The Haunting of Joni Evers has been described with the 'horror' tag which, to me, seems a tad inappropriate. It is a lovely game that I enjoyed tremendously. I am most reminded of Gone Home. Joni Evers is in her childhood home, filled with memories of a dysfunctional family. As she explores, 'vestiges' of her family members appear and help her remember. In the end, it is a story about healing the soul and how our perceptions sometimes blind us to situations.

There is a spooky presence called 'The Skull Man' who I saw as representing bitterness and unforgiveness (rather than a malignant spirit from the other side). Both are caustic to one's soul, so this way of expressing these negative emotions made sense to me.

The game is a walking simulation with exploration and activities. The game does a good job of clearly stating your objectives and defining your next course of action. The environments are detailed and it is worth taking time to click on everything to explore the past with Joni.

You 'converse' with the vestiges (Joni talks and they post written messages). This interchange takes some getting used to, as you have to 'respond' to the vestiges in order to proceed. While conversation or narration is in process, you are not able to interact with the environment.

The game auto-saves regularly to a single slot. The only exception is if you quit in the middle of an activity. When you return, you will need to start the activity again. While some players have requested more save points, I did not find this to be problematic. If you wish to start anew, you can use a different save slot and not interfere with your original game.

Over half the achievements are story related and several can be missed. I am still in the process of chasing down one achievement but the rest were not difficult to obtain if you read the descriptions provided. A couple of the achievements have to do with collectibles. If you miss one on your first pass through and start a new game, your 'counts' appear to follow you and your achievement will pop when you encounter the item you previously missed (you don't have to recollect them all).

I highly recommend The Haunting of Joni Evers to those who enjoy thoughtful exploration and a sweet story of love and forgiveness. It is an impressive effort by a small development team.

Hearkening back to the early days of Walking Sims, The Haunting of Joni Evers is a great reminder that there is still a lot that narrative focused, interaction light games have to offer. If games like Dear Esther, Gone Home, and Firewatch and you don't mind the charms associated with a bit more green development team, this game is worth checking out.

The Haunting of Joni Evers is a walking simulator that takes place entirely inside one large home. Exploring room after room, you find and examine haunted items to unlock memories and "feelings" of your past, unravelling a thought provoking life story of a family that was once together, but is now distanced apart for various personal reasons. The whole experience took approximately 3.5 hours to complete.

Despite the title, this is not a horror walking simulator. This is an examination inside a woman's psyche regarding her family life, maturing, and growing up.

+ The voice acting is professionally done and is superb.
+ The story is well written and meaningful.
+ The house design is well laid out, the game is atmospheric, and it is relaxing to play.

- The enemy design was a bit too cartoonish for my liking, I think it should have been darker / scarier.
- The first time you have to do a "ritual" the game doesn't really explain what to do, more instructions would have helped.
- Could have used a "Run" Button.
- No Chapter Select after completing the game to mop up achievements.

Relaxing and casual, with a cozy meaningful story.
Overall 7.5 / 10

It was an incredibly thoughtful game. I texted my brother that I loved him, and he called to ask me if something was wrong. 10/10 would recommend.

Reminds me of what remains of edith finch, firewatch, and the unfinished swan. Mostly cozy vibes with just enough spooks.

A question of perspective.

I have to disagree when people say: If you liked Gone Home or Firewatch, this is for you.
These games had a very clever way of telling a story. And it was NOT the playable character, who told it. Here, it is not you, who finds out. It is Joni telling you.
Joni is talking all the time and commenting on everything. You find a letter, want to read it, but she talks. And she talks as slow as she walks. I know that games like this are slow by nature, but this one is painfully slow.

I can't put myself into it like I could in Firewatch for example. She reacting to the things that happen (like the candles) takes my own reaction kinda away. I think this is fundamental for a walking sim and breaks the experience for me.

As the graphics and the narration are done well overall I will probably play through anyway.

Edit: I played through.

So on the one hand, the house and all the things in it are really done very well. And the voice acting is on point.

But in my opinion the game would have been much better and way more scary if Joni would't speak out her thoughts all the time. Noticing some changes in the house and not having Joni reacting would have a much bigger impact. Sometimes less is more. This is especially true for the ‘evil’ in the game, which I found particularly weak. You could have just heard the voice for example.

The puzzle moments were unfortunately all very similar and very tedious and therefore quite tiring.

I appreciate that games of this type continue to be developed. But true horror is often lost when you see too much and know too much.

Only 3-5 hrs for a playthrough
With no replayability. Probably 3-4 hours for most players.

Frustratingly slow walk speed and no ability to run
Probably to let the story sink in and force you to take in the atmosphere/environment better, but it's overdone. If you could move at a brisk pace the game would've been over a lot sooner. I was aware that I was forced to waste time while playing which took away from the experience. I really don't see the point in being forced to move slowly through rooms and hallways that you've already seen anyway.

