[0:22] Hello, everyone. I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And this is Haunt Weekly, a weekly podcast for the haunted attraction, haunted entertainment community. Whether you're an actor, owner, or just plain aficionado, we aim to be a podcast for you. And we return to you this week, first and foremost, a day late. Yes. We apologize, but as we've been talking about moving the podcast to Tuesday anyway, by this time around, it's illness. Yeah, it's been that way for a little while yeah there's been illness in the house it's been manifesting in different ways though it's head coldy um so everyone feels a little dumb a little headachy a little body achy a lot tired and we just uh you especially but neither of us really sounded very um good yesterday yeah so we were very excited about this topic well and i couldn't hold a thought for more More than like a couple of seconds. So what else is new? Yeah, exactly.

[1:17] For evidence of this, just go back to our last episodes of Haunt Weekly. Yes. At Haunt Weekly. Haunt Weekly on Facebook. Haunt Weekly on Twitter. And also wherever you get your podcasts from. Oh, YouTube.com slash Haunt Weekly, wherever you get your podcasts from. My rhythm got screwed up there. I know. But yes, indeed. Yeah, this week we're talking about a new fascination we've had in this house. A new video game just released this week. week so uh check it out on steam if what we talk about sounds interesting to you the game is called crime scene clean we're going into what the game is and why hunters might really want to study and pay attention to this game because for a basically a 20 game i think it's on sale now for like 18 dollars it's a few dollars off for like its new release sale or whatever right yeah um.

[2:06] It packs some very interesting design choices and elements in. And I'm looking forward to talking about them. Let's see, other than being late, we don't have a housekeeping note. Work we did for the haunt, illness and heat have prevented that. The one thing we did do is we swung by Spirit. Yeah. Our local Spirit, like our actual closest Spirit opened right around my birthday in mid-August. Yeah. And we swung by. yeah usually it's not until like mid-september or yeah labor day or a week or two in september it's like a month early i was really kind of floored to see that this one opened when it did i guess it's because everybody's opening on september 13th i figure the reason was this spirit is in the same parking lot in the same shopping center as a home depot.

[2:57] And Home Depot does not have their Halloween stuff out yet. At least ours doesn't. Ours doesn't. Check your local blah, blah, blah. Your mileage may vary. Blah, blah, blah, do, scooby-doo. Go figure that out on your own time. But, yeah, ours has not put it out yet. So it's literally the first opportunity to buy Halloween stuff. And just to give you an idea of how it went, we walked to the store. We ran into some old friends and actors from The Haunt and their kids and their family. We got to talk with them and chat with them some. bump, roamed around the store for a good 30, 45 minutes or so, and bawled absolutely not a goddamn thing. Yeah. Walked out completely fucking empty-handed.

[3:38] And I think part of my problem is, A, they didn't have the store fully set up, I don't think, so I'm going to be a little unfair here with that. But the other element of it is, it seems like every year I go to Spirit, the props, especially the animatronics, get more expensive but look cheaper. Yeah, they definitely do. Because, I mean, we've got some of the really old Spirit Robs. I've got Fred and Wilma just over my shoulder here. I know you all can't see it. Yeah. I've got Fred and Wilma in this room. And they still look great. Yeah, they do. And they actually still move very, too, if you plug them in. Yeah, that's the issue. We've got to plug them in. They actually look good. They're solid. They're heavy. Yeah. They're beefy. big boys. Granted, these are like 20 years old. Yeah, 15, 20 years old. Somewhere in that range, yeah.

[4:27] Yeah, like for example, they had this 8 foot tall ringmaster looking thing. In fact, it was then agreed as he came into the store. And every time he did his little gesticulations with his hand or his head, the whole damn thing was just rocking in the wind on that stand. Yeah, it wasn't very secure and they had it so bright in the store, he's supposed to have projections inside of him? I guess, sure, like where the gap between where his jacket is. Yeah, but none of the videos I've seen online and not seeing it in person, you can't see them. No. Because of the way they're displayed. I have no fucking clue what the projection actually is other than it exists. I could see the faint green light with some movement. That's all I got for it. I think there might have been a skull. Don't hold me to that. Probably. It sounds like a reasonable guess at the very least. I mean, even if I were shooting completely in the dark, that'd be what I'd say. But, yeah, so we were not there. Oh, we also didn't see the perma-blood while we were there. No, and we were looking specifically for it. That was one of the things we were actually going to pick up there is, even though it would be more expensive, we'd be able to get a smaller thing of it. Yeah, we wanted to at least check it out. And we've never actually used it, so we wanted to check it out and try it. And this was a way to dip our toes into it, so to speak. But no, they didn't actually have it. They've been advertising it like me like crazy. But, yeah.

