The Haunted Hoard: Halloween Stories: Horror Movie – Collector’s Edition (PC)

There’s always been two sides to Halloween. One half takes the form of spooky monster fun, the creatures and fun frights embraced easily by all ages. On the other side though is the authentic horror, people having just as much fun with the gory and truly terrifying side of this celebration of fear. Halloween Stories: Horror Movie – Collector’s Edition is by no means part of the truly scary side of the holiday, it’s a point and click puzzler with some hidden object screens so its audience will likely be laid back and casual after all. However, it does try to unite the two sides of Halloween in a way, the plot about entering the very kind of scary slasher films more embraced by true horror but still keeping the general sights and ideas tame enough that it won’t lose the more fun side of the holiday by trying to embrace it all.

Halloween Stories: Horror Movie actually has two main stories, one referred to as the “bonus game” as it is much smaller. The main tale though involves the Horror Movie mentioned in the title, a group of four teenagers gathering together one night to watch a three-in-one video tape of scary movies. Suddenly, a supernatural force pulls in three of the kids, and while it oddly enough takes our leading lady two years to really put together what happened, Ellie eventually realizes her friends are trapped in the films and she needs to go in herself to help free them. The three horror stories involve a mysterious serial killer at a school, a plague doctor inspired kidnapper in an old run down house, and a vengeful spirit haunting a camp not too different from the kind seen in Friday the 13th, each film having its own little story to unravel that does connect to the broader tale about what pulled your friends into the video tape in the first place. The story-telling is practical, the light horror more important than telling you much about the characters, but it does thread the needle well on being able to talk about murders and the like without getting into the kind of grisly detail that might move us away from Halloween fun.

Funnily enough, the second major story, the bonus game provided as part of this Collector’s Edition, leans purely into a story typical to some light-hearted spooky hijinks. At a Halloween party at Ravenstorm High, everyone ends up turned into their costumes, something that’s immediately dangerous considering one of the guests was dressed as a werewolf. Luckily, you were dressed as a secret agent and a girl named Jessica had on her best Sherlock Holmes outfit, meaning you two have the ability and investigative talent now to search the school for what caused this supernatural occurrence and reverse it. It does admittedly borrow some areas from the high school slasher in the main game, but it has enough new unique locations and all of its puzzles are new, this enjoyable chaser giving you a bit more to do since the main story is only a few hours long.

While Halloween Stories: Horror Movie – Collector’s Edition does have the look of a typical hidden object game and has some true hidden object puzzles to do here or there, primarily it is a point and click puzzler where you are walking around the different horror stories searching for items and solving true thinking tests to make your way onward. In some ways you could say the environments are a bit like hidden object hunts, a good deal of your important work being to look around the latest space you enter for useful items to scoop up, and sometimes the use of such items is so simple you don’t need to think about what to do when taking it to where it will help. Keys are an obvious case, but other items are a bit flagrant in their purpose so there are moments here or there you might as well be following instructions. However, the game can and will get clever with item use often enough to keep you on your toes. Even when Ellie says out loud she might want some glue, you have to concoct an alternative solution rather than that being an on the nose hint. In one of the more interesting touches, sometimes the items you find in one video tape will stay with you as you head to the next one, your inventory sometimes getting rather large and adding some extra value to thinking things through instead of just trying everything to see what works.

The inventory puzzles end up good enough to make the exploration interesting, and with a map that helps you teleport around the current area, you can quickly cover ground even when it keeps sending you back and forth to use a new item elsewhere. Inventory-focused navigation isn’t a rarity in hidden object games though, but what makes this a more full-bodied experience truly are the unique puzzle minigames. As you travel across the moody well-illustrated backdrops, you’ll sometimes come across a true problem solving challenge. Some are close in concept to jigsaw puzzles, most of them effective and a bit different from each other like one focused on placing wooden planks properly to fill a limited space, but there is a bit of an egregious one where you need to arrange torn map pieces but the only place to store the pieces are in the area you’re placing them, it hard to make the mess legible until you’ve placed enough of them. However, the more unique puzzles are where the game more brightly shines, such as one asking you to interpret sign language, properly place animal heads in their “habitat” based on small clues, or work out how to arrange circuit wires so electricity passes through the numbered points in the right order. It would have been nice if these were more abundant, although the bonus story does give you some new ones to flesh out the package a bit more, but a good amount of them require some experimenting or thought that helps focus your attention in for a bit.

