When a game can provoke an unnerving atmosphere via a board game-like aesthetic, you know you’re onto a good thing. Everything plays out on a Cluedo-esque board. There are no big cutscenes. Gameplay is confined to moving cards around the different rooms. Combat isn’t present, neither are voice actors or the usual tropes of an RPG. The Horror at Highrook is about using your brain to make the cleverest decision in any given moment. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen for some time, and I love it.
As a team of occult investigators, you’re called to a mansion that has been abandoned by its wealthy owners. Something evil has gone down, and it’s up to you to find out what. Through multiple notes, it’s obvious somebody has been dabbling in the dark arts. Unfortunately, this malignant presence begins to get its claws into your business. It might take a bit of time to grow familiar with the mechanics, but after a while The Horror of Highrook becomes an addictive journey into the darkness.
Every room becomes useful for something. Each member of the team brings something different to your investigation. Atticus Hawk is the brawn; Mechanist Astor is great with her hands; Scholar Vitali is the brains; and Doctor Caligar is great in a lab. By placing them in one of the rooms that works best for their stats, they can interact with different items to reveal new clues or items to help you in your investigation. For example, if you place Astor in the Machine Room with a container, she’ll be able to open it and gain new intel or items to progress the story.
Some discoveries can’t be interacted with if your level doesn’t match it. Scholar Vitali might not be able to learn about a particular relic in the study because he only has one point against the item’s two points. Luckily, finding certain tools can add an additional point by placing it in the same room, meaning you can now match the two points needed to learn. This process goes for everything in The Horror at Highbrook. Cooking meals, studying new medicines, or interacting with machinery.
Some of the rooms require you to constantly search for clues by using a piece of equipment, such as a shovel in the courtyard to dig out items and information. You start to learn the pattern of how to complete routine searches with managing your four stats. The team need to sleep, stay fed, avoid insanity and disease, and most importantly safe. Time passes by quickly and everything takes a set amount of time, but you can pause to plan before execution. It is possible to speed things up or slow them down as best you can.
Whatever your current tasks are, finding that one bit of information and then trying to find the right tools to be able to learn or interact with it is where the excitement lies. The Horror of Highrook doesn’t seem like it will evocate an unexpected joy that you’re getting somewhere. Perseverance is key. While you do begin to get into a rhythm, there are plenty of things that start to cause a barrier between progress and survival. Creepy goings on, monsters, and supernatural entities rear their head, and having to deal with them as well plays into your team’s investigation.
The Horror at Highrook is an unusual RPG. Despite its challenges, there’s plenty of satisfaction found in staying observant. Different challenges pop up all the time, but the goal is always the same: find out what happened to this family. The writing is excellent, with a story that gives you that fire in the belly to keep playing and uncovering the fate of those that reside in the manor. It tries something different, and if you’re willing to spend time with it, there’s plenty to enjoy about its clever mechanics and interesting gameplay.
