Wayward Manor
Review
Fizzled hauntfest
by Jonathan Fortin
reviewed on PC
Stuttering and Sluggish
The pacing is another problem. The game will frequently interrupt the gameplay with short cutscenes, during which you won't be able to interact with anything at all. It might be the butler entering to relight the candles, or a character reacting to something you did over and over again. Even when you scare a character, the game hesitates a few seconds before the scare is counted, and you're stuck waiting, all control lost. The cutscenes begin to feel like irritating hiccups that halt the gameplay dead.
Worse, sometimes the game does not realize it when you are clicking on objects you - must - click on to progress. This is especially frustrating during the timing-based puzzles; you might need to click at the right moment to progress, but the game will be too slow to respond to your clicking. Additionally, if objects are standing in front of each other, the game never knows which you are attempting to interact with. The hotspots are too small and too close together.
As if these issues weren't frustrating enough, you can also find yourself at a dead end. As I said, you'll frequently have to resort to trial and error. However, if you do the wrong thing, it can become impossible to complete the stage. Once, I opened a window, accidentally causing an important object to drift in the wrong direction. I had no way of bringing the object back to where it needed to go, and was as a result forced to restart the stage completely. The game never told me that the situation was hopeless, either; I kept on trying to find a solution for fifteen minutes before I realized there was no point. On another occasion, I was so certain that I'd been doing the right thing that I wondered if a bug was preventing the game from recognizing what I'd done. I tried it again and turned out to be right.
Melodic Madness
As frustrating as the gameplay is, the most annoying aspect of this game is its music. The game's score tries to be dynamic, but doesn't do a very good job. It has several different character themes - each one a completely different sound file - and constantly, awkwardly shifts between them. The timing is awful, with the music frequently cutting out mid-note to switch to a different theme. Have you ever been to a party where the DJ pushed “next” on the playlist at the wrong moment, and the shift felt awkward and abrupt? Imagine that happening every few seconds. That's what playing Wayward Manor is like. It's even worse when one theme doesn't stop, but another starts, and both continue on, clashing horribly, until you want to put the game on mute.
The graphics fare slightly better, for the game's morbid-but-cartoony aesthetic style is reminiscent of Henry Selick's excellent Coraline film. However, visual glitches, simplistic models, and a general lack of polish combine to make it look a decade old. The Odd Gentlemen previously worked on The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom, an absolutely beautiful 2D title. One can't help but suspect that Wayward Manor would have benefited from being 2D as well, especially as its gameplay is entirely 2D. You can't even move the camera during gameplay.
Wishful Thinking
At least we have a Neil Gaiman-penned storyline, right? That helps make the game better, right?
Well, what's there of the story is fine. It's charming and darkly funny. Unfortunately, there just isn't very much of it. The plot is extremely simplistic, and frequently boils down to, “Now you're scaring this person, and now you're scaring - this - person.” Since the story is regulated to taking up space between the chapters, it isn't given much room to develop. For the final set of stages, an abrupt plot twist reveals a villain, but it honestly comes too late.
I would love to see Gaiman write an adventure game in the vein of Grim Fandango or even Telltale's The Wolf Among Us, for this would give him the opportunity to craft something with the same depth and ambiguity as his novels. Adventure games are all about telling stories, and Gaiman's style would suit them well. Wayward Manor, unfortunately, puts story on the backburner, and just isn't a good enough game to make up for that.
It baffles and frustrates me that Wayward Manor is such a mess. All the ingredients were there: a great indie developer, a great author, and a great idea. But it goes to show that it's all in the execution.
As I said, the most noteworthy thing about this game is the fact that it was released. Sadly, what I mean by that is that it needed a few more months of development.
5.0
fun score
Pros
Funny, enjoyable story
Cons
Unpolished, repetitive, and unresponsive, with awkward musical transitions