The hidden object puzzles in Halloween Stories: Horror Movie – Collector’s Edition are even a bit cleverer than the standard fare. There will be screens where you just see a list of words or silhouettes and you need to find the related items in a cluttered scene. Already the areas you explore can be a bit visually busy, but the hidden object puzzles are somewhat grounded messes, nothing floating around and most items at least feel like they could be present even if they’re a bit odd. They hit a sweet spot of having enough scattered about to make finding things challenging but not breaking suspension of disbelief, and there are some hidden object screens that get a bit more interesting with how they’re presented or themed. You might have as set of files before you as someone tells you important history of the current horror story, needing to find clues based on words highlighted in their dialogue. At other points you need to poke around the scene a bit to open objects where the things you’re looking for are found, and some of them have themes like needing to find identical pairs amongst a crowd of things like birds or flowers. Truly, while Halloween Stories: Horror Movie – Collector’s Edition may not offer as many unique hidden object screens or minigame puzzles as other games of a similar ilk, it does at least try to consider them closely enough that they are always an appreciated find and diverse enough to make you eager to find more.

A few more nice touches come from this being the Collector’s Edition release. The most impressive one though is the game’s entire strategy guide being included within the game and available for quick and immediate reference if you wish to use it. While there is a hint feature to nudge you a bit by highlighting objects and even a skip option if you do get stumped, the strategy guide feels like a great way to accommodate different playstyles. You can pick a difficulty at the start that mostly just impacts things like how quickly hints refresh or if you can use skips, but the strategy guide also gives you a bit of an out for the added bonuses of achievement figurines to earn by doing things like beating the game without skips. There are actually a few extra collectibles added all around the game spaces too, creepy dolls to find, morphing objects, and shreds of movie posters giving you another little thing to look for while going between locations. Giving you constant reason to look closely but never pushing it too far with how hard something is hidden keeps this adventure active even though you’re free to explore at your leisure.

THE VERDICT: Halloween Stories: Horror Movie – Collector’s Edition is more than spooky hidden object puzzles, but even those it improves with a bit of imagination and variation. The minigame puzzles and more clever moments of inventory use spice up the time spent exploring the moody settings, and with the bonus game and a few extra things to look for added to this Collector’s Edition, you end up frequently engaged as you’re always poking around or trying to figure out what needs doing. It does feature a few slow periods when it chains together basic interactions, but generally the game provides a well-themed Halloween story fit for fans of the easy-going world of hidden object adventures.

And so, I give Halloween Stories: Horror Movie – Collector’s Edition for PC…

A GOOD rating. While this is still more a casual adventure game rather than the kind that draws in players with thoughtful puzzles and a memorable story, Halloween Stories: Horror Movie – Collector’s Edition does have an effective blend of different elements and makes good use of its Halloween theme. The premise of entering true horror films gives you settings not always found in more relaxed spooky games, but you also have a good reason for avoiding the more unnerving scares because the person who was trapped in there has relived them enough to start helping to throw the events off their course. Some atmosphere still comes through even when helpful items are scattered around with puzzles in mind most of all, but the hidden object screens manage that delicate balance of having enough detail to make searching a process without feeling like objects were carelessly thrown about. The Collector’s Edition touches really do help this adventure feel like it’s robust enough to earn its rating though, not only because it adds the bonus story that adds more to the package but because the additional collectibles flesh out the simpler moments of poking around during the main plot. It’s a good game for keeping busy with interesting things without it ever overrelying on one idea, Halloween Stories: Horror Movie – Collector’s Edition having a good sense for how much it can deviate from simpler searches without pushing it away from the casual fun familiar to hidden object adventures.

While I do make it a Haunted Hoard tradition to close out each year with a game that has Halloween in its name, I was at first a little reticent to pick Halloween Stories: Horror Movie – Collector’s Edition since there’s a good deal of hidden object games with Halloween in the title that makes it too easy a well to draw from. However, this particular game impressed by not just being a simple holiday-themed twist on the idea, even pushing against the edges of its genre a bit. While getting even more adventurous in its design could have made it more appealing to general gamers, this still feels like a Halloween game worthy of attention rather than one being trotted out purely to continue my yearly tradition.