[5:53] So anyway, that was a disappointment. But other than that, nothing else really interesting has been going on. So should we just go into the regular episode? Yeah, I think so. Well, on that note, every week we ask a question of the week. And last week, we asked you, other than your own or your haunts, what is your favorite haunt character? And y'all showed up. Roberta McClellan said Brewster Bonesaw. That would be Japes. Yeah, of course we're going to see some Japes love in this, correct? Yes. You know what I mean? Christian Risto, anything done by Andrew Lou? Andrew Lou, Jesus, Jonathan. Andrew Martindello. I still remember the first time I heard him deliver all his creations. are so interesting and unique. Razia Rekt costume said the Pumpkin Lord at HHN was pretty cool. Yeah, and I've actually seen that. I've seen photos of it. I've not seen it in person. I do agree.

[6:50] And Greg Packard said Sarah Marshall, aka the Green Witch at Knott's Scary Farm. Once again, I've seen that one too, photos and video of that. That's incredible. Victor Ruarez, the goat is Madame Leodov, and she is For those who don't know, she's the presence in the Crystal Ball in Haunted Mansion. She is definitely really, really cool. I did not realize that that character has changed since I was last at the Haunted Mansion over 20 years ago. So I guess it kind of makes sense they would have upgraded. We've been talking about how they've been doing renovations. Yeah, I know. But no, the new images look way different than what I remember, but still very cool. Okay. Okay, Jeremy Max says, I liked Fluffy from Statesville Hell's Gate. Fluffy is very cool. Seen on Days of the Living Dead. Flinch and Terrors from Fear Farm. And both I've never seen in person, but love their videos. Okay, had to check out Flinch and Terrors then. Yeah, we actually have seen Fluffy. We've been lucky enough to actually see Fluffy in person. And yeah, definitely, definitely incredible.

[8:03] But flinching tremors, yeah, I got to find out what's up with that, even though fearful, you know. Anyways, Sean Finner said, Warden's Widow? And finally for this week, Cliff Church Well said Carl Cleaver All great names So yeah, this week's Question of the Week, tangentially related to this week's episode What video game would you recommend to haunters? Specifically, what video game do you think would make someone a better haunter if they played it? Let us know hauntweekly.com, hauntweekly on twitter slash x, hauntweekly on facebook and youtube.com, hauntweekly, leave a comment You can send us an email, let us know in all the places that we exist. Yes, and I know that this is a question that we ask every time we do a video one. So if you gave us an answer last time, try to pick something different. Yeah.

[8:51] We're also, because the reason we're doing this is we actually have an idea for the next game we want to cover. Yes. I believe I see you playing it right now. It is an idle game, which is unusual for us to cover. Yes, but we will be doing that soon. I've got to start it. Yeah. But regardless, so we do have a game we're going to be talking about. out soon but we're looking for suggestions we really do enjoy covering video games even though like i've said before we had that one episode where we got all the way to the very end and then couldn't do the video game because the publisher was dicey yeah now we look beforehand yeah now we uh change the order up a little bit and yeah but anyways so the news here is the birthday weekend is done at a great time i drank way too much i'm gonna need the rest of the month possible year to recover between that and this fucking head cold yeah well now i'm pretty sure i'm just being bit by the head cold it's a little too late in the game yeah i'm just going to say you guys uh getting old sucks um but yeah basically one thing i picked up over my birthday weekend as a little treat to myself was a newly released game called crime scene cleaner now i'd originally seen this on the miniaturiner youtube channel back in april he uh covered the demo the demo is oddly Oddly, the fourth level?

[10:06] Oh weird it's the one with the uh big pool and the mansion inside yeah yeah it's that one it's not the first level which is exactly what you would think it would be right it's not it's just weird i guess they just let it let the uh the demo out to reviewers be a more full level yeah the first level is pretty short yeah and but the second level would have worked too i think yeah but i think they also that was probably the level they had done first was what likely happened they He probably didn't finish the levels in order. But anyways, I watched him play it. I thought it was interesting because I'm kind of a weird junkie for clean games for some reason. Yeah, I was going to bring that up because it's not in the notes. Oh, yeah, I forgot to put that in. No, I have played Power Wash Simulator an incredible amount, which I know you do not like. Yeah. But I've also dabbled with Viscera Cleanup Detail, which is kind of a similar gory cleanup game. Right. You and I have played the... The Christmas one. The Christmas one together. Yeah, the Santa's Sleigh, I think. S-L-A-Y, obviously. Obviously.

[11:11] Yeah. We're talking to hunters. You don't have to explain that. Yeah, no. Santa's Sleigh one, which was fun.

[11:18] Which is more comical than anything. But yeah, I was very surprised to play this game and find not only that it was a good cleaning game, which I think it is, but also that it did some great storytelling through the environment and some less great storytelling through everything else. Yeah. Oh, and the reason that I like it more is because for me it's got more mystery to it than Power Wash Simulator. Yeah. But the mechanics in Power Wash Simulator, I think, are probably a little bit better as far as the actual how you use the tools. Okay.

