Knock-Knock

It's pretty and atmospheric, but the gameplay is rudimentary at best, and consists mostly of wandering through the house and surrounding forest. There's not enough indication of where to go or what to do, and not in a fun "figuring out the puzzle is part of the game!" way, just a "I had no idea that a couple of chapters back I was supposed to trudge through the featureless forest for screen after screen after screen until a randomly generated encounter finally happened; now I can't progress, though I had to find a walkthrough to figure that out" kind of way. The dialogue is trying to be deep, but mostly winds up overwritten. It's too bad; there was the seed of a good creepy game in this.

Yeah, the atmosphere is awesome. Play the game at night, in March or November, while nobody's home or everyone is asleep. Put on your headphones, turn off the light and dive into the depressing cold empty house, where the lonely lunatic walks around muttering something indistinguishable. But don't expect the gameplay to be as good as an atmosphere. Unfortunately, all you need to do is to walk around and turn on the light. You can also travel to some weird locations and contact with creepy creatures, but the gameplay is quite primitive and non-demanding. Walk around, avoid monsters and turn on the light - that's pretty much it. I would give a game four stars but there is one thing which nearly killed me - in this game you can lose forever. Seriously, you can finish the game with the worst ending possible and with no way to change it, but to start from the beginning. This is just frustrating. I know that you can beat the game in three hours, but that bad ending irritates so much, that you don't want to start it again. That's why I can give it only three stars, sorry IcePick. Maybe, I'll give it a try next fall. Maybe it would be the other way and I'll change my mind.

Like previous Ice Pick Lodge games, particularly Pathologic and The Void, Knock Knock may be difficult to really classify. Alright, a short version might be "survival horror hide and seek" but all of that is accompanied by a story that is deepy wrapped in mystery. Over the course of the game you can find out more about what may be happening in the lodge but as with all good mysteries, most will remain up for interpretation, leaving all players to draw their own conclusions. As in the title, the atmosphere is brilliant and everything fits neatly together. The lodge is pretty old looking and run down, the forest outside has seen better days and even the main character looks like he is in desperate need for a vacation, causing the oppressive atmosphere to remain consistent over the entire game. The enemies also fit very well, apparently mostly themed around decay. The soundtrack is very fitting, if hardly noticable but I can very well imagine that being on purpose to get more focus on the many noises the player will hear during the game. Those noises range from sparks, emitted by broken light bulbs, occasional pounding on the doors to the creepy whispers of your guests. The gameplay itself is very simple. You can move around in the 2D environment, open doors, turn the lights on and off or repair them if neccessary, hide and close breaches in your house. Knock Knock is overall a very unique game, that every fan of horror and/or mystery games should check out.

If you want to experiment with something different and don't mind figuring things out with no handholding whatsoever, you'll probably find something interesting in Knock Knock. If you've played and enjoyed Ice Pick games before, you'll probably like this as well. Be warned that this is a pretty odd and unforgiving game. Confusion is at the core of both the story and the gameplay. Knock Knock is about figuring out how its mechanics work. You are given enough hints to do that, but it's still fairly difficult as the game outright lies to you occasionally. You will be confused, disoriented and frustrated. That's the point. Doesn't sound fun? Strangely enough it kinda is.

The game does not hold your hand. The dialogue is the ramblings of a mad man and as such I found myself confused as to what I was even suppose to do. Read the "Dos and Donts" document provided with the download for a introduction, and stick with it. Once you get to the third or fourth stage, things become clear and the atmosphere moves from one of confusion to one of terror. This game is an excellent walk through the mind of a person going insane, and you'll be rewarded if you can get through the introduction.