Game Review: Hauntii
An Indie Hand Drawn Experience by Moonloop Games
Rating: ★★★★☆
Status: complete, pay to play
Genre: adventure/mystery, hand drawn, narrative, twin shooter, controller
Gameplay: single-player
Playtime: 20-25 hours (complete walkthrough)
Replay Value: high, many collectables and rewards to obtain on Steam
Difficulty Level: easy, walking-heavy
Gameplay and Mechanics: 3/5
Graphics and Art Style: 5/5
Story and Theme: 5/5
Ultimate Assessment:
This twin-shooter adventure game will expand you genre expectations and open-up your narrative experience to an entirely fresh and charming story. Hauntii is a hand-drawn single player monochrome crusade into life after death and the quest one little ghost undertakes to ascend. The gameplay is witty, inventive and fresh — pushing you to explore deeper within the environment, and challenging you to act daringly for rewards.
Hauntii is a deceptively expansive game set on the limitless void of “Eternity.” A naive and lost ghost has just landed into the world of eternal life where whisps, ghosts, spirits and angels alike roam the domain. This new life is unkind and indifferent to the many aimless living in the domain, but we are quick to find friendship in an angel, an eternian, who sweeps us off our feet and leads us to our ascension. Only for us to discover the path forward is not so easy and we are chained here until we can claim our old memories and cast them into the beyond.
After playing almost 25 hours in Hauntii, I found a fantastic 2023 article from Game Rant interviewing the developer on background history and development of the game. The star of the article is nonother than Leo Dasso, game designer and founder of Moonloop Games, who highlights just how innovative Hauntii’s design is. Mainly focusing on how breaking expectations and forcing gamers to think outside the box heavily influenced the build of our playable character within the world.
“I would say one of the big ways that we manage expectations is through Hauntii’s gun in that it doesn't just do damage. It's how you interact with the world. Like, for example, you can shoot mushrooms, and then they'll grow and explode. And so people who play it will learn really quickly that they're like shooting everything in the environment, and they're trying to see what everything does when you shoot it.”
This mechanic allowed for an extremely fresh playthrough while admittedly sprinkling in a degree of paranoia on my end. I began to believe that there were no limitations to the interactive element of the game and found myself more daringly “going off the grid” to explore (and even forcing more K.Os than I care to share with you dear reader).
Something I found particularly inspirational from Dasso’s testimony, is the influence that other streamline games had on Hauntii’s origin, like Mario Odyssey.
“I had just finished a previous game, I was so sick of making games, and so I was studying web design. I was like, I'm just going to get a nice corporate job, which I did. I worked in a finance company for a while. And during that time, I would just toy around in my free time. I was playing Mario Odyssey at the time and I really loved the capture mechanic where you can control like any other creatures or pieces of the environment.”
As a gamer, I am under no illusion that games are seamlessly interwoven with cultural references and deeply reflect the developers' own histories. While the essence of Beanstalk Origins honors the little guys, I cannot deny that big names like Mario continue to influence the community. We are constantly oversaturated with entertainment and media mogul agendas, that individuality seems to become a more distant concept. There are times where I worry that the content we absorb is all the same platypus just wearing different hats - but that is a soapbox for another time.
While Dasso may have gained inspiration from Mario, their art style retains a striking example of their unique game release. An eye catching black and white world dripping from ink, as if mimicking a sharp Suiboku-ga world of the afterlife.
“The main influences of the art style for this game are actually the constraints, the production constraints” Dasso said. “For example, to create an asset needs to be very quick. It needs to be like 20 minutes, like, I think of an asset and then draw it up and then pop it in. That's pretty much why the game is monochrome, and that's why it's a single-line weight. A single line weight forces you to not get too detailed because you can't lightly sketch in things. It's like drawing with a Sharpie basically. You have to commit to the mark.
In the same article, Dasso took an opportunity to provide more depth on his designing fundamentals. Which is a quintessential piece of knowledge I believe anyone and everyone that is deeply motived by the process of gaming should explore.
“There's a book by Jesse Shell, The Art of Game Design, which I would say the core of how I design is based on how he lays things out” Dasso declared. “I don't know if there's anyone who's written a more clear translation of why you design certain things in certain ways. So that's the core of it. My own little touch is minimalistic game design. Like if you can remove mechanics and the game is still playable, then that works. There are some mechanics that you remove, and it's like, “oh, this is garbage now,” and you have to put it back.”
He continued by saying “I've always been inspired by super minimal games like Shadow the Colossus, Journey, and Flow. There are designers who do minimalism extremely well, and it never feels boring or vacant. It's like there's always some little thing. Though I would say at the same time I also love Final Fantasy games, which are a complete opposite of minimal.”
I recommend reading the article for yourself and going through the full interview to explore the work and dedication that went into this game, but let’s move on to my analysis.
A CONTROLLER DEPENDENT EXPERIENCE
Upon opening the game I was prompted to connect a pc accepted controller for the “best experience” however the only on-hand option I had at the time was the 2015 Steam Controller. If my tone didn’t already give it away, this was a less than desirable compromise I settled with. I had issues connecting my Bluetooth to the game meaning I had to use its USB cable to play, effectively chaining me to me desk and at a close sitting position.