[11:56] I was actually going to say the other way around, but okay. Well, the thing about Power Wash Simulator is that it's a very one-note game, which honestly is one of the things I like about it. You have one simple task. You know how to approach it. You're just going to sit there. It's a matter of time and the patience and listening to the water whoosh and all that. But this, you have much more complexity in the cleaning. Now, it's still a thing where you pretty much only make forward progress. You can make minor mistakes and cause some issues, but nothing like visceral cleanup detail where you look back and realize you just trudged a mile of blood behind you and literally got to reclean the entire room again. Well, I mean, you kind of get some of that. But it's not as bad. The punishments are not as severe. That is true. The punishments are not as severe. fear um yeah i was very surprised to see some very nuanced storytelling in this game because honestly between the price tag the subject matter and the developers they're known for doing these kind of quirky quote-unquote simulator games like the other one and i'd actually didn't realize it was the same company until after i started playing uh but they made the thief simulator games thief simulator one and thief simulator two in which you pretend to be a thief and you do things like learn lock picking and how to break in doors and things like that. And it's...

[13:18] Very, very weird game. It says it's a simulator, but it's not like Euro Truck Simulator or Train Simulator. They're taking the simulation very seriously. They're taking it very lighthearted. It's meant to be kind of a very loose simulator. So I think that's one of the other things I enjoy, because I really do not enjoy hardcore simulators. I find if I wanted to play Truck Simulator like that, I would just go get my Class D license and get paid for it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, I don't do a lot of that either. I mean, granted, I probably will never be an engineer on a train, so a train simulator might be worth something. But even that, honestly, the only reason I had forever having toy trains was to do the Gomez thing and make them crash into each other. So I probably shouldn't be trusted with a train simulator either. No. But anyways, the basics of the game real fast. You are playing the role of Kowalski. He is a high school janitor with the sappiest fucking backstory you'll ever think of.

[14:22] Your wife is dead because Disney rules apply. And your daughter is very, very sick. But that's enough about the film Repo the Genetic Opera. No, seriously. But your wife is dead and your daughter is very sick. Yeah, and your daughter is away at a school. School slash hospital, healthcare facility thing. Yeah. So she's not there. or it's just you and your dog. And it is a cute and spoofy dog. Oh, my God, that dog, Dexter, is so cute. Yes, and you can tell Dexter all about your adventures. And how horrible you are. And not have to worry about your daughter, you know, walking in and seeing you covered in blood or something. Yeah, exactly. So, basically, the whole story starts when a friend of yours claims to have killed his drug dealer in self-defense and offers you a shit ton of money to help him clean it up.

[15:11] So you go in the first level, which we'll be talking about in more detail in a minute You go to this very shady apartment, you help them clean up the mess And from there, you get hooked up with the mafia, Who has you clean up an escalating series of murderers and violent incidents, Yeah And well, that escalated quickly is a very, very apropos sentence Yeah, and they make it pretty clear that you don't have much choice other than to work for them Yeah. Like, they're going to pay you well, but you've got to do the stuff. And one of the things I did find kind of funny about the game was, because when you're in the house, you can see your daughter's medical bills there on the table and read them. And I'm like, yeah, I made more than this in two levels. Fuck this. I'm done. You know? Yeah. Literally, it's like, because, you know, like the third level or something, I banked like $20,000. I'm like, well, that bill. Mm-hmm.

[16:05] My daughter's getting geared. No. So, anyways, the story has nine levels from there. I would say if you're very thorough like I am, it's going to be between 15 and 20 hours of content. If you're less thorough, probably about 10. Yeah, they take me one to one and a half hours generally. Yeah, and the last two levels took me about two to two and a half. So, I would say 15, 20 hours is a good estimate if you're a very thorough person. Yeah, and I probably will be replaying some of the levels. Oh, I know. I'm going to. Because 100% the game. I mean, now that I've got all the unlocks, I can complete the first level in under 20 minutes. Oh, that's nice. So it's like, ah, I'm on territory. I'm like super cleaner now.

[16:50] Ninja cleaner. But yeah, the idea is, like I said, simple. You arrive at a brutal murder. Your job is to clean it up. That's five different elements. One is mopping up blood. Every Haunter's favorite. No. collecting trash, replacing furniture, disposing of bodies, and collecting evidence for disposal. Of course, you also get to steal valuables while you're there, because what's another crime? Exactly. You're already doing one. And oftentimes, as you'll find, you will double the amount you make through stealing. And the money you make doesn't go to your sick daughter. It goes for upgrades to your stuff so you can be more effective at cleaning up the mafia's mess next time. Yeah. I wish I were making that one up.

