Haunted PS1 Demo Disc: Spectral Mall

Summary: The Haunted PS1 Demo Disc: Spectral Mall is a collection of 20 game demos that resemble PS1 titles.

The Haunted PS1 Demo Disc: Spectral Mall, which is essentially the demo disc for 2022, is a collection of 20 game demos that resemble PlayStation 1 titles, and some resemble Nintendo 64 games. There are two secret games in this collection.

The launcher is essentially a game. You are in a vacant mall, snowed in, and there are some stores (demos) open, but you must venture around the mall to find items to help you progress, such as bolt cutters, crowbar, screwdriver, quarters, and other things to open up areas. There are various floors and areas of the mall, so look carfully for items and remember where you cannot make progress until you have an item. There are also coins that can be collected to put into an arcade to unlock a secret game.

There is a bit of backstory for the launcher that states:

In the before-time – your childhood, or perhaps those of your forebears – THE MALL stood king among shopping locales. People of all kinds flocked to them, swarming store after store, purchasing copious amounts of tie-dyed fabric and greasy food and novelty knives. But now the people are, DEAD, and the corporate catacombs stand silent. Their only customers now are rats and cockroaches.

Of late, though, there have been murmurs in the emptiness – flashes of too-bright colors, flickers of wires and flesh, strangled electric sounds, almost like SCREAMS. Brave or foolish souls have returned to the sites of their pasts, spurred by curiosity. The few who have returned, amidst their gibbering, mad cries, spoke of change. Storefronts peddling wares that they do not contain, advertisements that flicker in the corner of one’s eye, and distant, echoing footsteps, coming from everywhere and NOWHERE in the dust-suffused halls.

Your town bore one such DECREPIT MALL, a hopeful tourist destination long since abandoned by the few teens that frequented it. Yet you find yourself standing before it in the gloom, for the first time in years. Lights flicker from within, tinny music emanates from disconnected speakers. And a phrase BURNS in your mind as if carved with a burning knife…

Haunted PS1 Demo Disc: Spectral Mall

My personal favorites are Beeknighted, MOTHERED, House of Necrosis, Fear the Spotlight, Mortal Meal, 10 Dead Doves, Nowhere, MI, and Blast Cats.

10 Dead Doves

Story: The game plays out like a movie. It tells the story of two friends, Marcus and Sean, that went on a hiking trip in the Appalachian Mountains to visit the Ant Farm. The Ant Farm is apparently a structure in the deepest part of the woods, and the origin and purpose is a mystery, with vast conspiracies trying to explain what happens there.

There is constant bickering between Marcus and Sean. It begins with Marcus waking up from a dream where a masked man is speaking cryptic words. Afterwards, they head to a gas station, get some snacks, and drive off, but forget to get gas, so they walk back to the gas station. However, it is completely destroyed and the owner is gone. They find a ‘Wanted’ poster on the wall about a serial killer known as Hamburger Dough. They try to escape after looking for the owner, and being chased by what appears to be a tree, but they get separated by an electric fence that turns on when one of them was climbing it. The demo ends here.

Gameplay: Control your character from a fixed camera perspective, looking for clues to help you solve puzzles and progress. There is a journal, inventory, and map, but they aren’t needed in the demo. You can run, interract, and talk, and that’s about it.

Graphics: The style of the game is interesting, almost like real people’s faces imposed on character models. They look very realistic which is the unique style the game has going for it. It’s the developers of the game that are in the game, playing the two characters.

Sound / Music: The music is unsettling and fits the atmosphere of the game. The voice acting is also…questionable. It’s done by the developers of the game. It’s not necessarily bad voice acting, but certainly different from what you’d expect. Also, the game could use some compression and normalization of volume since some effects will be very loud, voices will be quiet and uneven, and audio mixing is unbalanced in general.

BÅÅBÖSÅÅNGJÅÅR (KOREAN FOR IDIOT BOX)

Story: This is the strangest one in the collection and hard to determine what the story is. Anton is a kid who’s sick and starting to become out of touch with reality while final exams are about to happen. However, Anton doesn’t want to talk about it and instead wants to watch old VHS tapes from his past. Perhaps they have the answers to his troubled past? There are three tapes in the demo:

• MALL: Meet your friend and rent some VHS tapes to watch back at home. Or spend over an hour talking with all the strange people in the mall.
• flesh friends forever: Secret tape unlocked by freeing the man in the Burstedblocker video tape store. It’s a childhood show, and there isn’t much on the tape.
• ROADSIDE: The demo ends when this tape plays.

