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2942307045

There’s no inventory combining, but the puzzles can be quite challenging, especially if you’re being chased, which was one section I did not enjoy. The time factor also plays a huge part in the puzzles, as you are always against the clock and there is no time to spare, and although you are not aware of this on your first play through, you soon realize the need for urgency on your second. Combined with the detrimental effects that your health can have on you; it creates a feeling of pressure and uneasiness.

There are various places to visit, and new characters are introduced as you progress. Travelling is easy and fast tracked and there are diaries, letters and a to do list to refer to. I don’t really feel like I experienced much of a story in my first play, so I will return at some point and concentrate on one area.

I did enjoy my time with Dreams in the Witch House. It was an interesting experiment in mixing point and click adventure with open world RPG survival elements, but I am now asking myself whether I want to go through another six hours of managing mundane tasks to keep myself alive, just to experience a disappointing ending, because the game play is quite repetitive.

I enjoyed some of the elements, like the studying parts, because it was interesting to find the books, read them, and watch Walter slide into insanity. It was quite engrossing to play the role of a student, going to classes, studying for your exams, and writing your thesis, and I found the whole University life very interesting. Unfortunately, managing the survival elements was less enjoyable and felt there were just too many of them. They distracted from the story that was unfolding, and it is these parts that deter me from returning with much enthusiasm.

If you’re looking for more of a traditional point and click adventure with a full story and inventory management then you may find this a little disappointing, but if that doesn’t bother you, then it is a challenging but interesting experience.

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Thanks to the Indie Game Collective for the key.

I love Lovecraft and I love retro adventure games but I hate lazy survival mechanics that just get in the way of playing a game and that's all this really boils down to in the end. You can't turn them off. I should be learning occult lore and interacting with interesting NPCs at a steady pace to try and uncover enough mind-blasting secrets to hopefully survive the events based on the fantastic Lovecraft story. My narrative choices should be all that matter: who I trust, what I dare to read, where I choose to go each day -unlocking some branches as others are closed off.

Instead, I'm spending all my time missing potentially interesting events due to massive time jumps with every mundane action I take, while constantly running out of money and thus consumable resources trying to balance the survival meters. Eight hours to rake? Five hours to read a few chapters in a book? I'm starving again? Time to waste more money. Oh, that NPC is gone for the day...again? No one will give a straight answer to simple questions? No one is ever where they're supposed to be? Where is that hammer? Why don't you know and why is everything in here locked? Oh, time to go to bed again after five real time minutes searching a needlessly cluttered room with a bunch of items I know can be useful elsewhere but I can't interact with them because it's not time for that? Awesome. Another day wasted. This isn't fun.

The trailer for the game was a thousand times more interesting and exciting than playing this game. Strip all of the inane survival mechanics out (food, sleep, warmth, constant count down clock), keep sanity and a calendar of events based on the day, because it's Mythos-based and those things actually fit with the story and maybe it would be a great game. As it stands I've never been more frustrated at the wasted potential or outright BORED with an adventure game before. I bought it on sale thinking I lucked out but came away feeling ripped off. Do not recommend. Go play something like Excavation at Hob's Barrow or Abscission or fantastic The Last Door series for Lovecraftian point and click goodness without inane survival elements getting in the way of the enjoyment of playing an actual game.

And read the original story by Lovecraft. It's one of his best.