Dollhouse Story is Creepy and Cool
Stray Souls: Dollhouse Story is a hidden object puzzle game with a horror theme. Witchcraft, a creepy doll, a killer clown, spiders and an evil man who kidnaps children are all in there. Essentially, if there is a phobia or nightmare to be had, it appears in this game.
The developers even do a good job of popping things up on screen to startle players and maintain the feeling of horror.
I like hidden object games with storylines, and while I’m not a huge fan of horror, I found myself intrigued. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a fan of the slide-in talking heads telling me the story and I thought the plot was a bit muddled even in the cut scenes.
Game play is a combination of hidden objects and puzzles. The hidden object sections often produce important elements that you need to solve the simple puzzles, but other elements are to be found in the environment as you move around the game.
There are a lot of locations that have to be traveled with a lot of repetitive, get an element, find a key, get another element, go somewhere else, solve the puzzle, repeat. This would have felt less repetitive if more time had been taken with the music.
Unfortunately, the music in Stray Souls, while appropriately creepy, is also repetitive.
The hidden object sections are where this game really shines. The objects are there but not too easy to spot and there is no difficulty in having to click on the right spot on the object, which is a common flaw in games like this. Alaware has a done a good job on making the entire object clickable so there isn’t any need to fumble around trying to make it work.
Although there is an extra chapter to unlock at the end of the game, I was disappointed that there were no trophies to acquire and not a lot of replay value. Once you unlock the extra chapter and play it, that’s pretty much the end of the game.
I felt the price tag was a little steep for just a couple hours of game play. I liked the game well enough, I just wanted there to be more of it.
On the other hand, if you’re not the type to go trophy hunting and replay a game over and over, Stray Souls: Dollhouse Story might just be the game for you.