A short but sweet entry to the FPS survival-horror genre, Kraven Manor is the result of six months’ work from a team of students at The Guildhall in Southern Methodist University, Texas.
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Kraven Manor was developed by a team of thirteen graduate students as part of their two-year program at The Guildhall. They were tasked with creating a 3D game using the Unreal Development Kit and had a six-month time frame; and with no intention for anyone outside of Plano, Texas to see or play it, the team were incredibly excited to find their school project being played and broadcasted all over YouTube and the internet. The completion date was 15 May 2013 so this review is of the final version, although Demon Wagon Studios have already expressed their interest in continuing work on the title.
If I were to judge this game as a school project it would definitely be getting full marks, and as a hard-to-please gamer I’m impressed by what they have achieved in six months. While it’s only a thirty minute experience for seasoned players, the level of completion and polish of Kraven Manor is more than enough to satisfy. It’s also terrifying when played alone in the dark with headphones, and doesn’t rely on jump-scares to achieve this like most indie horror titles have recently.
Welcome to Kraven Manor.
No story or background is given before you enter Kraven Manor through its grand doors; heavy-breathing and frantic movement suggests this wasn’t a planned visit to the house, although it’s not made clear why you are here and what you have potentially been running from. The entrance hall is large and furnished in a classical style, but is unoccupied and poorly lit thus forcing a feeling of dread and fear. A tall, wide staircase leads upwards in front of you presenting a bronze, eerie-looking statue at the top resembling a wooden mannequin with poseable limbs. Thunder from the storm outside rocks the building, causing the lights to flicker for a moment before returning and highlighting the top of the stairs once more… The bronze statue is nowhere to be seen.
Upon turning on a flashlight, some papers are visible on a nearby desk and note written by William Kraven reads: “Initially I learned that the rituals of October were failures. However, months later, I turned my back to a statue I thought hollow and dead, and the spirit within made itself known.” Opposite the desk sits a glass case containing a model of the entrance hall, accurately depicting its layout but with the doorways leading nowhere; it looks like a piece of a larger puzzle.
A bronze statue welcomes you, but not for long.
I’ll leave the story here so I don’t spoil it.
The title’s unique gameplay component is the manor jigsaw puzzle where connecting additional puzzle pieces, found throughout the house, to the hallway unlocks the doors and enables access to the new room. The first piece, for example, is for the library and by connecting it to the model you hear a loud mechanical noise as though the building itself is moving the actual rooms around. The inspiration for this idea comes from the board game Betrayal at House on the Hill; it begins with just a hallway piece and, as the players explore the house, additional pieces are added randomly and slowly build the layout.
Kraven Manor was originally intended to feature a randomly-generated layout too, but it was decided that attempting to achieve this would not allow enough time to concentrate on making the game fun when considering the time restraints on the project. While the final version doesn’t feature random rooms, what has been achieved is unique enough to impress and I found it to be a refreshing idea that kept me playing.
A puzzle of the manor makes for some unique gameplay.
Interaction with the game world consists of clicking to examine objects such as books and photos, which tell the history of the house and of the experiments that have taken place. There are some basic puzzles in Kraven Manor which aren’t too challenging: a memory puzzle where you must drop wine bottles down a well in the correct order is fairly easy once you know what is required. Other challenges are usually time-constrained and involve pulling the right levels in order, but the biggest challenge comes from doing this while being pursued by the only enemy in the game. Without giving too much away, this enemy is frightening and can be difficult to overcome if you panic and try to run away, but those who remain calm will quickly understand how to overcome it.
Thanks to the use of the Unreal game engine and the artistic prowess of the development team, Kraven Manor is a stunning game well above the standards of other horror titles out there. Everything is exceptionally well detailed with realistic lighting; a lot of thought has been put into the level design with each room having its own look and feel. The basement is dark and covered in cobwebs and the library filled with stacks of books and toppled shelves. Lightening fills the manor with bright light, your flashlight flickers off and on with an electro-static feel causing a brief sense of panic, and it all adds up to giving the sense of being watched even though the house is mostly empty.
The bronze statue returns, making it clear you are no longer welcome here.
The sound of Kraven Manor is well produced, and the subtle use of ambient noise, such as the rain from the storm outside hammering the building, to the feeling of dread. Music highlights moments of importance but is absent through most of the gameplay and therefore helps emphasise these moments, demanding your attention. The soundtrack appears to be unique although no credits are given, so I can only assume it was developed specifically for the title; if so it’s yet another aspect that impresses me especially when considering the six-month time frame.
As previously mentioned, the game is a short experience of thirty minutes to an hour; while there is an opportunity for each play through to be unique it is still a very linear game. The room pieces are given to you in a specific order but despite the ability to place them together on the table in different ways, this doesn’t add any variety. Each puzzle has only one way of completion and so provides no extra challenge if you decide to play again. It would be good to see brainteasers that are more challenging and have random solutions, and I expect this may be expanded upon in any future releases of the game thanks to Demon Wagon Studios’ intention to continue work on the project.
A piece of the manor puzzle, finding these opens doors to new areas.
Kraven Manor contains a varied amount of gameplay and combines most features found in today’s horror titles into one well-polished package. These thirteen students are obviously talented and we look forward to seeing future releases of the game and any future projects, should they continue together as Demon Wagon Studios.
If you like horror games and are looking for something refreshing, unique and of a high quality, then download Kraven Manor for free. Just be sure to play in the dark, with the lights off, and all in one sitting.
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