[17:33] Yes, but you were not. Because if it was just for the sick daughter, you would be done in the first level. Yeah. All right. So speaking of the first level, basically, well, you told you that your friend calls you and that you've got to go clean up his drug dealer's apartment. Not his apartment, his drug dealer's apartment. Yeah. And you start the level outside a very sketchy, in fact, they call it this sketchy building. Mm-hmm. You start outside a sketchy building. Now, we're going to ignore all secrets in this run through. Yes, because there are secrets in the game. Yeah. And that is something that it's better to know going into the game than it is to find out at the end of the first level. Yeah, that's what happened to me. I did not realize there were secrets. I went and I did the very bestest boy goodest job I could on the first level. And then the game's like, you didn't find any secrets. I'm like, what the fuck?

[18:28] So, yeah, and I went back and I played it again to get the 20-minute time, and I still didn't find all the fucking secrets, even. Yeah, I found one secret on my first playthrough, but that's because if there's a way to go, I'm going to go explore it. I found two, and I, yeah, and that was better. Yeah. Significant improvement. But anyway, so you go up this very trashy, tragically bad stairwell that looks more like a condemned building than anything someone would live in. And then you enter into a relatively nice apartment, actually. Yeah. Which is just weird. That is weird. It was. It was weird because at the bottom of the stairwell, there's like trash everywhere. And it's very dimly lit. And you get up to the top of the stairwell, and there's like living plants and little pots. And pretty brickwork. Yeah. And a nice table, nice furniture. You could tell that people were playing a game at the table, too. Weren't they playing poker or something? Yeah, it was some card game. Yeah. It was a card game. I don't know enough about card games to help you beyond that. But the first room, and that's one of the things I really want to harp on with this game, was normal. Yeah.

[19:37] Completely normal. Nothing happened in that first room. It looked like just a normal foyer slash dining area slash kitchen table set up. Like I said, where people were just sitting around playing a game. Nothing out of the ordinary. you have to actually go around a right-hand turn to look into the main living room and then you'll see there is some blood but it's not the craziest amount of blood especially to see in this game but you'll see all the furniture yeeted everywhere yeah the furniture has been scattered to the four corners of the earth yeah so you've got to like make sure it's clean and put it back that was something that i that i was annoyed by is that i couldn't move it closer to back in place without cleaning it first. Yeah. A lot of the furniture you can't do that with. Some of the items you can. Sometimes you can pick up yourself. It's a weird... It's tough to explain. It's just something you'll have to experience in the game. But yes, general rule, you have to clean before you can return.

[20:34] Or clean before you can even move which was frustrating for some items because some items the last bit of blood or last bit of schmoz or whatever wasn't like an impossible place to get without moving it yeah anyway so yeah go you put that room back into place then you look into the kitchen and that's where the murder took place or the murder i should say you know about at this At this point, yeah. At this point. Because what you see is a dead drug dealer with a knife not in his front. Yeah, this was not self-defense. This guy was stabbed in the fucking back. Mm-hmm. And there is blood everywhere in a corpse. And so one of your first challenges is figuring out how to get said corpse down to your truck. Mm-hmm. And I will say that the corpse physics are fucking hilarious. They are. are it's just so hilarious because i like trying to to yeet the corpse from the window into the truck me too never got it never never i got some of the trash bags though yeah i got trash bags but never a corpse um they're too heavy i think they are they're too heavy and they're too the power fucking magical trash bags because they hold everything they hold both everything and nothing yeah like sometimes they'll be full of your with like eight bullet cases and sometimes they'll Hold a whole table. Hold a whole fucking room worth of bullshit and vases.

[21:54] So, yeah, I don't fucking know. But anyways, clearly he was trying to escape when he got stabbed. And so that's pretty telling right there. Because he's like, oh, yeah, I had to kill him. He was going to kill me.

[22:08] Bullshit, Tyler. Bullshit. We're on to you. So, anyways, you clean all that up. And then the little pantry behind the kitchen, that's where you get your money. Get a few other things and then you look up and you notice there's blood on the floor in the pantry, yeah which is weird right no one died in there everything else looks normal no furniture's been kicked around nothing looks out of place there's just a blood and then you notice there's a drip drip drip of blood from the attic stairs so you pull the attic stairs down and then immediately corpse tumbles down on top of you yeah and then you learn the real dark secret of this place, Yeah, and the real reason that your friend wanted you to clean it up. He's not really a friend at this point. Yeah, no, we keep calling him a friend when, A, he lied about the self-defense thing plainly. Yeah. I mean, I notice he doesn't bring that up. And none of this is in, this is all told through the visuals in the game. Yeah, nothing really is spoken here. And we're only going to talk about. The first level. Really the first level. Yeah, which honestly, you can watch on Miniature Nerd. nerd. Once again, he did a playthrough of that when he picked the game back up after release.

