Burnhouse Lane

released on Dec 02, 2022

Burnhouse Lane tells a story of Angie Weather, a one foot in the grave agency nurse attempting to complete five impossible tasks in order to win her life back. Solve puzzles, make friends and enemies, run, hide and fight in this dark adventure that'll take you on a trip to another world and back...


Reviews View More

I have conflicting feelings about this one. Before I give my thoughts, I absolutely recommend this game despite any negative feelings I have, and I genuinely enjoyed playing this. I would say its more fun to play than Downfall, but objectively probably tied with Downfall for their "worst" game. Worst in quotes bc this studio hasn't really made a bad game lol.

Artistically their best game for sure, I am obsessed with how burnhouse lane is depicted, almost in this silent hill/ evil within alternate-realm horror. The burned cat is a fantastically designed character, the backdrops to this game are beautiful and filled with amazing art, and I also think the tumor imagery works incredibly well.

Overall, the characters themselves are very compelling even if flawed. But the story was an absolute flop and a disjointed mess. The tasks given seemed disjointed, and didn't have meaningful payoff in the end. They were fun to go through in the moment, but looking back feel a bit random, and I keep trying to search for the point of them existing (to no avail). Some characters motivations seemed weird as well. I understand the MC being bland was the point of her character, but for the first half of the game, that really made it hard to become attached to her. I also think some of the burnhouse lane is this really happening or not sections worked to the detriment of the actual story and characters. I found myself wanting to go back to reality to figure things out rather than go through another arbitrary burnhouse lane section. This was more an issue in the late game, as the stakes were getting higher.

In terms of gameplay, this was their most confusing game by far. Never has a game made me feel more stupid for not understanding the solution to a puzzle. Yes, this is embarrassing for me lol. But it also genuinely feels like an issue of fitting different sized pegs all in a square hole. And it happened multiple times. I also think some of the non-puzzle gameplay was lacking, specifically the cat platforming was pretty janky and rough.

I know this studio's games are a lil janky, but for a game that came out in 2022 it was kinda jarring at some points. Interact with stairs to then painfully slowly go up or down, for example. Or the mess of the UI, where you can't hold left or right on the controller in the menus to move more than one item down. Or the fact that you couldn't hit left to go to the right-most item. Or that you couldn't sort your inventory in any way so you had to mash right to get to the most recent (and often most relevant) item you're holding. Just some very odd UI choices that I can definitely look past, but also did negatively influence my experience.

Anyways if anybody actually reads this, I would recommend to anyone who's a fan of this studio or this genre of point and click puzzle horror. Just know this one isn't perfect. Which is fine! I see the growth from their previous works, even if they weren't able to surpass games like Lorelai or The Cat Lady.

(Also loved the Mitsi cameo yes yes yes ty for that one)

This game literally changed my life and made me a worse person <3

Cool game, creepy vibe, interesting story, great art style, enjoyed it!

Burnhouse Lane occasionally represents an uneasy marriage between the staples of a classic point-and-click and the combat sections of a 90s cinematic action platformer somehow made jankier. If Rocketbirds' reverence for the style through the lens of a flash game filtered you, I cannot say you will have an enjoyable time with this for a quarter of its runtime. Thankfully, those combat sections are incredibly brief in comparison to the real meat and potatoes of this game. The puzzles in this ain't half bad! Unfortunately, there are some bafflingly contrived puzzles in here that serve as choices you don't know you're making until it's too late—I'm not going to call it padding to get you to do a second playthrough, but it certainly feels that way to me. Otherwise, it's all pretty simple stuff that indulges in the fun of inventory puzzles without resorting to moon logic on a whim. If you're afraid of playing these kinds of games because you're bad at puzzles, Burnhouse Lane (mostly) has you covered.

As for the rest of the game (the reason I really wish I could give this at least four stars), it's mostly incredible work. The art style and music, for one, do a fantastic job of pulling you into the game. As soon as you start the game, both of these things are on display in a stunningly simple, and yet perfect, menu screen. Once you step into the game itself, the landscapes, lighting, and character portraits tie it together wonderfully. I can't speak to the cohesion of the narrative, since I keep forgetting to finish this. But, having played through all but the last chapter, it's fairly compelling stuff! If you're expecting more subtlety in your horror games, or if being beaten over the head with exposition over the course of the first act doesn't suffice for you, I can't say this is an absolute winner. But speaking purely from my point-of-view, it utilizes both of those thoughtfully enough for it to avoid derailing itself altogether.

One last thing before I go: there is a damn good reason so few people have gotten the Goddess of the Axe achievement. If you're looking to 100% this, I would save that for another playthrough, because it really takes away from the whole experience the first time around. The main reason I haven't finished this yet is because I still feel burnt out after getting it.

Como alguém que já havia jogado os jogos anteriores, é inegável a linguagem e modo de criar narrativas que apenas os irmãos da Harvester Games possuem. Burnhouse Lane novamente segue a linha entre temas fortes, violência gráfica e personagens conturbados, mas ainda assim, possui uma história incrível e que acredito ter sido bem melhor elaborada que o anterior a ele, Lorelai.

No geral, a minha tier list continua com: Downfall, The Cat Lady, agora, Burnhouse Lane e por último, Lorelai.