THE HORROR AT HIGHROOK

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I wanted to love THE HORROR AT HIGHROOK. On paper, it has everything I love. Cosmic Horror? Check. Narrative-driven experience with interesting characters? Check. Card-driven boardgame-ish main mechanic as the core experience? Double check! It is, for me, a match made in dark, eldritch heaven. And yet, as much as I want to give it only a heap of praise, some serious hiccups make the experience feel like an exercise in mild frustrations.

But let's start from where all good stories start - the Beginning. Highrook mansion stands alone upon a cliff, with a labyrinthine cave system below its creaking foundations. It was once a home to a wealthy and affluent family of high-borns; Unfortunately, lord Ackeron was a bit of an enthusiast in the occult. And one day, he and his family vanished from the face of the earth. The local town guild, even if they were a bit iffy about the family dealings, couldn't just ignore one of the town noble families' disappearances going unaddressed... And that is where a rag-tag team of 'specialists' was sent to the mansion to discover the secret behind this event.

This is where the game begins properly. On day one of our team entering the mansion, we quickly get accustomed to who our protagonists are. There's a scholar, Vitali, who might be a bit too obsessed with the occult and the ancient lore, clearly enjoying his new task as it slowly but inevitably turns from a simple investigation of a disappearance into a proper mystic mystery. Astor, the mechanist, is a more pragmatic mind, filled with cogs and electric currents. Cold logic and the facts of the physical realm are her dominion, and yet the unholy mixing of the cosmic energies with the hard machinery can be so... tantalizing. Atticus is a brute, at first glance at least. A towering, bearded man's man, he is not much for overthinking and as a lateral thinker, prefers solving issues with action, fist, and a blunt object. And then, mysterious doctor Caligar - a plague doctor by the beaked mask appearance, she is nonetheless quite skilled in both the medicinal and alchemical crafts. Even if she might be having a bit of a drinking problem. Who wouldn't, after what she had to witness in her past, though?

Opening the Mansion up and getting a steady flow of new tools feels pretty good at first!

The cast is the strongest part of the game, by far. They feel real, they talk, they bicker, they each have their secretive agenda, which, in the game narrative, forms a unique quest for each to chase after. The writing isn't astonishing by any measurement, but it is far more than servicable - for a fan of pulp fiction, of cosmic horror stories, it is perfectly fine.

Sometimes gritty, sometimes witty, it fleshes out their personalities well, anchoring them to the situation at hand. Giving us good insights via their notes and conversations about what they value most, and what goals they want to achieve. It works well, and I felt quite hooked on each of their stories to see them through as much as possible.

The overall narrative gains for me the same grade. It's... good. Again, not the best piece of fiction I've ever read, but working fine to keep me engaged, to want me to push deeper into the lore, into the events to unfurl after each act. It might be, perhaps, a little rudimentary to someone who has read hundreds of similar stories, but by virtue of being a game, an interactive component! - It feels fresh enough to keep the spark of interest well lit.

But then we get to the gameplay and it is... A bit of a bag of worms. See, at first it felt pretty darn amazing! Slowly, act by act, you open up the mansion and move your team around the chambers, interacting with various items to push forward. The game is a card-driven affair focused on resource management - you squeeze each location for new cards to pop, and then use those cards to tackle tasks. Each task requires a certain level of expertise needed to crack it open, and with helping items, upgradeable tools, and bits of 'inspiration', you will gnaw into them to progress. Add to that managing the team's tiredness, hunger, lunacy, and bodily well-being, and you have a solid framework for a neat balancing act. Operating time versus resources, always trying to put a dent in the next big task at hand with the steady flow of new cards.

Characters are the strongest part of the game, with good writing behind them and solid personalities to clash with the narrative.

Or so I thought. See, the game hides it well in the first couple of hours, but the experience feels, after a while, extremely linear. I don't mind a good linear game, and it doesn't hurt THE HORROR AT HIGHROOK too badly, if not for the fact that, as a resource-driven card game, the obvious limitations and checks start to become quite frustrating. And sometimes just cryptic enough to add confusion to the frustration - a dangerous mix that can easily make anyone put the game down. For a start, the resources you gain are not limited, but rather... gatekept. You cannot just 'farm' a spot for endless flow support cards and inspirations. When a game decides you 'have enough', your action will just fizzle and your daring investigator will mumble about 'how they would like to focus on something else'. This can also happen with task-giving objects - nothing feels as bad as scrounging up the cards to crack that Level 7 task item, only for it to fizzle into 'Useless Scraps'.

In short, there are no 'creative' ways to tackle a challenge set before you. The game pretty much expects you to finally use characters in their proper spots to get the needed cards to do exactly what it wants you to do. It's not exactly hand-holding, but it always feels like there's one solution you must gather your stuff to solve. And because it is rarely, if ever, stated clearly what you need or must have, later on it becomes this grind, this churning repetition of mulling over the tasks until you finally unlock the resources needed to progress on that ONE specific card you couldn't get the numbers for. It is a bit disheartening because once you see through it, the game becomes less of a game and more of a jigsaw puzzle with a timer attached to it.

At that moment, I was sitting on a fence. It no longer felt good playing the game. It felt tedious, like a chore list I had to go through. But... At the same time, the rewards for going through it still felt very good - after all, this is a narrative-driven game and delving deeper into the story, meeting the cosmic horrors, cracking into the dark confines of Nibiru... That was the essence of the experience. And you know, it must be said - I read every letter, every note, every scrap of lore from top to bottom. So the writing kept me well engaged, and despite my disgruntlement with the mechanics of the game itself, I kept going, kept playing to satisfy my need to uncover the mysteries and clutch a win for my intrepid team of daring-do's.

In summary, I still believe THE HORROR AT HIGHROOK is a good bit of fun. It's tightly written, with great atmosphere, fitting art style, and spooky tunes to match the experience. It might be a bit too linear, too one-way in its presentation, but even that - as grating as it was on my gaming sensibilities - was not enough to make me put it down and away. If grinding is what was expected of me, I'll grind! And so, I am recommending this game if you're a fan of horror stories, a cosmic mysteries aficionado, just with one major caveat. Do not expect the gameplay loop to be particularly riveting - it is servicable, at best, and frustrating at its worst moments. If there were a bit more player agency, a bit more options and alternatives, the game would soar to new heights. But for what it is, it is still a good story told well. And sometimes, that's enough.