Furthermore I experienced repeated accuracy issues with the mouse-like joystick when shooting in-game and resorted to interchangeably using the controller and keypad throughout the game (neither of which stopped interacting each other so I would occasionally setoff accidentally if I hit the keypad or the like).
Is this user error or hardware issues on my end? Perhaps. But it did take away from the overall experience of the game and prolonged the amount of days I dedicated to finishing it just from the inconvenience.
Flexibility in this game is paramount, often times I was instinctually led by the 360 capabilities of the controller’s joystick and when danger approaches from anywhere I heavily overlooked the inconvenience as enemy encounters increased in difficulty as the game progressed. Not to mention having a “touchpad like” experience really assimilated well into game integration.
The world heavily revolves around the shooter mechanic and right off the bat you’ll want to collect as many “Ghosts Flames” as possible which effectively act as currency in Eternity. I.E? Shoot a lot of stuff, explore the range that incorporating a 360 mouse-like joystick brings to the world of Hauntii.
My recommendation? Make sure you’re properly setup to accommodate the intended gaming experience or have a longer USB cable available as a backup option.
CHARMING CHARACTER INTERACTIONS
Hauntii is full of colorful characters—guides, nature guardians, background citizens, enemies, space whales, and lords of chaos—providing plenty of fulfilling interactions at every turn in the five domains you will explore in Eternity.
A major draw for my decision to play Hauntii was the promise of an underline narrative and conversation, it continues to be a strong motivator for the games that I play (and even review on this blog). While there is no voice acting, the conversations are concise and informative, often helping you progress and advise you actions in-game. It’s worth noting that you don’t have to interact with every character, but some lead to side quests and surprises that you will want for a 100% complete playthrough.
Most impressively is the diversity of the character designs seen in the ghosts and angels. Some of the most incredible art work is done with two colors and ink and the team of Moonloop Games really knocked it out of the park, characters were filled with expressive eyes to define their lack of facial features and free flowing body shapes explored a range of presence during interactions. I especially enjoyed the witty dialogue from sinister entities and morally gray Angel Hunters.
STAR SHARDS AND HIDDEN SEEDS: THE PATH TO MEMORY
At the intro to this post, I clued you in on the premise behind Hauntii. We open the game to find us hurtling into the abyss, plunged into a world of darkness of no memories and no idea where we are.
Now I don’t want to spoil the elements of what I found to be affectionately a strangely familiar tale… but one inspiring friendship with an angel leads to the discovery of the answer to ascension; to claim who you once were. (Nudge nudge wink wink, here is where you realize that you need to go out and find your lost memories).
Hidden throughout the world of Eternity are the shards of “our” memory, waiting for me to rediscover them. I was led down path of self discovery, one of which entailed a journey full of riddles, hunts through the woods, and daring challenges. Most importantly each shard contributes to a single memory found along the trail of stars, quite literally charting our old life.
Each realm has its own star chart for you to complete in order to obtain your memories, but don’t be confused when you realize there are an excess of shards that don’t provide any additional memories. They instead serve as rewards for a complete walkthrough of the game, becoming collectables.
It is a beautiful touch to the story and exploration of Hauntii, experiencing them as slices of cut scenes that show our character’s past. I also appreciate the presentation of the memories, like a bright children’s book of stories your mother would tell you as a lullaby. Who knows, maybe that was their intention?
PUZZLES, OBSTACLE COURSES AND CHEEKY CHALLENGES
The world of Hauntii is endless in its clever hidden interactive elements. I found in my playthrough the most helpful tool was retaining a keen eye for “the missing.” Often time there was a mushroom that looked a little different than the rest, or I would find myself under a street light with a broken lightbulb, or maybe even found a star shard floating high above what I could possible normally reach… says a lot don’t you think?
While most of the puzzles and obstacle courses were fairly approachable, I often was frustrated at my own inflexible thinking. I promise you when I say they all have an answer, but I won’t lie and say I never looked up the solve once or twice. Hauntii encourages the players to remain ever vigilant in our observation and application of the logic of “Hauntii Lore.” But at times I deeply struggled with navigating the more physical challenges like fighting a horde of enemies or taking down a large entity with swirling landmines in my wake.
I found it lacking that in a game of shooting essence at souls and trees with life essence, that I was never provided with a skill for blocking or shielding against attacks. It took a while before I learned that possessing other entities could actually remove the danger of taking on damage. All in all, embracing a lot of trial and error ended up being my best friend on my wayward journey.
FINAL THOUGHTS
There are so many elements of the game I barely scratched the surface here but I am firm on my belief that you should play the game for yourself because there are still surprises to be discovered.
The game is addictive, cheeky, playful and witty; I adore the creators of Moonloop Games for bringing a innovative spin on a classic mechanic. My own difficulties during the playthrough aside, I think this is a game that is definitely worth playing and adding to your cozy Halloween play list.
Check out their website for some other cool behind the scenes development and to download the game