Kraven Manor, by Demon Wagon Studios, is a puzzle and horror game produced by thirteen grad students from SMU’s Guildhall over a six-month span. Released in 2014, it is available for free via Steam. Initially, this was plenty attractive to me. Gaming can be an expensive hobby, especially right now, and the combination of horror and puzzles had my name written all over it.

I didn’t expect much from a free-to-play game, though. I was anticipating maybe half an hour of point-and-click gameplay that would have been a fun time-waster but not much else. Boy, was I wrong. Boy, was I glad to be wrong.

True enough, Kraven Manor is on the short side. If you’re efficient and on the ball about the puzzles, it might take you an hour or less. If you prefer to take your time and wander around exploring, you might be able to stretch it out longer. This is also the case if you get confused and die a lot, there is always that possibility too.

The brevity of the game did leave me wanting more, but in a good way. I was truly impressed with the attention to detail, level design, and the slowly unfolding creepiness of the story behind the eponymous manor.

The central mechanic of the game that I will not spoil, is a creative way of adding to the disorientation inherent in the story as your environment shifts around you. This approach definitely contributed to the creepiness of navigating the mansion while you discover the macabre story through collectibles.

In terms of graphics, I was pleasantly surprised. Granted, they were a little blurry and dizzying when moving the cursor to look around or turning corners. However, this seemed a minor inconvenience when compared against the care and thought put into crafting them in the first place. If anything, I might have almost thought the blurriness was deliberate for atmospheric reasons. Certainly, it added to my sense of creeping unease and disorientation playing Kraven Manor, which one could argue is the point.

That said, the controls are intuitive and easy to pick up, making Kraven Manor a relatively low-threshold love letter to Amnesia: The Dark Descent. If you play in nightmare mode, your flashlight can die if you leave it on for too long, forcing you to recharge it in the dark. This mechanic has become something of a fixture in survival horror games, evoking Amnesia and Outlast, along with reappearing in Dollhouse, among others.

It’s clear where Kraven Manor takes its inspiration, without a doubt. Some might feel that makes it a little unoriginal, but I personally have no quarrel with an homage to a previous work you really enjoyed.

It should be said that my experience with Kraven Manor isn’t exclusively positive, though. My complaints weren’t major enough to switch me off from the game altogether, but they were still noticeable enough that they stuck with me after I finished.

First of all, the loading screen upon starting the game is very long. Kraven Manor may even take so long to load that it crashes the first time you open it. However, it runs very smoothly after opening it a second time, so don’t let that turn you off. In my opinion, it’s well worth the wait.

Secondly, heading into the game proper, the graphics when you get hurt or die might feel a little cheesy. Cartoonish blood splatters filling up the screen are clear and unambiguous, but they threaten to break the immersion at times.

Thirdly, the soundtrack and effects can be annoying or even painful at times. Don’t get me wrong, I loved most of them. The music itself is atmospheric without being overbearing, and I loved the amount of thought put into the unsettling sound made when you move through cobwebs. It was gross, and made my skin itch. Perfect.

However, I’m glad I played this game without headphones in. The sounds accompanying the hostile creatures in the mansion can be quite loud and a little painfully screechy. It’s a hard call to choose between immersing with your headphones in and your volume up, and protecting your eardrums. Or is it?

One of the other challenges Kraven Manor faces is balance between rewarding exploration and requiring you to avoid hostile creatures. It’s easy to miss important clues unfolding in the story behind the game if you don’t know what you’re looking for in the dark. The same can be said if you’re too busy keeping an eye out for threats.

This runs the risk of finishing the game and not really knowing what the point was. To be honest, I think I found most of the documents in the game, and I’m still not sure what the playable character went to the manor to do. It’s hard to know from the game’s construction if the creators thought about this aspect at all. Perhaps they were counting on interest in the graphics and mechanics to drown out questions about the endgame.

Overall though, Kraven Manor is a game I would definitely recommend. Its graphics, macabre details, and interesting puzzles have quite a lot to offer to both casual and more serious gamers. On top of that, it’s free! What’s not to like? If I have any major concern, it’s that the time spent on the graphics may have come at the expense of time spent polishing the narrative. If approximately an hour of spooky, challenging fun sounds like it’s up your alley, Kraven Manor may very well be the game for you.

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Kraven Manor

Free

7.7

Score

7.7/10

Pros

• Beautiful and detailed graphics
• Appropriately creepy
• Creative mechanics
• Interesting puzzles
• Easy, intuitive controls

Cons

• Motion blur
• Weak or confusing narrative
• Harsh sound effects
• Some cheesy visuals