This Apartment Has Vibes and They’re All Bad! Haunted Property Review

Everything you need to know before your tea goes cold!

I can already hearing you gulping that tea so I’ll make it short and sweet for you! *Minimal Spoilers*

What I loved:

✅ Maybe an unpopular opinion but in certain games I think the VHS effect brings a little spice and I liked it a lot in this one! It made it feel like a horror movie I was somehow in, which is both fun and horrifying!
✅ I liked the short length, no fluff or filler, it got to the point which is scaring the shit out of people!
✅ There is a chase scene….. being chased in games gets my heart rate up and this one had me PANICKING! Doors have never been so difficult to open until now!
✅ I did have a giggle at the close up of a certain character’s face….. which eased some of the tension in a weird but welcome way!
✅ For a short game the story was explained and easy to follow, I didn’t get to the end like “what the hell was that about?” which you get with some short horror games. Also it is great to stream (as I did!).
✅ No janky controls! It felt smooth and responsive.
✅ 2 endings….so watch your choices!

What didn’t work for me:

👎 One character’s silly face…. it is in the good and bad column as it broke some of the tension but I would have preferred that I was terrified only!
👎 There were a couple of moments where I was just waiting for something to happen and wasn’t sure if I was missing something. I wasn’t, I just needed to be patient!
👎 I got confused at one point as I had to run through a certain area. After dying I checked this way just before the action started and it was blocked off which made me think it was inaccessible, but it actually opened up once the chase started. Could be a me problem…..but it totally confused me!

That’s my thoughts in a nutshell! If that’s all you have time for then I hope it helped you decide whether you want to give this spooky game a go!

If you have more time for my personal thoughts (albeit with spoilers) then read on! 😱

*Spoilers…. don’t say I didn’t warn you!*

Alright, so the gloves are off, the tea is stone cold, and that is fine! Because the kettle is back on for round 2 and we’re ready to get into the juicy parts of how Haunted Property tried to wreck me in just 40 minutes.

Haunted Property is like a nightmare. It’s scary, it’s weird and everyone moves and looks as if they were possessed by a demon, but it’s his first day on the job and no one briefed him on how humans actually work. So he gave it his best shot but he ended up moving like he shit himself and talking like his face was lagging behind his voice.
Or simply put, everyone moves and looks WRONG.
And that might sound like it’s a bad thing but it’s not! Because when things are that wrong, you can’t relax, and that is when a horror game has you. Right there, in your horrible, knotted stomach….

Let me set the scene and take you by the hand through this creepy apartment block.

The game starts off with us working very late at our office job with our boss telling us that this makes him feel like the good old days of his career, which I can only presume he is still in as he is also working at this ridiculous hour!

We discover we are currently staying in a very cheap apartment that our delightful boss says isn’t safe as it must be cheap for a reason, but on hearing that we are there because it’s what we can afford on our measly salary, tells us to aim for a promotion and move out. I can only presume the main goal of the game is therefore to not die long enough for us to get that elusive promotion and salary increase!

We then head home to our apartment where the most interesting feature is the mould covering the walls and the odd neighbours who don’t know how to mind their business!

Movement in the game itself, despite having a kind of goofy feel to it, is smooth and easy to control which is VERY important as in about 20 minutes time shit is going to get real. There is also a VHS filter in the game which sometimes I can find distracting but I felt it gave this game some charm and a kind of “old-movie” feel to it, which makes you feel like you’re part of the game which is both welcome and unwelcome (when the spooky bits happen!)

But back to the game itself, our friend comes over with alcohol and we sit there together drinking until there is a knock at the door and our weird-arse neighbour is whinging about noise and looking through us like we’re transparent. After telling him to fuck off (not the game’s words but mine!) our friend leaves and we go for a pissed wee before bed and here is where shit starts getting real!

We end up in a place I described as the “NetherRealm”, walking endlessly in loops while on the TV we can see some creepy looking ghost woman getting closer to the screen “Ring” style before eventually coming out and giving me the fright of my life, resulting in a panic-run into a locked door and a close up of her face that was both horrifying and hilarious!

This section was surprising as it went from feeling like a thriller with a creepy neighbour to full on paranormal shit! There was a part here where I felt a bit lost as I wasn’t sure what to do before it progressed, and it turned out what I needed to do was just be patient! However I think this was only 1 of 2 sections where I felt stuck which was great as sometimes with indie horrors the design can be a bit too vague and I have been lost and stuck for a good while, but this wasn’t such an issue with Haunted Property.

Anyway, now we know why it’s called “Haunted Property”!

We got ghost bitches crawling out of TV’s and chasing me down spooky corridors that seemed to appear from the loo!

After this we wake up as if it were an alcohol-induced dream, have a beer with our boss who seems to have concern for our wellbeing before following it up with the fact our work is suffering which is his real concern. Not the fact my toilet expands to the NetherRealm and a dead woman tried to kill me. We also have some dealings with the apartment manager who liked to tell me that people have been dying in the next town and nowhere is safe.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the neighbour in apartment 204 won’t stop banging on the wall! We go to the Convenience Store to get some supplies (beer and crisps) only to have the weird neighbour who told us to be quiet try and murder me by dropping a plant pot on my head (yes, that happens) and the apartment manager tells me when I get back from the store that there isn’t anyone in apartment 204 and he will check it out tomorrow. So who the fuck is banging on the wall?

Now, if this were me, I’m out of this shit!

I don’t care who I have to stay with, I’m leaving so fast the dust kicks up like in the cartoons. But where would the horror be in that? So what we do is we go home, try and sleep, and wake up to that banging and decide WE ARE TAKING THIS MATTER INTO OUR OWN HANDS. We find the key to 204, ghost lady watches from a distance, and we go in to find….. lots of black bags, blood and tools, like hammers and saws. Now, I don’t know about you, but that is a “back out of here slowly” moment.

And we try to leave. But someone is coming and we have to hide! And you can bet I fucked that up at least twice! When you die, you get an amazing close up of the killer pulling a goofy face that scared me but also made me die of laughing. I hesitated putting an image of it here but it is best you discover that yourself! But once you are safely hidden away and the weirdo leaves (who is the neighbour from 202 who asked us to shut up, the little shit), we have a choice of who to call. I called the Police because why wouldn’t you!

This is where it all went horribly wrong.

The chase happens. And initially I got stuck as I couldn’t see where to go. I checked the back door before the chase and it was inaccessible and thought it stayed that way during the chase only to find out it actually opens up! Once I knew where to go, I had a good go at it and died! Never in my life have I panicked so hard I am unable to press the left mouse button and open a fricking door. But here we are!

On my second attempt I managed to run for my life, albeit I almost fumbled the door again, and ran to a police office who went goofy-running after the neighbour and I survived! Good ending achieved. I won’t spoil the bad ending and what happens….. just call anyone but the police and see what happens.

So that is what happens! Onto my overall experience…..I am sucker for indie horror games. I love the simplicity, the graphics, that they can make you laugh but also scare the life out of you, and this game ticked all the boxes for me! It wouldn’t be fair to compare it to those blockbuster horror games so I will say for what it was, I really enjoyed it.

I streamed the game and found it was really fun to play with chat as they would react to the funny elements and even the scary ones. It’s always funny when chat jumps along with you and they were theorising who the killer was. It was one of my lovely friends who initially spotted that it was the naughty neighbour who was trying to end me and he would have succeeded if I hadn’t panic-fumbled my way to survival!