Okay. I love this game, but there are definitely some balancing issues here. I'll list some things I like and some things I dislike.
First, the Likes:
1. The Ambience - The atmosphere in this game is phenomenal. I entered the Basement area in one of my runs, and I was immediately hit with the feeling of "I shouldn't be here.". Everything in me told me not to go in there so much so that I actually wasn't able to enter the Basement in my first run where I saw it. The fact that you can always here the echo of the Widow all around you is so awesome.
2. The Items - Each Item in this game has its own unique purpose and you're always excited to see each one of them when they randomly generate in a room.
3. The Widow - I absolutely love how hauntingly beautiful the design of The Widow is. From the flow of her dress, to the blood on her knife, to the hair covering her eyes... Everything about her tells you something about what she has gone through and what she will do to you when she gets you. I'm also a sucker for Ghost Girls and/or Ghost-Like Girls.
Now, the Dislikes:
1. The Speed - The Widow has the amazing ability to infinitely run after you and be slightly faster than you (at least from what I've seen). You however, have the amazing ability to run for about 5 seconds before you lose all will to live and just throw yourself at the Widow because you can't escape without one specific item. Basically, The Widow is an Olympic Sprinter and you are an Amnesiac with Extreme Asthma.
2. The RNG - I understand that a game like this needs at least some RNG in it, but holy hot damn does this game rely heavily on it. Are you being chased? Well, you better pick the right door out of three different ones otherwise you are absolutely fucked because one door leads to another bad decision and the other two lead you to your death because they are dead end rooms that you can't move in because The Widow has already blocked the door and you are already dead.
3. The Widow - That's right. Full circle, baby! I love The Widow's design, but I hate how the game balances The Widow when she sees you and when she's around you. Did The Widow see you? Well, time to ask yourself 1 question: Did you grab any Keys at all yet? If the answer is Yes, then throw yourself at The Widow because you're already dead and at least you can get some points out of it. If the answer is No, then Pause the game and click the Restart Button because you're already dead and you won't get any Points if you go through the animation. It's just a waste of time, and you won't escape if she sees you which brings me to my next Dislike:
4. Price - The Prices of all of the Purchasable Items are so horribly priced, that it seriously made me rethink whether I actually liked this game or not (I definitely do because I like the Gameplay Loop, but like seriously what the fuck is the balancing in this game?). So, from my previous Dislike, you have to get Keys in order to get Points. If you don't have any Keys, then just press Restart if you get seen by The Widow because you'll just waste time if you try to escape from her or if you let her kill you because the Animation has to play when she kills you. If you want to play this game, just be aware that The Widow is infinitely better than you in every way and you have no chance of escape if she sees you. You are going to have to restart this game a lot, and you NEED to grab Keys before you die otherwise you just wasted your time. You need Points in order to progress at all, so make sure you grab at least 1 Key before you die.
Conclusion - This game is good. I absolutely recommend it. I reminds me a lot of Vampire Mansion which is an absolutely amazing game. I still have yet to get the NSFW upgrade for this game, but the fact that it has that at all makes it immediately better than Vampire Mansion because that game doesn't have NSFW in it. The balancing is atrocious right now, but I'm sure the Dev(s) will fix the issues (at least I hope they will). I really want to see this game thrive because I absolutely love it and recommend it. Thank you for reading, and I'm going to sleep now because I am really tired.
Viewing post in Halls of the Pale Widow comments
Thanks for the kind words and review! If you don’t mind me asking, can you let me know about how long you played? I’m just curious as there is an intended difficulty climb but if it’s too steep of a climb then I probably do need to do some more tweaking.
The prices made sense to me from the perspective of completing the runs (each run should net you around 500 points if you escape and 1000 if you purify). In my experience, getting a defence item is usually quite easy when running away but a few other things that’ll help escape a chase are closing doors behind you to break LOS and crouch hopping.
