by Godzprototype, HSM filmmaker

Savage Manor is dark, and lends itself to mystery as soon as you enter.

Your camera enters from the house, which is a nice touch as it adds to the depth of the space immediately. After you have entered, the story begins. These are the beginnings of an experience.

You begin the walk up the path past three graves. The room opens into a gallery of paintings all along the walls. These are the Morbids. Pictures of the dead. An attempt to capture the soul of the living. There is a grand staircase with two halls on either side. You go up the stairs to another set of halls that are dead ends. At the top of the stairs you enter a room that is a library. This place is beautiful. Bookcases and books wall to wall, to the ceiling. A singular desk with a chair that when you sit in it, books go flying off the shelves behind you crossing between the book cases.

Perspective

Going into the hall on the left you enter what appears to be a dining room. There is very large poltergeist on the wall and ceiling. A part of the wall is poking out, inviting you to squeeze through. Scratches on the floor there. When you interact with the deer on the wall the room goes red and the poltergeist growls and bellows.

On the other side of the house there is a kitchen that immediately made me think of Hellraiser. Chains hang from the ceiling with human skins. There are parts of humans everywhere in here. Someone came over for dinner in this place! There is what appears to be a freezer, but you can’t see what’s inside. I can imagine, though — and that’s what makes it scarier.

The lighting in this estate is great, and I hope not too many people whine about it so that it doesn’t get changed. This place has ambiance. The lighting is perfect. And the estate, overall, has a really well-executed mystery. As I understand it, there will be twenty days of riddle-solving fun, and while the first one was easy, the second one already has me stumped.

This place really appeals to me, and while it is a single-player game inside the estate, it’s worth the purchase. What fun could be had by you and your friends solving the mysteries? Where is Scooby when you need him? While I was in the kitchen I felt like Pinhead might show up through the crack in the wall and tell me he was there to tear my soul apart.

It would have been very nice if these kinds of games were joint efforts with your friends in the same place. Selling experiences shared among friends is what social gaming should be about. Playing a single-player game with the type of construction this game has is selling short something that would build to the strengths Home has.

Filming in this place is going to be a blast. I have not received the outfits as of yet because of a store error. This puts a lot on hold for now. Though no fault of their own, Joe Dale and the people at nDreams have bent over backwards to get these out to us despite the store errors.  Halloween is just around the corner and I would really hope that Sony is working hard at fixing the issue.

Meanwhile, I will be coming up with some kind of demented film based around those avatars and this really well-done personal estate. When these outfits show up in my inventory, the silhouette avatars will be the first thing I take a hard look at. This is the stuff I was speaking of when I wrote about shadow play at HSM a while back. I wonder how they fit into the mystery, or if they are simply part of the personal space’s ambiance. Either way, I plan to have fun with them.

As Home evolves, story-based personal spaces are growing in demand, and the user has a bit more purpose behind having any place that carries a story. Beyond that, you are the decorator. The storyteller. Your imagination is as important to what, and how, Home evolves from here.

I would have to recommend the Savage Manor to everyone — simply because this place is creepy. It lends to the imagination tremendously. And there is a story behind the place that unfolds for it. I look forward to more of this mystery about the Morbids and the people who died there.

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One Response to “Savage Manor: First Impressions”

1. mnmsgin says:

   October 22, 2012 at 6:49 am

   I thought the same thing when i saw it. This place is going to be a blast for movies. Comes with its own sound effects (that scared me at first) lol Let me know when you want to film. hint hint lol

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