[23:21] But then you find out that our drug dealer was doing a little more than dealing drugs. He was a little murder, murder, artsy fartsy. Yeah. That's the way to describe it. Because he was apparently kidnapping college-age women and murdering them and doing paintings and sculptures with them. But honestly, isn't that just plagiarism from Bernie Baxter? Yeah, which I'm sure we got the idea somewhere, too. I'm sure. Yeah, no, we didn't. But yes, that was Vincent's victims. Yeah. Basically, he was creating art with the patient's blood and body parts, and you have to clean all that up. Mm-hmm. And so you learn that, yeah, okay, Tyler didn't kill this guy in strict self-defense, but maybe not such a bad thing? Yeah. And, yeah, and then you clean that up, and then you're done. That's the level. Hope you found all the secrets and stole lots of shit. Yeah. There was lots of shit to steal. And that is such a great example of storytelling through the environment. Because like I said, this is all environmental. Yeah. If you weren't paying attention, you're not going to get any of what we just said. And the first thing I picked up was that most of the levels in the game start completely normal.

[24:38] You're either beginning in an entranceway or an outside garden path or, like I said, that foyer first room where nothing looks amiss. Nothing's wrong. And then there's a gradual escalation of things getting more and more and more and more fucked up as you go into it, as you start to learn how things progress in the space. The story has a natural progression as you walk through it. It's an incredible thing, and I wish more haunts did it, because so few haunts have spaces that just look normal. Wouldn't it be trippy if you went into the first room of a haunted house and it was just some dude's living room? No.

[25:19] I'm looking at you, Ravensbrunner. I mean, okay, that is not just some dude's living room. It is not. That is the worst example of that.

[25:31] But no, I mean, there's not enough normalcy in haunts, so that way it never gets worse gradually. There's no deepening of the story that way. Yeah, we haven't seen it used very often. No, it's not a tactic. There are a few places that are trying to do that. Um, but it's not a commonly used. And I do understand. It just gets a little more and more chaotic. I think, um, shit. What was the haunt in Chicago? We went to that kind of did that one with Willow's name. It's going to hit me in a minute. No, it won't. Because you remember Willow and we never remember the name of the haunt.

[26:08] We need to put it in a note somewhere yeah but you know what i'm talking about that one did it where it started out more normal and ended up getting more and more messed up well i think it would be really interesting to do a haunt based on someone's mental degradation so if you started out it would start like normal memories and then you walk through them and they get more and more messed up and they're more surreal and yeah you start introducing like masks or makeup that like fucked with proportion. Walls that are like weird shaped. You start getting like a shit the cabinet of Dr. Caligari looking walls and shit. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that could be a lot of fun. But yeah, things progress naturally. And honestly, they also have some nice levity in it too. One scene later on, there's a cleaning up after a quote unquote party and one guy has an apple on his head and an arrow in his throat and died in a horrible William William Don't Tell accident. Yeah.

[27:06] Yeah. And I really found it hilarious that they recreated one of the scenes with rubber ducks that were all in costumes that the people would have been wearing. Yeah. Yeah, the use of rubber ducks throughout the game is something to watch for. I didn't start watching for it until a little bit late. There's a museum level fairly late in where they actually reenact famous movie sequences with rubber ducks. Books and it's just hilarious that's some good levity thrown around in there and but yeah the whole point of this is the environment tells you the real story you're being told a lot of bullshit by people and when you start going around you get a story of no these guys are just fucked up yeah no no they're not protecting or saving anything everyone talks about why they had to do it there was no choice their back was against the wall and then you learn oh this was a fucking Fucking hit. No. And a fucked up one at that. Well, and I mean, you already know who you're working for, so I don't know why they're lying about it. Yeah. Which, honestly, you know, and that does bring us to some of the things we don't like. Right.

[28:18] Start with, the game is like a lot of these other light-hearted simulator games, and not quite as bad as, like, Goat Simulator. Because Goat Simulator is janky physics completely on purpose, and it's supposed to be part of the game. That has lightly janky physics. And that's fine. That can really work. In fact, it can be a lot of fun. It could be a metagame, so to speak, where you're just kind of working with the physics. But here, especially in some of the later levels, they require you to make some precision jumps and precision movement. That the physics don't work as perfectly as you have to, you know? And it's really frustrating that they do that in. And I also, I just don't like the spoken parts. I love the unspoken story. Yeah. But all of the spoken elements, which come in the phone calls that you get. And the tape recorders, which some of those are funny, too. Yeah, some of those are funny. But, yeah, the spoken story just kind of sucks because they work so hard to make your character a good guy.