In theory you should only need one successful run to get the key detectors and should be able to unlock purification after two runs and then the NSFW upgrade after two more. Over-simplifying it of course as I’ve played the game a lot.
Overall, the biggest issue with solo-dev (I didn’t have testers for this game) is tunnel-vision. Next time I make a game, I will definitely try and get people to play it before it goes public to make sure the difficulty isn’t too frustrating.
I played the game for almost 4 hours before I made the comment.
Each of my runs gave me a whole range of points. I don't remember them all exactly, but I will give all the ones that I do remember: 0 (for no keys), 25 (for one key), 50 (for two keys), 75 (I think this was three keys, but I don't remember for sure...), I don't remember much after that, but I know I did a bunch more runs. The one I definitely DO remember is the one where I actually managed to escape which was 374 points (I think? I know it started with a 3, but I don't remember for sure exactly the number. All I know is that I had enough to get the Hot and Cold Meter Upgrade, and then I was 1 Point under what I needed for the Key Pings Upgrade.).
Getting a Defense Item is definitely easy... in theory... until you actually get to an item room and all you get is a single Scanner that just tells you that all the Keys are in the same room as The Widow (Overexaggerating of course, but it always feels that way lol.), and you don't get any Strange Bottles until you go to a room that is 3 feet away from The Widow, and then you're screwed anyway.
I definitely closed doors behind me when I first started, but she immediately opens them and just continues to follow me no matter what, so that didn't help so I just decided to keep running until I found out that that doesn't help either because the MC has Extreme Asthma. But, what is "Crouch Hopping"? Maybe that will help.
I've only ever had one successful run lol. That gave me enough points to get 1 of the Key upgrades (I think I got the Hot and Cold Meter first?) and then the next run I got 1 Key before throwing just so I could the get the ONE point that I still needed to get the Key Pings (Sorry I don't remember the Upgrade names...). I also got the Map Marker Upgrade to see where The Widow is, but I found out that it was INCREDIBLY useless because you have to be completely stationary in order to use it and the game doesn't pause when you use it. I even tried using it to tell me exactly which way to go to avoid The Widow because as soon as she sees you, your run is over, but she always seems to be Puppy Guarding at least 1 Key Location which is a serious problem when you need all of them to escape and can't be seen by her under any circumstances.
I admit that I was a little frustrated with the amount of Grinding you had to do in the game at first, but I overall absolutely LOVE this game and hope you keep working on it or at least make games that are similar to this one. Also, I'm surprised to hear that you are a Solo Dev. I expected there to be at least 3 people working on this, so that's an amazing thing to hear about (except for obviously the Voice Actor, B, who absolutely knocked it out of the park with their voice for The Widow). And, I will definitely continue to play this game despite the grind (I mean, I played Vampire Mansion enough to get every single upgrade, costume, and furniture piece so that should tell you how committed I am to these types of games.). Keep up the great work Krasue Games!
Thanks again for the kind words. I have updated the game to lower the prices of a few shop items and increase the amount you get from keys. It's not a huge increase but might be able to make the difference. RNG and other things are still untouched, however.
I do plan on making more games, this game has been a good way for me to get feedback and ideas for what I do next. I do like horror games so do plan on doing more in that field. There were plenty of things I wanted to do with this game but gave myself a pretty harsh deadline to get it out so a lot of those things will probably just get pushed into my next project.
I'm happy to hear you took my feedback to heart (at least enough to update the game because of it lol)! I'm always happy to put my 2 cents in for any game that I really like. I want games that I like to be the best they can be, and I'm happy to hear that you are going to keep making games! I have definitely gotten better at the game after quite a few runs, and have now devised my own particular strategies that seem to work (at least for now), but I still have a long way to go before I consider myself to be "good" at this game. I'll be keeping an eye on this game and your future games, Krasue. I look forward to seeing what else you make. I'll also be playing this game for a long while, it seems. I have plenty of costumes to get still for The Widow.