MUNDAUN Review: Experiencing Fear Through A Pencil's Graphite

PC Review Code Provided by Hidden Fields

Presentation is one of the key elements when it comes to creating a unique horror game. Developers always try to bring something new, different, and interesting to be their forefront reasoning to check out their game. For the team at Hidden Fields, it was the amazing well-drawn pencil-only art style they used to create Mundaun. Recently releasing this horror title to Steam, with the help of publisher MWM Interactive, they sent players on a journey through an old home town where things aren’t as they should be.

Story

Returning to your childhood home after hearing that your Grandfather succumbed to a fire, it doesn’t take long for you to see that things aren’t normal. Signs that the land is being haunted by an evil air that has affected the remaining residents. This realization leads you to begin a journey through Mundaun in order to find the reason behind the sinister events that have taken place here.

Gameplay

From the start of the game, you will find yourself looking around for things out of the ordinary and collecting items that you can use along your journey. This could be keys, wood, tools, and so much more, in which you will always need to make sure to check areas you visit. Other than inventory-based items, you will also need to look for weird, interactable items in the world. This is presented at the beginning with the painting of the burning house that you need to interact with.

One of the other aspects you should take note of when you are first looking around is that you can both burn hay and hide inside a stack of it. Both of these aspects will come up later on in the game when it gets a bit more dangerous, so make sure you know where these locations are.

Speaking of hiding, there is a mixture of defenseless and survival horror elements in the game. At times you will have a viable weapon to use and fight with, but there will be other times that it is better to just stay or get out of sight. While the times that you have a gun are pretty straightforward as an easier way to get through this section of the game, there are options due to how big most areas in the game are.

Be ready to solve some puzzles as well. They aren’t really straightforward as puzzles, but you will need to figure out what certain things do in order to complete a task or make progress on the overall journey. It’s not going to be a game of just find what you need and avoid or kill enemies. The puzzle moments were my personal favorite as they were always pretty interestingly set up.

Visuals

Using a pencil-drawn art style for the entirety of the game was definitely different and added to the atmosphere of a haunted, mountainside village. Definitely a great choice for this storyline and the level of detail in everything really showed the amount of care they had for this art style.

Sounds

Keeping the calm moments mostly quiet with only soft music and using appropriately intense music for key moments in the game was very fitting. While I couldn’t understand the language that the main character spoke personally, that also seemed pretty fitting as well.

Replayability

After beating the game, there isn’t much reason to go back through the game. There are a couple of different endings to unlock, but the overall experience of the game would be the same.

What Could Be Better

I felt like the open areas were a little bit too open. It took me a long time at the beginning of the game to understand what I was supposed to be doing and every wrong guess would eat up at least five minutes of my time, if not more.

Some kind of clue or hint system to help players make solid progress in the game would be a good update to consider. Finding items and having no idea what to do with them got frustrating at times, along with not knowing what I am looking for nor where to look for it. An audio clue or written hint in the journal would have been greatly appreciated.

Conclusion

Mundaun is a spooky horror game with a great atmosphere and unique art style! It was definitely an interesting setup that had a very fitting storyline to go with it. You really can see the amount of care that went into this game’s creation through the art style and the level of detail provided. Even so, it did have its dragging moments and became frustrating at a handful of moments - and not in a fun way. I’d still recommend this title to horror fans, but be ready to do a lot of exploring to earn your horror moments.