There must be something spooky in the water at Developer HQ (editor’s note: this may or may not be an actual place). Just last week, former console veterans High Voltage Software made their App Store debut with the adorable, Halloween-esqe Le Vamp. And as if recovering from cute vampires wasn’t hard enough, veteran studio Firaxis (Civilization, XCOM: Enemy Unknown) announced today that they’re joining the fray with a new iOS strategy game positively packed with cartoony creatures of the night. When will the fun-filled horror end!?
There must be something spooky in the water at Developer HQ (editor’s note: this may or may not be an actual place). Just last week, former console veterans High Voltage Software made their App Store debut with the adorable, Halloween-esqe Le Vamp. And as if recovering from cute vampires wasn’t hard enough, veteran studio Firaxis (Civilization, XCOM: Enemy Unknown) announced today that they’re joining the fray with a new iOS strategy game positively packed with cartoony creatures of the night. When will the fun-filled horror end!?
Part strategy, part resource-management, Haunted Hollow puts you in charge of a haunted mansion and tasks you with taking over your local town; because let’s be realistic: who doesn’t secretly want a monster mayor, whether they know it or not?
Your conquest is fuelled by a cycle of spawning ghouls, werewolves, vampires, and all manner of horror from your home base, and sending them out in board-game-like fashion to do battle with townspeople and rival mansion owners. Along the way you’re able to enhance your army of the undead with status boosts that increase their unique abilities.
While they didn’t let the black cat out of the bag in their announcement, Firaxis have already released Haunted Hollow on the Canadian App Store, and we’ve spent a few a precious few moments with it to see how it handles. In practice, the game’s mechanics give off a really promising Outwitters vibe, with each turn you take controlled by “fear tokens” that you spend to add extra rooms to your house, spawn monsters, take moves across your ‘board,’ and execute attacks. Taking ownership over more and more of the town results in a bounty of more tokens each turn, and opens the doors to more advanced tools of terror. Meanwhile, players have to keep a close eye on the town’s terror level, because maxing it out spawns an obscenely strong mob that isn’t, shall we say, monster friendly.
More boards, rooms, and monster types are all purchasable via packs in the game’s store. Players can fight for the title of scariest citizen not only against an AI opponent, but against a live friend with pass and play, as well as on Game Center. Speaking of which, any Canadian readers brave enough to face their fears along with me are welcome to add me on Game Center at winterbook9 as I embark on a quest to review the game for its wider release in a few month’s time…and survive to tell the tale! OooooOooh…I’ll show myself out.
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