[29:23] Yeah, and he doesn't need to be a good guy. No, he doesn't have to be. He can be complex. Yeah, he can be the guy that's tired of working for shit pay as a high school janitor. and this is his chance. A ship came in. Yeah. You know, he's not thinking about it too hard. He's just cleaning up the bodies and raking in the five figures, you know. That would be fine. You don't have to give him both a dead wife and a sick kid and a lovey-dovey dog. Yes, you've got to give him a lovey-dovey dog, though. You've got to give him a dog. Okay, I'm going to talk about the dog for a minute. Okay, go ahead. Because we can't play fetch with him and you can't feed him the pizza. That is true. if the dog was just a little more interactive that would have been better i agree with that.

[30:07] But, yeah, I really do want my character to be a bad guy in this. And the company made the Thief Simulator games. They clearly have no issue with someone being a bad guy. Yeah. I don't know why they bent over backwards to make him, like, oh, he really had no choice. He didn't know what he was doing. And I'm like, the fuck he didn't. You don't haul 11 bodies away from a crime scene without going, oh, this is fucked. No. The other thing I would say I didn't like is that it is a very short game. Even though it's only $20, you know, once again, even if you're thorough, you're probably going to get less than 20 hours out of it. On one hand, bite-sized experience. That might work for you. On the other hand, I didn't get to finish all the upgrades on the first playthrough. I'm having to replay levels to finish getting upgrades. Yeah. I think there needs to be a rebalancing there so it's possible. If you're very thorough and very meticulous to get everything. And it would also be nice to have just a little bit of instruction. Yeah. Like, it's mainly straightforward, but a little more instruction of, like, you will need this tool before you get to this level. Yeah, there is no tutorial to speak of. No. Not really, no. Because, like you said, that first level we just described, that's what you're thrown into. Yeah.

[31:35] Yeah, and you can go up to things and it'll tell you how to interact with it, which is fine, but when you get to the tools and the upgrades, there's no guidance there. Yeah, and one thing I found frustrating was fairly early on in the game, because I got tired of having to punch everything, I got the hatchet. Yeah. And then it took me until the last level to figure out how to use the fucker. Oh, okay. Yeah, I've been using the stepladder. Yeah i i i didn't realize how to pull the hatchet up so i'm like damn i thought i got a hatchet why am i punching everything yeah it's like no i bought the hatchet just replace my punching fist with a hatchet yeah guys this is easy yeah just stick it on yeah you're right there is not a lot of explanation especially and that continues because you'll unlock new things like i still I'm not 100% sure what the fucking UV light is for.

[32:31] Oh, it's to show you where the blood is. Yeah. Without having to use your senses. But I've maxed out my senses. Yeah, so that they're, you know, unlimited. Yeah, so I don't need the UV light then, I'm guessing. Right. So, yeah, there's stuff like that, too. There's not really a, it's wonky. But I do love the upgrade tree overall. I just wish I could have finished my upgrades on the first playthrough. And then go back as Super Ninja Warrior. All right. So, our takeaways as haunters from this game. First, the power of normal.

[33:05] I've got to say, that first time I saw all the blood and all the messed up crime scene hit so much harder because that first room was just a room. Yeah, it was completely, you know, devoid of anything off. There was no blood, no furniture turned over, nothing. So then when you turn around, turn to the right, and you see the first really fucked up room where the fight happened, obviously not the actual murder, but the fight, you realize, whoa, that has an impact. The contrast really hits you. And so having spaces or a space, at least that's normal, can make the horror rooms really pop out more. And they also did a lot with color, I noticed. I don't know if that's something we talked about deeper down. But that was something I found interesting was in most spaces, emphasis on most, they worked hard to make the blood pop by putting it on colors that contrast with it. Yeah. So it was very striking. Like there's one room that's in the museum that's all yellow.

[34:06] And so that blood just shines well and in the spot it's like Moroccan tile yeah that big teal tile to blue green tile yeah so yeah well and sometimes the patterns on the wall though actually make the heart it hard that is right but, it is nice they do in general a good job of making it easy to see the blood which is not something that happens consistently like power washing later later and things like that where it can be very hard to see what the fuck you're supposed to clean mm-hmm they do a better job if not a perfect job mm-hmm second item make sure that the decorations Mac makes sense to tell the story yeah um like there's often an older person in some of the houses.

[34:56] And they are in love with their pet. It is very obvious from that. But it wouldn't make sense to have, like, a dog bowl in a cat lady's home. Yeah. Or statues of cats everywhere in a dog person's home, you know? Yeah. So that's just a simple example that you can see in it. Yeah. And the furniture and everything that's in the space belongs in that space. Yeah. Yeah, it totally makes sense. When you do, like, the Italian restaurant one that comes up, it's filled with the exact type of stuff you would expect to see in an Italian restaurant. It's filled with booths. It's filled with things like, you know, what the hell do they call it? The serving trays. Yeah.

