Scarlet Hollow

If you like games and media like their comps (Life is Strange, Gravity Falls), you’ll probably love Scarlet Hollow. Great characters and a diverse array of people, genre appropriate but still surprising narrative beats, and genuinely different experiences for multiple playthroughs make this my favorite visual novel of the past few years.

Tons of dynamic choices that affect the gameplay, interesting characters, and an immersive setting that feels genuine. I completely love it, I can't wait for the full story.

This game creates a universe inside a small mining town in appalacia. It considers not only what actions you take but what actions you don't take, and the story will continue without you if you, perhaps quite sagely, choose to have your MC try and sit out events as they unfold. The characters think about if you are kind or cold and respond accordingly and so you make choices without a dialogue box just by deciding what sort of impression to make on the people of the town. Options are carefully chosen and thoughtfully worded, so you won't run into many TTG "Glass Him" sort of options but instead will have to consider how your choices will impact beyond the immediate. As of episode 4 the horror is almost entirely the sense of something dreadful, or the knowledge of something secret and awful. So if you're looking for jumpscares, you'll be hard pressed to find them here.

Are you into page-turning thrillers, beautiful art, and replayability? Look no further! Scarlet Hollow is a fantastic narrative horror game (which is scary, but not TOO too scary, because even a chicken like me can banshee squeal through it... to the delight of my viewers), which allows you to make decisions based on your chosen character perks to unravel the mysteries plaguing the town. You won't be able to pull yourself away from this one! I personally also love the art style, music, and inclusivity of the game. Highly recommend!

I am consistently impressed by this game. Each episode has been packed full of beautiful art and engaging writing. However, what feels most unique is the amount of care put into the decision points in the story. A lot of energy is put into trying to steer the player towards making decisions from an immersed point of view and they pull it off. The relationships aren’t built by clicking the obvious dialogue options to increment a number, and the moral dilemmas don’t have textually supported “right” answers. It might be the visual novel that contains the most game design yet, which is a sentence I wouldn’t have expected to say. It is still in Early Access at the time of writing. There are about 1-2 hours of content per episode and all the branching helps support replayability. You could easily give it 2-3 playthroughs and still have it feel fresh enough. Honestly, that number will probably grow as more gets released and more consequences are realized. If you’re hesitant about it being in Early Access, I’d still recommend giving it a shot. The framing of the story works well with the release format and the developers have been more than meeting the challenge so far.