Dreams in the Witch House tells the story of the classic H.P. Lovecraft tale of the same name, placing you in the shoes of its protagonist, Walter Gilman, a student of the legendary Miskatonic University. The game follows the short story’s plot closely, revolving around Walter’s disturbing dreams and the interference of Keziah Mason, a witch who escaped execution during the Salem Trials.
The first hour plays like any other point & click adventure game. You’ll explore the city of Arkham, meeting people, take on a few simple quests, and unlocking new areas. However, very quickly, the game’s RPG and survival elements start to become more obvious. There’s an emphasis on raising your stats, such as Math and Sanity, and you have a few health-related meters to keep an eye on, such as Hunger and Warmth. This makes Dreams in the Witch House feel very distinct from more archetypical adventure games, despite how closely it matches them in presentation.
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Instead of filling your inventory with puzzle-solving items, you’re also filling it with things you need to survive, like food, sleeping pills, and thermal underwear. You also have exams to prepare for and deadlines to be wary of, so keeping an eye on the ever-progressing internal clock is a factor. Cosmic horror relies on conveying how difficult it is for those unlucky heroes to survive with their minds intact, and Dreams in the Witch House does a great job of gamifying that internal struggle. Managing a body and mind in the face of unknowable horror is a satisfying challenge to undertake.
An aspect to this balancing act that I particularly enjoyed was the importance of the Sanity stat. This is altered by most actions and events in the game - having a bad night’s sleep or tricking your neighbour into getting drunk to reveal secrets to you will harm your Sanity, but completing tasks and spending time with friends improves it. Of course, Witch House heavily encourages you to dabble in the occult, which drops your Sanity like a lead balloon, so you need to find out how to boost it and quickly, or you simply won’t have the wits in reserve to take on the hardest challenges. It’s all very Lovecraft, and leads to a rewarding implementation of risk/reward gameplay - I can’t think of any other games where simply reading a book sends the protagonist over the edge of despair, but boy is that relatable.
In a move reminiscent of Dark Seed, Walter eventually ends up having dreams so vivid and realistic that you’re able to play through them, walking across alien structures and encountering horrific creatures known as Elder Things. These sequences play out more like a typical survival horror, and despite the simple graphics, they’re very tense - running away from indescribable creatures in search of safety - or at the very least, a clue - evokes some serious dread the first time it happens. During future dreams, determination and adrenaline take over as you race through seemingly identical hallways to reach a destination you know nothing about. These dreams break up the sometimes-monotonous gameplay and are a great way to weave in the dreams of the source material.
As Dreams in the Witch House goes on, this balancing act becomes more difficult to manage, but you also get better at coping. The world is never too sprawling, so you become acquainted with pretty much everything within the first few weeks. As a result, a host of potential solutions to the emerging problems you’re faced with are apparent from the off, and there’s very little ‘trial and error’ to speak of. What could have felt like an overwhelming clash of genres is, instead, an impressive blend that captures a disquieting and stressful experience without feeling unfair that befits an adaptation of one of Lovecraft’s more relatably uncomfortable works.