Gameplay: This game was initially on the Haunted PS1 Madvent Calendar 2021, but the version included here has a lot more to it. Walk around, talk with people, having some of the strangest conversations you’ve ever had in your life, while pondering if the broken English is intentional or not. The demo can be completed very quickly if you don’t talk with a bunch of people. There is also an issue with the controller where the dead zone of the analogue sticks are too low, making your character move without moving the sticks if you have a heavily used controller. There is no setting to adjust the dead zone.

Graphics: The style is very unique, like a cartoon. There are multiple filters that are applied (which can be turned off). There are also a few cutscenes, which are basically like YouTube Poops. The text is also quite small and hard to read, which unfortunately I neglected to enable high DPI override in Windows, which would’ve fixed it.

Sound / Music: The music isn’t anything memorable. There are sounds when interacting with people and answering questions, such as “hello,” and “creepy,” and “maybe.”

Beeknighted

Story: A giant monster destroyed a bee’s hive and now she finds herself stranded in a hunter’s trap. She must traverse the land and kill the ants that stand in her way. However, she ends up getting captured by Antonio, and being thrown into jail. She manages to escape and defeat him, and wants to leave, but there are only two ways: the front gates which takes several ants to open, and the queen’s chambers. She approaches Queen Antalya’s lair and the demo ends.

Gameplay: This is very similiar to The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, except you are a bee. It’s also very difficult since you have limited health and everything, including the rain, does damage to you. Not to mention the tiny hit box of the enemies, limited range of your attacks, and slow movement of the bee. You cannot fly, nor jump, but you can float for a brief period of time. This gives you time to go across gaps. Gemfruit is the currency, and it’s used to purchase only one thing in the demo, a royal jelly piece, which when collecting three will extend your life. There are a few other upgrades, such as blast pods which act as bombs, a sword, and boxing gloves. Additionally, there are some parts where you have to sneak around, which can be quite challenging. Fortunately, checkpoints are pretty good in the game, so you won’t find yourself repeating too many parts, unless you keep messing up.

Graphics: The game resembles a Nintendo 64 game. The color pallet is dark and the textures are perfect N64 material.

Sound / Music: The sounds and music in the game are almost identical to The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Even the sound of the bee is similar. It’s amazing actually.

Blast Cats

Story: C.C. Leo works at her father’s company, Leo’s Construction. Papa Leo headed for a haunted mansion but something happened and C.C. has to go find him. However, C.C. meets a demon who wants to sign a contract for her soul, and C.C. refuses, so she must defeat the demon. Then C.C. requests the demon sign the contract so it has to be nice to her.

Gameplay: Control the cool cat in a 3D environment, blasting your enemies and solving puzzles. You even have a hammer to hit enemies and switches, although there is a slight delay, so plan accordingly. Movement is fast and fluid. There are bonus zones where you can get a gem for completing one. You need three gems to progress. The zones consists of target practice, platforming, and one is driving a car.

There are various abilities as well, such as kicking the bomb if you run in front of it, remote detonate, and to blast you across the stage to reach platforms, which is only in a few bonus stages. There are also homing rockets to be found that can be quite useful.

There is also a secret Tomb level that’s unlocked by using the cheat “Some Love And Devotion 445.” While there is no story, I really like the design. Additionally, another cheat code unlocks big head mode, “Your Knowledge Beyond The Masses 123.”

Graphics: Definitely PS1 style with N64 influence. The mansion is dark as you would expect, but the bonus zones are bright.

Sound / Music: The music is incredible! There are various tracks with a cool cat rap in it, and other tracks are really catchy. Must…own…soundtrack…now!

DEAD LETTER DEPT.

Story: You are sorting and transcribing lost mail. But, you begin to notice weird things start to happen. The mail gets strange, almost as if it’s talking to you. The screen starts to get static on it, and there are strange noises. You then go out the hallway and fall down a massive hole…the demo ends here.

