Quick Review: House of Caravan

“A matchbox.”

House of Caravan, aside from being a drawer-opening simulator, is an indie exploration/puzzle “horror” adventure about a boy trapped in a large mansion away from the city, having to find his way out. It was developed and published by Rosebud Games, and released to Steam on April 16th, 2015.

What happened to all the light?

The gameplay begins in a dark room containing toys, and this first room is a pretty good indicator of what comes next: It’s mostly dark, so you’ve got to look around for items you can use, and how to use them in order to leave the room. Be ready to open a lot of drawers – no, really, most of what you find is hidden in drawers all over the place. And most frequently, you’ll find matchboxes, each one of them containing a single match. Because getting a few matches each time would be too easy, I guess. Even then, good luck finding lamps and lighting them. The part of the first room where you find the items needed to move forward is completely darkened, and you can barely see the lamps that you can light up.

"A matchbox. Again."

Okay, so that was a bad first impression. How does the rest of the game fare? Well, aside from a few interesting puzzles here and there, it’s not fantastic. Now that the large mansion is available, what follows is a lot of areas still shrouded in darkness – therefore, a lot of matchboxes to look for, and a lot of rooms that need to be lit up. The interesting puzzles include reconstituting a letter like it’s a puzzle, using prior knowledge in order to unlock boxes, and so on.

Oh good, the place has taxidermy now.

I put “horror” in quotes, perhaps air quotes even, as there really isn’t much scary in this game. Aside from windows getting broken in the hall due to the wind (gee, that’s a very strong wind) and some slightly disturbing imagery, such as animal cadavers hanging from the ceiling in a small room near the kitchen (okay, so they butcher the animals themselves for meat, what’s wrong there?), it isn’t very creepy. I guess any creepy elements lie in the letters you find around the mansion, which detail the lives of the residents prior to you being trapped there, and whichever connection the protagonist may have had with them. Unsettling perhaps, but the scare factor is closer to zero.

I still went through and beat the game, though it’s not one I feel the need to keep in my collection. Still, if this odd mix of puzzle, horror and exploration is to your liking, you might find something of interest in here. If so, it only costs 2$ on Steam.