Odd pacing
It starts out with you progressing smoothly, with no puzzles. In the 2nd half not only do puzzles suddenly get introduced, you're getting bogged down doing the same type of puzzle back to back. These puzzles aren't hard at all, they just take time. The first one was confusing due to the colours the devs used. Usually green means good, right? This time a green circle around an item I placed meant bad. The puzzles felt like a chore. You get rewarded with a voiced story piece for every completed step but you're forced to re-explore the same rooms over and over holding different items in hand, all with that awfully slow movement speed.

Backtracking / environment size
While the mansion you spend the entire game in is beautifully made it is the only location in the game and starts to feel visually repetitive later on due to backtracking through similar looking hallways back to rooms you've already been to. The game was made in 1 year by a team of 5 and as a result the "game world" is kinda small.

Struggles with linearity vs non linearity
The game isn't on rails, it's mostly linear but regularly lets you roam free to find the way forward on your own. However if you go the wrong way at the wrong time or try to move beyond the two rooms you're supposed to be in at a particular moment, it'll tell you in jarring ways that break the immersion for a moment. You're free until you're not.

Typical indie game problems:
- Ignores any non-standard resolutions you may have as options in Windows. I have tons of them but the game only offers 1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160.
- Only supports 16:9, overrides and overwrites regedit edits to the contrary. Even if you combine it with the "-windowed-mode exclusive" Unity launch parameter, it won't work. If you have an UW monitor you'll be playing with black bars.
- No detailed graphics settings, only global high/med/low. Med reduces geometry detail too much. There were most likely other more subtle things they could've tweaked in Med.
- No fps limiter.
- Mouselook speed lowest setting still too high for those who have balanced their mouse DPI / speed for a 4K desktop.
- No menu option to rewatch the intro. It's tied to "new game", which unintentionally asks the player how lucky they feel, that clicking new game won't overwrite their save.

The best voice acting money can buy
And lots of it too. Kelly Pekar did an outstanding job. Probably the best I've ever heard. Without the voice acting the game wouldn't have been nearly as good.

Very atmopsheric
Which I love. It's spooky and mysterious but no gore thankfully.

Good graphics
On high at least. Medium noticeably takes away from it but on high I had little trouble maintaining 100 fps on a 3080 at 4K.

Good story & writing
It's common to drop the ball on the ending. That didn't happen here either.

Good music
Moody piano

Overall it was an enjoyable, sometimes emotional story driven experience about human connection that we can all relate to, with a creepy and mysterious vibe. The story might make some people rethink how they view their family members, in a good way. The game's strengths really stand out and as a result do outweigh the weaknesses. It's not one of those top tier games that I'll remember much of 5 years from now but it's a good game nonetheless. It's really short for the price so wait for a deep sale.

Don't go in expecting a poltergeist experience or primarily a scary game. "Haunting" in the title does not quite mean the same thing it does in Hollywood, even if the moving chair in the demo may have given you that impression. It's pretty mild and I wouldn't call it a horror game, that tag it has on the store page is a bit of a stretch. I'm glad 'cause I don't need that stress and we got more than enough of that type of game already in recent years. It's just spooky enough, but no more than it needs to be.

Melancholic but hopeful story about revisiting memories and familial bonds, with a touch of supernatural horror added in as well. A solid buy for any fans of narrative-driven walking sims such as "Gone Home" and "Everybody's Gone to the Rapture"!

I saw this recommended on Reddit, and I figured I would pick it up while it was on sale and ended up completing it in one sitting. I finished in just over 3 hours. Really good game. The name implies it may be a horror game, but it’s not. This is a thriller game based on family and delving into your past.

It’s got a spooky tone to it, and there’s definitely some areas where I said “ahh, I’d rather not go in there…” but it’s not a horror walking sim like you may be used to. It has a great story about bringing family together. The graphics are great, performance is too, and it is fully voiced, professionally. Just another example of indie devs leading the way!

This is a beautiful game. It's similar to other walking sims like Gone Home or Firewatch: you explore a meticulously crafted world and slowly put together a story of grief, anger, and redemption. What really stood out to me was just how well-designed everything is. I never felt "stuck" anywhere and every chapter flowed seamlessly into the next. Plus the music is very evocative. It's a lovely world to spend a few hours in.

I've been excited about this project for a while and am really happy to report that my excitement has paid off.
This is a short but heartfelt Walking Simulator that concentrates on its story and tells it beautifully. Joni as a main character is engaging and I empathized with her and her struggles a lot.
Even though the other characters aren't voice acted their character still shines through in the writing. And, boy, did one line in particular make me choke back tears. Family dynamics can be brutal.
The Haunting of Joni Evers is exactly my jam: story-focused, to the point, and emotional. If you enjoy these things as well and you're a fan of Walking Simulators, you can't go wrong with this.