Gameplay: You have to transcribe mail and do your best to figure out what the words are on the envelope. The text you need to transcribe is highlighted. You can zoom in which helps, and flip it over if the highlighted text is on the back. The letters get harder as you go along. There is also an auto-suggestion that will give you three options to choose from to speed along your typing. Most of the letters are addresses, but some are small paragraphs of text.

Graphics: You start off in a completely green hallway and make your way to a computer that has what looks like real letters on it. There is some minor static overlaid on the game. The static intensifies as you do more letters. At the end, you are in a completely red hallway before falling down the hole.

Sound / Music: There is nice ambient music that plays throughout the game, and realistic computer and typing sounds.

ENCHAIN

Story: There is no clear story in the game, as it’s mostly action. You’re a skeleton with a lantern that is venturing the world, killing enemies. I couldn’t complete it since I had a hard time, but progressing where I died would lead you to a hand boss (Hand of the Child) and then the end of the demo.

Gameplay: This game is difficult! Largely because there are so many controls to remember, and playing with either a keyboard or controller will be a challenge. Basically it’s a fast-paced action shooter where you have multiple moves. You start with nothing, and have to slide under a wall, then you get a lantern to attack enemies, but can also juggle them and attach them to your lantern, such as using them as a shield or throw them in the air. You can also use the lantern as a grappling hook, and swing around on it. You cannot double jump, but you can do a maneuver in the air to go a bit further, and run on the walls, and wall jump. Then you get a gun, and you can harvest bullets from enemies by attaching them to your lantern and making it so they drop bullet when they die. There are many other things too, and it becomes overwhelming with the amount you can do and trying to remember it all.

Enemies have multiple health bars. The first is their standard standing red bar, then once that’s down, you have to attack them on the ground or juggle them into the air to damage them and kill them. Some enemies are even stronger and take multiple types of attacks to kill them. If you wait too long, they will regenerate.

There are light orbs to pick up for your lantern, else it would be dark. There are also fragments of keys to pick up that will form a whole key to allow you to progress.

Graphics: The color pallet is mostly brown and red, with little variety. It it not as pixalated as I would’ve expected.

Sound / Music: There isn’t much music wise, and there are plenty of chain sound effects. There are a variety of other sound effects from killing enemies, and shooting, but it’s minimalistic sound-wise.

Fear the Spotlight

Story: Your friend Amy has mysteriously vanished at high school, so you decided to investigate and discover a man with a giant spotlight roaming the halls. She finds photos of Amy that are dated back 25 years, so surely they cannot be here…can it? The demo is very short and ends after the first major puzzle.

Gameplay: This is a classic horror game, where you solve puzzles and evade the enemy. Collect items to help you progress, solving the simple puzzle before you, and sneak around and evade the spotlight man. The downside is that there is no controller support, and there is no way to run. Additionally, the spotlight man’s pattern is quite predictable. When you enter a classroom and exit, he’ll be there, then when you enter a classroom and exit again, he won’t, alternating with this pattern.

Graphics: The appearance of the game make it very creepy. It’s definitely PS1 style, but even crustier. The low poly models of the characters, and darkness of the environment, making it hard to see, surely makes it one of the creepiest ones.

Sound / Music: The music is pretty creepy. The standard non-chase music is certainly atmospheric, but the loud boombox music that plays when the spotlight man is looking for you is quite interesting and strange.

Future Reality: Racing League

Story: There is no story in the game, except you are racing shells in the distant future.

Gameplay: Drive around in a spaceship on a track and pick up meat (refuse cells) that gets added to your empty shell of a vehicle. The meat can be used to heal you shell, or give your a boost. But, you don’t want too much meat on your ship. You have to use it There are a total of three corses available in the demo to try out, but I wasn’t very good and couldn’t unlock the third one. This is because the ship is quite hard to control, since you have to worry about both the horizontal and vertical axis. Additionally, the refuse cells are very hard to pickup. You have to be directly on it to pick it up, and if you aren’t, you could crash into a wall. Overall a hard game and will take time getting use to.