[35:42] Stuff like that. It makes a lot of sense how it's all put together. The pizza oven. The pizza oven. And everything that is bloodied or scattered is bloodied or scattered in a way that tells the story of what happened there. Yeah. Like going back to that first level, that first room, you can tell that there was a physical fight there. Because it obviously started near the couch. And then when it broke up, the coffee table went that way. The chairs went the other way. The lamp went. Well, and one of the other things is that usually the blood splatters and the amount of blood makes sense to the murder weapon, which you do collect because it's part of the evidence that you collect. I mean, obviously they do have to exaggerate it some because you need enough to clean to really justify the gain. But yeah, relatively speaking, it makes sense. Because like going back to that first room again the first room where the fight happened had a good amount of blood but not as nearly as much as the next room where the actual murder took place right you could see that that was a fight there was a conflict and that blood was spilled but then the real pool of blood the real fucking mess is in the next room right near the doorway to the pantry.

[37:00] Right. And also the direction of the blood with the way that the bodies were killed makes sense. Yeah. You see the trail that led to where the body landed eventually. Yeah. And if somebody, you know, in the first one, there's someone strung up and the blood is at the feet instead of on the ceiling. And if somebody's shot in the game, then there's like a blood splatter pattern behind where they were killed. As well as a pool where they landed and continued to bleed out. Exactly. So like the blood patterns make sense too. Yeah, and it reminded me a little bit of the early seasons of Dexter, where they used to talk way more about blood splatter analysis and how you got blood from A to B. I can tell the developers of the game probably were fans of the early seasons, too. Yeah. Because they did a lot of the same kind of thinking.

[37:47] The third thing, gore does not make things scarier. No. For everything we said, you're probably assuming that this is a ridiculously gory game. And, yeah, there's a lot of blood, but all the bodies are intact. Yeah. They're not, like, intestines hanging out and things like that. It's not particularly gory. No, there's, like, starting of bruising and things like that, like you would expect from somebody who's been in a punching fight. Yeah. But it's not gory by any stretch of the imagination. It's bloody, but not gory. No. And that really didn't impact anything. Mm-mm. Like, it would not have been any scarier or any more impactful if the bodies had been mutilated. No. In fact, it would just have been more frustrating. Because, goddammit, now I've got to pick up five things from this motherfucker. Yeah, exactly.

[38:37] I mean, like I said, I love my janky body physics. Like I said, the janky physics were fun when it was things like trying to yeet a body into a truck downstairs. But it was not nearly as fun when you're trying to do precision jumps on pipes or something. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, or just putting the body actually into the truck. For me, it was... Always fun, yeah. Well, no, it was frustrating because... Points when you're doing a bigger job it gets full and so you have to like you can't just sit it on the tailgate or something yeah you have to get it further i will say i prefer the levels where they let you have a little yellow container yeah me too because you just set it on top of that and walk away as long as it got onto the blue thing you were fine you're fine i think that was a fair way to handle it in general yeah but yeah i learned one of the things i learned was to when If I had to use the truck, lower the tailgate immediately after you arrive. And that way you can kind of like, you know, do like a free throw shot with the bodies to get them into the bag. Yeah. So, yeah, janky physics still. Okay, number four. Number four is having an objective in mind.

[39:49] Yeah. I like this about the game because it gives you a goal. You have an objective. This is your expectations. You were expected to do these things. Yeah. You have something you're supposed to be looking for, seeking, doing, and it gives the brain something to process in the background. And that way, whenever that body came tumbling down the attic stairs, it's like, dude, fucking shit. What the hell? Wasn't expecting this. This wasn't on my list. And meanwhile, I'm pretty sure if I had just been roaming idly through it. So I wonder if this is something haunts can exploit. Like I know Hell's Gate. Okay, be sure to look for the key as you go through. through giving people a task that they have to process as they're going through helps and I think that might be one of the reasons why escape horror escape rooms do seem to have for many people they seem to be scarier yeah um I'll let you take the fifth one since it was your addition all right uh soundscaping so lots of times when you get to the scene it's sirens in the background because you You usually start outside of the buildings. And you're somewhere in a city environment oftentimes. So sirens are a common thing. Trust me, we live in a city. We know. Yeah, you never actually see or interact with the cops that I know of. I have not finished the game yet. No, you do not.

[41:06] But whenever you enter the building, it's quiet. And then as you get closer to scenes, it starts making noises. You start hearing music or you start hearing... Drips or... Yeah, and everything makes sense to what you're seeing. And the sound does the same thing that the scenery does, with that crescendo up to whatever you're meant to be startled or surprised by. Exactly. And it all ties together pretty perfectly. It's a very limited sound design game, I think. It doesn't do a lot with it. No. But what it does do it does exactly the amount that's necessary. Yeah, and I think that If you look at the sound as clues to what's going on. Mm-hmm, then I.

