Some new videogame releases pounce on us like excitable Golden Retrievers, while others become apparent to us more insidiously, like undead Golden Retrievers creeping back from the grave to do their master's bidding unto eternity. Withering Rooms is one of the latter: released out of early access last week, and noticed by me just yesterday, it's a haunted mansion metroidvania in which you are a small girl in a nightie who must use meat cleavers, pentagrams and spells of self-enlargement or possession or incineration to overcome various monsters of the Silently Hilly and/or Residentially Evil persuasion. No, none of the monsters are Golden Retrievers.
The mansion itself is an atmospheric, generated dreamworld of 2.5D hallways full of Victorian fixtures, with frequent hiding spots and the occasional safe area where you can chat to an NPC about the whole "I'm stuck in a dream" thing. Some of the NPCs read like they've walked off the grim streets of Bloodborne - all have a wider agenda they won't talk about, and some of them are probably lying to you, even as they give you quests. I've played the game for exactly one hour and have already been murdered by an invisible ghost while trying to cut somebody's finger off so I can feed a magic altar. Is Withering Rooms decent? I think it might be. It's got "cult hit" written all over it. Probably not with ink.
Here's a breakdown of the 1.0 version from the Steam page:
Explore Mostyn House to gather weapons, distractions, magical artifacts, keys, and crafting materials.
Take on a huge cast of monsters and bosses - overgrown undead, invisible ghosts, devious witches, axe wielding madmen, and many more.
Discover secret passageways, dusty attics filled with treasure, and even the ever-changing Byzantine Labyrinth that lies beneath Mostyn House.
Take the sting out of death by performing rituals to preserve items from night to night or permanently level up.
Meet a cast of strange friends, merchants, liars, and witches
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