Graphics: The style of game is grungy and dark, definitely PS1 style with dark colors, making it hard to see what’s in front of you at times. The graphics actually make it much harder to play since you can’t see far in front of you.

Sound / Music: The music is really good. Nice tunes play when riding around collecting some good ol’ meat.

Gob

Story: Gob is a creature that lives underground, in what appears to be the sewers. He goes on an adventure one day, solving puzzles, and making his way through a secret tunnel behind a vending machine. This is a short demo and it ends after going through the tunnel.

Gameplay: The game is relatively simple, but can be complex if you don’t know how to solve some puzzles. Gob can pick up items in each of his hands, smash them together, or break them apart. For instance, a nozzle in a tin can can be separated into two items, the nozzle and the can. The nozzle then has to be combined with another can to create a spray can to solve a puzzle. Gob can also run and crawl.

Graphics: What’s fascinating about this game is that there is no text at all in the game. Everything is done with symbols. Even the main menu and options menu is done with symbols and actions to see how to perform certain moves. Also, the graphics are very interesting. It’s like made out of clay, and some things are hard to see. The style is one of the most interesting.

Sound / Music: There is no music, mostly just ambient sounds.

House of Necrosis

Story: Resident Evil for the PS1…no joke! July 1998, strange murders were occurring in a forest with victims being eaten. A special forces team was sent to investigate, but also went missing. Amanda and the Colonel went to search for them.

Gameplay: This is a combination of Resident Evil with the appearance and story, Fire Emblem with the grid based, turn based combat, and a roguelike where you go through randomly generated maps, picking up random items, and upon dying have to start all over. I love the concept and enjoyed the gameplay and strategy that was involved to move your character in a way to attack the enemy without them being able to get the first hit off. Killing enemies grants you EXP and your character will level up, giving you a full heal and more HP and attack boost. It’s important to plan your moves to avoid having to use healing items. You also start with a knife that is only for close combat and a gun for ranged combat of multiple tiles ahead.

There are various items to pick up, such as herbs (Resident Evil style) that can be combined to heal health and cure poison. Serums that are unlabeled are also obtainable which have random effects, such as ATK loss, ATK gain, EXP loss, warp, and others. These can also be thrown at enemies to damage them and cause various effects. There are also various trinkets that can prevent poison, prevent you from losing a bullet when attacking, steal enemy HP, increase attack, and others. Inventory is limited, so choose items wisely. There are also special doors on various floors that take you to a safe room to get a free item, a tip from the journal, and a chest to store items. The items you store in the chest are carried over to the next run.

The goal of the demo is to get to floor 7 and defeat the boss, which is Dead Hand from the Legend of Zelda series. Upon doing so, which is very difficult, the demo ends.

Graphics: It basically looks like Resident Evil 1 for the PS1, except the backgrounds are not static images, but 3D models. It’s also very dark which makes it quite creepy.

Sound / Music: The sound design is creepy as well. The further you go, the creepier the sound gets and it’s truly disturbing.

Miracle Bug and the Electric Limbo (Limbocore)

Story: Bug is in limbo, maybe it died, and it has to find a way out, to ascend. Talking with the other creatures here, it’s implied that this is the land of the dead, and the only way to ascend. At the end, Bug has to battle some angel thing and when it does, it ascends…maybe?

Gameplay: Basically just walk around, talking to a few creatures, then battle an angel with cards, but each card is a small microgame. When you complete it, you do damage. Movement is quite difficult, unfortunately, due to the perspective and tank controls.

Graphics: Everything is black and white, with a chromatic filter applied to the edges. It’s a unique style, almost reminds me of an old Game Boy game.

Sound / Music: The music is really interesting and I like it. While it’s short, it brings out a certain feeling. Hard to describe.

Mortal Meal

Story: Your physical body has died, and a dog is chewing on your heart. Now you soul wanders around the world, while the harvester of souls tries to claim it. This harvester has taken the souls of others, and takes on their form. When you find your body, you have to look for clues as to how you died, but the harvester comes and begins chasing you. The demo ends here.

