Day 213 - Moida Mansion
Point and Click, Horror, Immersive Sim ·
Sam’s Take:
Moida Mansion is a Tiger-Electronics-Style game where you walk around a procedurally generated mansion and attempt to save your friends. It seems to be created with the same sprite/button limitations that one of those games would have (ie. only one sprite per space on screen, and only a few buttons to keep track of).
While I’d assume those old machines couldn’t handle the procedural generation (though I’m no expert), it is cool to see how deep you could theoretically go with screen limitations like this.
I’ll be honest though, I had a hard time understanding the instructions of the game at first. You’re able to search any object, but there is no point for most things. When you ACTUALLY need to search something, there will be a visual and auditory que. Searching pointlessly causes the monster to appear and kill you. One of the few parts of the game that requires paying attention is seeing the monster’s head peek into a window or door frame and walking in the other direction.
So I was confused at first, then when I figured it out, it was just walking from room to room waiting for the next event to happen. Eventually I gathered my crew and headed on out. It said I only collected 3 out of 4, so maybe there’s another secret somewhere, but it seem like a pretty simple affair overall.
Honestly, I might have stopped playing after my initial confusion, had I not noticed that this game was made by Lucas Pope, creator of Papers Please and Return of the Obra Dinn. Even after figuring it all out I’m not super thrilled. It’s the best Tiger Electronics game I’ve ever played, yes, but that’s not the highest bar. It seems like Lucas Pope thought “could I make a better game under these restrictions” and the answer was yes. It’s a fine free game, but don’t go in expecting Obra Dinn.
Recommend: Sure
Replay Percentage Chance: 2%
Time Played: 15 Minutes
Skeeter’s Take:
This style of game isn’t really my cup of tea. Moida Mansion is very well made and hits the handheld gaming feeling perfectly. Like Sam, I too was initially very confused on how the gameplay was supposed to work. Once I figured out how the Monsta works (leave the room if the monster is there and re-enter and repeat until it’s not), I was still confused on what exactly I was supposed to be doing. I searched enough objects with zero results that the game decided to pause and remind me that I shouldn’t be searching randomly.
I saw this screen a lot. It kept popping up, like a dead high school bully that kept rising from the grave to laugh at me again and again. Clearly the initial humiliation wasn’t enough to satiate its sorrows from its ghostly problems at home.
I feel like I’m missing something - I managed to save one kid on my first run and they gave me the hint to follow the ghost to find the next kid. I proceeded to run into the ghost and die.
That one’s on me though. My next run, I found some kid hiding in a storage closet. They gave me the very helpful tip of “Search the Mansion for Secrets”. Thanks kid. I got them to hold one of the buttons and went on my way . I found a key in a mouse hole and spent the next 10 minutes trying to find a locked door.
I did not find a locked door. I found a spider that ran away when I searched it. I tried to find it again, but didn’t have any luck.
I ran through the house and looked for any other clues I could. After a few more failed searches and one more “Don’t Search Randomly!” screen. I decided maybe saving Bek was enough and it was fate what befell the other kids. I tried to save them, officer! I swear! They just hid from the monster too well!
I’m not trying to knock Moida Mansion. I am a sucker for procedural generation that adds replayability. It’s neat loading into a different mansion layout and having varying tasks and hiding spots for the kids. If this was my flavor of game, I might dig it. I feel like I’m just missing something small to progress but am not invested enough to want to figure it out.
Recommend: If you like hidden item or point and click games, this might be your cup of tea. It costs nothing. It’s well made. It had me playing for 30 minutes, and that’s more time than I spend on most of these free browser games. It’s not for me.
Replay Percentage Chance: 0%
Time Played: 35 Minutes
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