The Horror At Highroook Demo is a dangerous fascinating marriage of Darkest Dungeon and Cluedo

Update 20/02/2025: This post has been updated to clarify the language related to allegations against Alexis Kennedy and includes a link to his rejection.

It is easy to lose the moments when viewing the environment of Gameboard changes in the demo for the role -playing game Haunted House The Horror in Highrook. Colors vary from day gray through the shades of sunset into pale lavender moonlight. There are very few details to pay attention and zoom: A glimpse of rain, the absorption of the fire in the kitchen and the living room, a caterpillar in the archive. Ah, good. The last time I felt very confused by a look at a house while looking out from the tomb of the darkest dungeon.

You can’t just sit and stare, however. The remaining idle, your characters will grow hunger, fatigue and not affected, while useful items like strong mushroom varieties will disintegrate. So move your card around. Put someone in the kitchen to make a meal from a cereal sack that you find, while someone else brushes the storage for the door to the laboratory lock, and another person gropes around the yard with a plane.

When the basic needs of your group are met, you can devote a thought to the mysteries of the game’s house, starting with the disappearance of the Ackeron family who lived here. Notes suggesting the secret in the chapel closed and deep underground. The tunnel and tears of the Viking people and the worrying designs on the walls. Yes, this is like the darkest dungeon in more ways.

It is also quite similar to Cluedo, if Cluteo is written by Poe or Lovecraft. In the horror in High Rook, you put your characters down the room and give them items so that they can complete the tasks, from decoding books to running a Spylass on the crags below the mansion. These tasks have resources required corresponding to the character index, which can be amplified by other means, support cards – some representing the creation items, some “vision”, trends, qualities.

For example, a bee’s gift, can help your Caligula plague doctor with her laboratory work. My blood is buzzing, as if my body was a honeycomb, describing the card explained, in addition to the fear of the simple metallurgical fake of the daily terms. There is a Vision Vision card different from the attributes of Simian to make life easier in the mechanical store, making sure that your Mecanist always finds the right wrench in her elbow.

The representatives of the mystery, along with the intuitive design of the cards, made me very thinking about the sectarian emulation – a game I love but not playing since its main creator, Alexis Kennedy, was charged with abuse by some women (forcing him to deny). I am still thinking about how that link shapes my emotions about Highrook’s horror. Those are many cases of a game obsessed with another game.

The article so far is words compared to you found in Cultist Simulator – a bit too luxurious when you are trying to handle a series of card timer or attend some characters who need rest or feeding, but there is always a pause button. There are some clearer edges. Atticus Hawk, street muscles in my mysterious investigator group, there is a voice that I cannot hear in my mind. Is he from Blightty or the United States? Feeling like a developer, former main programmer of Tom Betts robot robot, did not decide. But maybe I just need to get acquainted with Atticus. I hardly play this game for half an hour and there are many more classes to strip.

Read more and find demo on Steam. For something similar and completely different, try the demo for Blue Prince.