Gameplay: Float around with your spiritual body, looking for clues and solve puzzles. The game isn’t in first-person, but a type of third-person where your soul is on the left side of the screen and you move around. Also, the blue/purple heart inside the soul will go over to objects in the environment you can interact with. While the game has controller support, some things cannot be done with controller, such as pressing numbers on a keypad. There are also a few hidden CDs to find to unlock something in the full game.

Graphics: Blurry game that looks like it’s running at native PS1 resolution. You can disable this effect in settings, which I did when I played. Also, the character models have realistic faces on them, making it look interesting.

Sound / Music: The music is very ominous, but almost a bit cartoony.

MOTHERED – A ROLE-PLAYING HORROR GAME

Story: Liana has just had major surgery and her parents are trying their best to make sure she feels comfortable at home while she regains her memories. The demo spans three nights (Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday). Father drops Liana off at her mother’s place, but it’s suspicious that he doesn’t want Liana to see his face, as it wouldn’t be safe. Also, mother isn’t there the first night, but there is an ominous fire in a barn out back. First thing Monday morning she meets mother, but she is acting strange, like a talking mannequin that only moves when she’s speaking. She insists that Liana eat her breakfast, nutrients, and is surprised that she ate the whole thing. She proceeds to take her on a tour of the inside and outside of the house to help her regain her memories.

Mom says that Liana is forbidden from entering her parent’s room, so the door is kept locked, as is the door to the basement that leads to another bathroom. There is also another room where brother resides. The door is always cracked and he almost never responds when trying to interact. Mother has also taped up the mirrors, for Liana’s own good. On Tuesday night, things get strange and the screen glitches out, and the phone rings. Upon picking it up, the game indicates that there is more to this reality when you’ve witnessed the full experience. This implies that once you complete the full game, and go back to the demo, the demo will be different. More of the story will be revealed upon completing the other games from the developer.

Gameplay: There isn’t much to the gameplay. Simply walk or run around, and interact with objects and talk with mother. She will tell you where to go and what to do, so do those things to progress. If she doesn’t give you an instruction, you’ll have to find out where she is and talk with her. The home and land aren’t large so it’s pretty easy.

Graphics: The style of the game is phenomenal. Such unique VHS style graphics that really brings out the horror elements. While the graphics are beautiful, it’s insanely graphic intensive and will max out your GPU and lag the game, especially if you don’t have the newest and greatest GPU or are playing at a high resolution. There is also a glitch, which I’m sure is intentional, where mother’s right hand will attach to her dress and it’ll look like a sharp object at times. What else I really like about the game is how mom moves. She’s completely frozen unless she’s talking, which really makes the player question what’s going on.

Sound / Music: The music is ominous, dark, and evil sounding. I love the track that plays during the title screen and when talking with mom before going to bed.

Northstar Courier

Story: Porter has been promoted to deliver packages in a new town for a month. Her dad drops her off and she becomes familiar with the townsfolk and starts her work. The demo only has three days, but as time progresses, things get strange. There are various anomolies that she spots and takes photos of. She can keep track of them on the computer in her room. Sharon, the head of. themail department for the town, writes her update notes daily. However, on the last day Sharon writes to let Porter know that contact will be dropped, and that Porter isn’t allowed to leave, and should not contact, or else it’ll result in contract termination.

After the final night, Porter awakens in the dark, exits the home, and finds stone statues of herself. Dropping down a big hole in the center of the room, she finds Baba Yaga, a wizard that is trying to kill her. She pulls out a gun, shooting him and the house and the demo ends…awkwardly since bizarre things happen during this ending sequence.

Gameplay: Walk around the town, delivering packages and finding anomalies to take photos of. There are 13 anomalies, and some can only be gotten on certain days. Movement is extremely slow, and riding the moped is much faster, but hard to control. Just deliver the three packages to the same people each day and the main part of the game is done. However, the mechanics completely change. There is a first person shooter segment with the boss.

During the final night in the room with the stone statues, there is a hand, mouth, and eye, and they talk in code for you to decipher to find more secrets about the game.

• Hand of the puzzle master (ciphertext) gives code ‘hands’ which unlocks a dev room.
• Mouth of the puzzle master (hex) gives code ‘mouth’ which unlocks a dance club.
• Eyes of the puzzle master (base64) gives code ‘eyes’ which gives a password (swordsman) to open a secret file in the game directory, “SecretDemonFolder.rar” which unlocks the game Springboard Swordsman.

