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A creepy and fun title, fans of the Myst series and with a love of horror will be right at home in this game.

Scratches, a game made by company “Got Game”, is a different take on the usual Myst style adventure. You are set in an old Victorian house, you are there to finish writing a novel, in which you slowly discover that not everything is as it seems and that the previous owners were considered to be murderers. It was not proven but the townsfolk believed that the previous owner murdered his wife.



So yes, you are set in an old cliché horror setting. The designers, however, did an amazing job of creating a somewhat uneasy, creepy layout for the entire house and surrounding area. It really is all very cliché, but they did a great job of making it actually feel creepy. Nobody has lived in the house for many years, making parts of it slowly fall apart and become dilapidated. 



The story starts off innocent enough, you arrive in your car and head into the house to explore it and see how everything looks. The interior has been somewhat cleaned recently, your friend Jerry having sent in some cleaning people. However, things start to quickly go downhill as you discover that the electricity doesn’t work. The electrician you were supposed to meet at the gate left minutes before you got to it, and you are left in the dark all night unless you can find yourself some candles. This all starts a dark and eerie adventure, as you discover more about the previous owners and find out that they might not have been crazy like many believe.



The ambiance of the game is off the charts, with incredible mood music and well-produced voice acting. They all have accents; though they sometimes sound like they don’t really have an accent and the voice actors are merely pretending to have one. Everything else is right on the money, the music when you first go to explore the basement really sets you on edge and makes you wonder. The sounds in the game are incredible, and attest to the talents of the sound team. I hope they make more games like this, if this is any indication of what they can do.



There really isn’t that much you can say about the game play and control, it’s a Myst style game. You move the mouse around the screen, click on things that look important. To turn around, you move the mouse to the edge of the screen and the view will turn that direction, giving you a good 360 degrees of viewing direction. This being the first game in this style I have played, I can’t give you comparisons between this and others. However, for what you are supposed to be using it for, the control system is more than acceptable. It isn’t perfect, but they did a very good job with it.



Graphically, this game looks great. It only runs in about 800x600 resolution, but the details they gave to all the area’s in and around the house are very well done. From the locked up toolshed to the creepy crypt behind the house, the game is loaded with creepy character. The basement below the house is very dark, giving off a very bad atmosphere. Which is probably exactly what the developers were going for.



All in all, Scratches is a very well made Myst style horror adventure. It is clichéd, but the mystery of things is fun to explore and the sound effects and mood of the house give it an edge that most modern horror games just don’t deliver. I haven’t felt as cautious and creeped out in a game since playing Fatal Frame 2. If you are a fan of the genre, it would be in your best interest to pick this up.

Review by Chris Williams.