[41:59] Does that very well. Yeah, I agree. And like, if you dribble a basketball, it makes the noise of the basketball hitting the ground. And yes, at some point in the game, do please make a basket in one of the many basketball hoops in the game. You do get an achievement for it. Yeah. And it's not that difficult, but it is fun. But yeah, I do agree. The sound design of the game is not a lot, but it's the correct amount. Yeah. And whenever it is present, it has a reason to be there, and that reason is serving the function of the startle that's coming. It's a great escalation. It's a great additional means to escalate as the game's moving on. And the sixth thing is lighting.

[42:44] There's a lot of variability in the lighting. There is. That's one of the things I noticed very quickly, especially in the first two levels. Like I said, the second level is a spa scene, which we have not told any secrets of and will not. But no, basically, these are two rooms that should be bright. Right. I mean, it makes sense. Because if you're inside, you know, somebody's house and they were sitting in there watching TV or whatever, the lights are going to be on. The sun. And then in the case of the first one, the sun was up. It was actually a daytime thing. Yeah. Bright, beautiful sunlight. I don't know how anyone didn't notice us yeeting corpses out of a window. I don't know either, because there was a lot of, you know... Yeah, I get this is a sketchy neighborhood, but I'm pretty sure someone would go, that ain't right. No. You know what I mean? What's that fucking guy doing up there? You know, but still, the point being, like, they were not, the game is not scared to use variable levels of brightness. Some of the scenes, when it makes sense, are very bright, and they still manage to surprise. One of the things I like about the second one, like the spa one.

[43:52] Was the entranceway, once again, normal. Nothing really happened in there. But then you look into the main area. That's where the fucked up shit is. Well, yeah, because you go towards the entrance doors. Yeah. Because it's a lobby, and then it's the entrance into the spa. Yeah, and the lobby is normal. The lobby is completely clean. Nothing happened. Yep. And then the doors have blood on them. Yeah. So you're like, that's where I need to go. But you can't just get in there. Exactly. Exactly, but you know where the goal is because of the decorations and how the lighting changes. And I did love the contrast between the brightly lit areas in that one and the tanning salon room. Yeah. It was very, very dark. Duh. I mean, it makes sense, right? In fact, that was the only time I ever actually used the UV light was that room. Oh, okay. And then you had the sauna room, which was also medium, neither dark nor bright. But, yeah, the game is not scared to have bright rooms where it fits the theming and fits the design. Yeah. And it still punches very, very well. And I think the variants of bright and dark work really well. And later on, you'll have similar instances. Like I said, the restaurant itself, very bright. The alley behind it, very dark. Yeah. The broken stairwells have broken lights that flicker. Yeah.

[45:13] And it's not an overpowering flicker, I don't think. But if you're sensitive to it, you may not be able to play. Yeah, that unfortunately, if you're that level of sensitive, video games in general are going to be a problem. Yeah. And we know someone who is that level of sensitive, so I feel very bad for them. But yeah, they use lighting very well, both to accent where you should be looking and going, but also to make it look natural. It looked like what these spaces should look like, and it let the story of what took place in that space speak for itself yeah oh no i really enjoyed this game and i do think it got me thinking about setting up design in a haunted attraction, and how you can do more with quote-unquote normal um because that ultimately is what a lot of this is about these are normal places places you've been to in your own head you've been to italian restaurants you've been to warehouses you've been to spas you've been to regular apartments you've been to these places and so in that regard these spaces will look familiar to you, but just with some really messed up shit happening in them yeah and even if you haven't been to them you've seen them on tv yeah you've seen them somewhere yeah or or heard about them you've heard them described yeah at the very least yeah these are very normal common places that you uh recognize, at least from somewhere.

[46:41] And the story of what happened in there is told through the environment, not so much through the heavy-handed means. And like I said, that's the only time I get really pissed off about the story. It's when the game starts strong-arming me into, I'm a good person!

[46:57] Now fuck that! You're taking 20 Gs to clean up five murders. You're not a good person. Let me just be the badass cleaner. It's either that or I think they should have flipped the game and made it like Greg Davies the cleaner. Yeah. where you show up after the police have done the investigation. Right. But then you wouldn't get to eat bodies out of the window, so... I mean, you could. You just wouldn't have to worry about getting seen. I think the morgue was going to take those. Yeah. I don't think... I think the police and or the coroner take those, not some guy that shows up in a hazmat suit and a pickup truck. That's probably true. On that note, everyone, thank you very much for joining us for the past half hour. Definitely check out this game. I think there's a lot to learn about haunt design and about how to design an environment where fucked up things happen, Please do check out other home weekly episodes We're at home weekly calm home weekly on Twitter slash X Home weekly on Facebook and youtube.com slash home weekly to youtube channel on that note everyone. I'm Jonathan I'm crystal and we'll see you all next week. Hopefully clear-headed and back at a hundred percent.