Graphics: The game definitely gives off a PS1 vibe. The colors are also very vibrant, with mostly a yellow color pallet.

Sound / Music: There isn’t much music in the game, but you can find CDs in various sports that you can play on your portable CD player. Other than that, there isn’t much audio wise.

Springboard Swordsman (hidden within Northstar Courier files)

Story: A hero emerges to save a village from goblins, and his name is Springboard Swordsman. Sqench is the name of the assistant to the hero that lays down the springboards for the hero in armor to use to reach the goblins. Upon killing them all, they meet the king who wants to give them both a handshake. However, the knight kills the king…oops! The power of friendship saved the day!

Gameplay: This is a short puzzle game where you have to lay down springs for the knight to jump on and reach various platforms, kill the goblins, and make it to the exit. You can double jump, place down springs, wall slide, and speed up the timer. The knight can only die to spikes, but you can be killed by spikes, the goblins, and the projectiles the goblins shoot. Later in the game. are teleporters that must be used to traverse the map. The game gets harder as it goes along, but not overwhelmingly difficult.

Graphics: Cartoony style graphics that look almost drawn with paint, which is really interesting.

Sound / Music: There is some nice music that plays in the background of the stages. It’s in mono, but it fits the style of the game really well.

Nowhere, MI

Story: James is trying to find his missing brother, Alex, after he runs away from home and went to Nowhere, where a reactor detonated and caused the residents to have supernatural properties. After progressing to a certain point, you’ll meet the talking gun, Concord, who has seen Alex. The demo ends here…or does it? You can continue playing to uncover more secrets, find strange places and people, including Orbo who is looking for Peeb.

Gameplay: Adventure around in the strange world, talking with people and learning meaningless details about their life, and helping others with their strange request. You can double jump, vein travel, mid-air dash, once you pickup the powers for them. Once you get the gun, you then fight a boss and can continue playing to find the other boss.

Graphics: The characters are 2D while the environment is 3D, creating a unique effect. The characters almost look like cardboard cutouts.

Sound / Music: The music is mysterious and bizarre, which is fitting for the game.

Perlin Festival

Story: Pluto is investigating a room full of doors, with each one leading to a different world. The Noise is what the place is called, like the noise and doors within the mind, perhaps compartmentalized thoughts and ideas. There is no real end to the demo that I could find.

Gameplay: This is a LSD: Dream Emulator type game, where you walk through multiple rooms, meet strange people, and do various things to satisfy them or to change the world. Unless I missed a lot of secrets, there isn’t much to this one compared to others. There are a handful of rooms, and the doors lead to the same place. The two main things to do is to find a leaf for the giant rock, and find the run away clown, that no longer wants to be a clown. You can also go into first person view and run, but the game is mostly about interacting with other characters.

Graphics: This is classic PS1 style graphics. Each world has a different style, some dark and others bright. The game is also in 4:3 aspect ratio, and the PSX distortion can be turned off.

Sound / Music: The music is calm and relaxing, but in some areas it is a bit creepy. There isn’t much sound effects either.

Sorry, We’re Open

Story: You are the new manager at a supermarket, and it’s up to you to make sure the store and employees are doing well. You work both the dayshift and nightshift. After several days of progressing through the office, you’ll get the company car keys and leave. There are some strange things in the building, such as toilet meat that is holding the manager’s (your’s) keys. Upon going into your room, you’re there, basically dead watching television. Also, there is a dead man who welded a door shut in the basement.

Gameplay: The gameplay is…odd. It’s an RPG game, but not like what’s you’d expect. You get the opportunity to hire employees. When doing so, they will join your team and fight alongside of you during battles. The battles include mice, boxes, wet floor signs, shopping carts, mannequins, and so on. The combat is also very weird. In order to attack with your employees, you have to “goof off” which deals damage to the enemies, but hurts the manager, or spend money to attack with an employee and not do damage to the manager. You mostly get into battles when doing the day or night shift. But when walking around the store, you can progress with items you’ve earned from completing the shift. You don’t really have to do the shifts for the most part. Just die once and fight the toilet meat and you’re done.

