The Mansion

Many of the locations look lovely and I enjoyed some puzzles and plots. Unfortunately, this game appears abandoned by the developers, so I will have to judge it as a finished product. Only two of the Nightmares you are supposed to face are available in this version, you will be able to finish it easily in a few hours but be aware that you might run into a couple of glitches that will make picking up certain objects hard. Could be a fun evening if you buy it for around 1$ as I did.

I'm far more forgiving of titles such as Asylum, whose developers provide updates on progress, while this title has been in indefinite stasis since the initial announcement. Even at a 'sale' cost of seven-tenths of a US dollar, the fact that 'early access' hasn't been changed or altered in over three years makes it almost a crime to continue demanding any price of admission for this 'game.' This incomplete version of The Mansion, indeed, would be more-accurately described and presented as a BETA or Prologue or DEMO or Preview, and appropriately offered as a free preview or concept, and not as a complete work. Forever Entertainment S. A. should be ashamed of their long-term efforts to collect monies for an abandoned development, and far more ashamed if it's due to a dissolution of the studio. In addition, I feel GOG bears some of the burden in these abandoned & failed projects. They should be playing a FAR MORE proactive role in verification and status checks of these sorts of projects instead of continuing to collect funds for themselves and on behalf of truly abandoned projects. The obvious lack of such checks and balances places some serious doubts on GOG's credibility of a so-called 'curated' collection of offerings.

It took about 10 seconds (or less) for me to realize that even though I got this on sale for like a buck, I was ripped off. No matter what settings I tried, it was like being a drunken sailor on a boat in the storm from hell, basically impossible to point and move in even the simplest of ways. How does total garbage like this ever make it out the door? I wish I'd read the reviews before buying.

The parts of the game that were there, were okay. The mansion is beautifully done, and the environment is fantastic. I would love to see it completed, but the puzzles are bugged and you have to exit to menu and jump back in. Floating arms, notes already read re-appearing, and key items not letting you pick them up if you manage to access them out of order are just a few of the bugs encountered. Performance could definitely be optimized. FPS tanks frequently even on the lowest available settings on my ROG Zephyrus G14 RTX 3080 and AMD Ryzen 9 with SSD and 16 cores... so not sure it was optimized for my system, maybe you will have better luck. Based on other games of the genre I would say that this game, which was available in March of 2021, is now about 15-20% complete and has been since 2021, so it might be safe to say this is abandonware at this point. If the devs see this, please finish this title, it is looking great so far.

I don't really know why would anyone buy an unfinished game, even when on discount (as it should be), when there are so many very good games for the same price that are finished ! Thankfully I have read reviews and saved myself of the hassle.