It's an atmospheric game that consists largely of walking around and listening to recordings; there is no combat, no interaction with NPCs, and only one (significant) puzzle. That puzzle, unfortunately, appears to be broken: the instructions you receive don't match the calculation that needs to be performed to proceed. There is also a recording missing from the game directory; attempting to trigger it locks the game up solid. I like the mysterious atmosphere of the game, but it does require some fixing before it can be recommended.

First 20+ minutes of gameplay, nothing much happens. I'm having a hard time listening to the audio clips played by [spoiler]crystals scattered around the campus[/spoiler]. It's as if the microphone used to record the audio clips was unidirectional, so [spoiler]when the dialogue clips are played, you can clearly hear one person talking, while the one he/she is talking with is somewhat barely audible or of lower volume. [/spoiler]. I had no problems running the game. It starts running in windowed mode. If you try to play it on full screen, there are black borders on the sides of the game. I can't give a definite score just yet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4ISWwLBK5w UPDATE: I was able to finish the game in less than 3 hours. There were a few bugs in the game, particularly near the end, where [spoiler]you can pass through walls, step on holes in the ground, or even have a desktop computer as a head.[/spoiler] That ending was [spoiler]lacking. Something happened to our co-worker Ro...

[h1]I tentatively recommend it, but only because Steam does not have a neutral. Only get if you are really die hard mystery fans and like everything read to you.[/h1] Just a walking simulator to find crystals that give long, unskippable voice recordings. The quality of these ranges from poor/laughable (the accents tend to obscure things, especially if there is music playing) to decent. The main issue I find with the recordings is it seems they were done in a single take, and then, no matter the end result, used. IE: one has a few words stumbled over, but it was kept in (obviously) instead of redone. There is an interesting story here, and I continue to play to get to the end of it, but the voice segments actually pull me OUT of it more than pull me in; I found I was so disinterested in the voice sections (and no transcripts option) that I was waiting, bored, at the next crystal for the existing one to finish. +Interesting story +Interior Maps are well done, full of 'clutter' and oth...

I came in ready to like this game, following the creators and character from the [i]Silver Creek Falls[/i] chapters. Those games were average at best, but kept my interest and I saw some potential in having mystery in realism and stepping a toe in supernatural questions as well. [i]The Ghost of Hackney Mills[/i], on the other hand, wasn't that big of a story. In fact, though the story is told through audio clips (with not very impressive voice acting), I couldn't find myself paying much attention at all to what I was actually being told about the world around me, much more grounded in realistic conspiracy. The maze puzzles were fun, but the other puzzles mostly consisted of taking numbers and moving them around, doing an equation, and then you enter your answer as a passcode. Which is honestly not the best puzzle to base your gameplay on, because a solid, simple answer is very easy to... just look up. Adds some difficulty if you choose not to, but it would involve some backtracking ...

The Ghosts of Hackney Mills is a fun, clever, mystery game with adorable pixel art! Pro - No "hand holding" I really do hate how people phrase this now but I do enjoy when you are left to your own devices to take notes, remember clues etc. I will say I would like an ingame notepad in most games as I find typing easier than physically writing due to finger loss. However it was exciting to take notes on paper for this game again. - Art is cute, I love it, pixel art will always be a favorite of mine. - The story points/crystals are great, I love picking up clues from hearing bits of old conversations! Con- - Controls are a bit wonky/would be nice to see a quick visual of the keyboard layout at the start. - No controller support kills my hands but understandable with this game - Some of the voice acting is... pretty bad I loved it but the russian was badddd, some of the... flow was very forced/off but still good, clear, easy to understand audio! Over all I am really loving this gam...

The game doesn't work

This is a game that sounded like it was going to be fun and interesting. It ended up being rather tedious and dull. The gameplay basically amounts to walking around, checking crystals to listen to fully voiced (with no subtitles or text) plot or character interactions and checking for spooky notes. The voice acting ranges from "acceptable" to "I can't stop laughing at how bad this is". The plot is overwhelmed by personal drama. There are no real spooks. There is basically only 1 real puzzle to figure out. The central mystery of the game is not answered and the game *ends* with more questions than it starts with. I appreciate that everybody involved in this game worked hard and didn't deliberately set out to make a game that was laughable when it wasn't being dull, but unfortunately that's what they ended up with here.

What should I start with? I am still grieving as the ending credits are rolling. The music accompanying it makes my grief even more punctuated. I've learned that the choices we don't pay much attention to affect the lives of other people. The game tells you that you will need pen, paper and a calculator in order to progress, because many hints are hidden inside audios that you need to listen to very carefully in order to understand the story. Sincerely, when I got to the climax scene, I have learned something terrible. The car crash was no accident... PROS: - Great RPG; - Atmospheric music; - Saving is my life!! - Character sprite cute and well-executed; - Story built up nicely; - Easy to obtain achievements; - No monster! Thank Heaven! CONS: - I had to turn the volume up to hear the spirit crystals audio; - Even if it has Steam Overlay, I couldn't take any screenshot. To conclude, I recommend it to anyone who would like a scary story. It might disappoint some children of today b...

y i k e s In addition to having no idea what this was about, because I literally couldn't understand any of the audio crystals (and there are no subtitles), this is a buggy mess. Avoid.

6/10