Graphics: You can tell the game is made in RPG maker, as the menus, sounds, and other elements seem like it.

Sound / Music: Most of the game id devoid of music. However, where there is music it’s basically what you would expect in a supermarket.

THEY SPEAK FROM THE ABYSS

Story: Vanessa awakens in her apartment, and meets a the therapist, Germain. He is a creepy monster who tells her to proceed past him to explore her damaged psyche and explore her trauma. She even meets demons, such as the Killer, that wants her dead. During her time in the abyss, she learns from the monsters about a baptism about to happen that she will directly be part of. However, when it’s time, she stabs the monster about to perform the baptism and she meets a familiar face…Sophia?

Gameplay: This is a dungeon crawler in first person. You move one square at a time through a bloody world. The camera is super close up, and you can really only see what is directly in front of you, no peripheral vision. Some passages have monsters that you can talk to, and some let you go through them, while others don’t. Some areas are also blocked off, so you need to collect a heart to open it up. There are even some items to collect from various characters that can be used through the dungeon (only when prompted). Furthermore, there are some areas that you cannot return to once you go past it. There is also a map, but you have to hold the button to bring it up.

Graphics: The astetics are really creepy and gory. Most things are bloody and meat like. It’s definitely a really creepy atmospher, despite nothing actually scary happening.

Sound / Music: There is some ambient music in the background, along with some creepy meaty sounds, but not much of anything else.

Arcade Woah!!!

Story: This is a secret game unlocked with four quarters in the “Spectral Arcade” room of the 2nd floor. The premise is that you and other monsters have had their soul trapped in an arcade. You’re the only one who can get enough tickets to get your soul back and escape. Upon doing so, you’re able to leave and realize that the monsters are now clouds of smoke left behind at an arcade that’s being consumed by fire. Everyone wants to leave, but until they can get enough tickets, they are trapped.

Gameplay: Talk with people, play two mini-games (Asteroids & Cyclone), pick up tickets, and spend them on various items behind the counter. The more tickets you end up collecting, the more your ticket multiplier increases, meaning more tickets for you! The items behind the counter also increase your multiplier. There is always something the monsters will talk about and will give you tickets. Most of the time you’ll be spending in the arcade will be talking and getting new tickets on the ground. Unless you want to try your luck at Asteroids, which I’m not good at.

Graphics: Cartoon graphics that are sharp and nice. When heading into Asteroids, there is a cool 2D/3D effect.

Sound / Music: There is a nice and catchy tune that plays in the background.

Sauna2000: Autumn Night Prelude

Story: It’s time to heat the sauna once more with a 15 minute demo of Sauna2000, first featured on the Haunted PS1 Demo Disc 2020. You play as Jaska and your friend Erkki is excited that you’re warming the sauna. But before you play, you get a brief tutorial from Skully on how to pick up and interact with items.

There are multiple endings much like the first version.

Ending 1 – Complete the sauna warming tasks within 15 minutes and enjoy the sauna with your friend, Erkki, and the sauna demon. A white orb next to the sun starts to glow bright and engulfs the entire world.

Ending 2 – Find your axe and chop down the trees to a secret hole underground. Oh no, there is a bear, and you’re dead.

Ending 3 – Kill your friend Erkki with an axe and the secret hole opens up with a blood trail. Follow it, but don’t be killed by the bear. You wake up in an actual sauna. Head outside and find a suspicious person chasing you, and then stabbing you.

Gameplay: Gameplay is basically the same as the original one, except you’re now on a time limit in the demo. But, the tasks are much more involved and buggy. I had items stuck in my hands, I was stuck on doors, I lost items in the water. It is extremely buggy and glitchy. All you have to do is find your axe, chop some wood and bring it back to the sauna, be sure to vent it first though. Then get the water, light it, and relax. What could go wrong?

Graphics: The graphics have changed quite a bit since the initial release. It is still crusty, as intended, but has saturation cranked up quite a bit.

Sound / Music: There isn’t much music, so turn on the radio to listen to some sick jams. Also, the voice acting is still amazing.

About the Author

Asphodel Gaming

I am a Twitch streamer and game reviewer.