Ellen

Ok...This was a ride. I want to preface this by saying; I would not recommend this game for what it's worth. In fact, I really wish I was able to get my money back if at all possible. The game's trailer leads viewers to believe a very creepy, eerie type of gameplay, which it does! At first. The next parts of this review will possibly include spoilers, so please be wary, new players. -- The game begins with a standard spooky theme; possible haunted house, a cold case/closed case, murder mystery. During the first few moments of gameplay, things are tense and the game does very well at keeping the paranoia with surround sound and ambient lighting. However, things get frustrating quickly. The flashlight that the player will need throughout 3-5 rooms of the main building does not last long enough for the initial speed of the character, nor does it indicate where/how to recharge the battery (new batteries are not around, and after finding the first battery, the second and only other one...

I'm stuck and the battery is dead.

Creepy, surrealistic pixel-horror here from newer developer Red Mount, Ellen puts you in the shoes of P.I. James who travels to an abandon old house on the fringe of White Hill in order to find clues and solve the case of a murdered family. In his attempt to sneak in, he ends up falling through the floor; starting his journey in the house's basement. It doesn't take long for him to figure out that things are more than a little f'ed up... Ellen's not a reinvention of this genre within a genre but an exercise in trying to cull and display the best elements of the style. You'll be moving left to right, scouring every nook and cranny for items to unlock progression while reading notes, listening to tapes and doing your best to dig up the dirt that nobody's been able to excavate thus far. Things aren't as simple as you hoped; a couple of neatly designed, weird-out monsters stalk the various areas you'll explore and you're going to need to run or hide from 'em...lest you want to face a ...

Pretty good, the usual side-scrolling horror game. Visually stunning, some effects and animations were very good, but that's about everything "[i]outstanding[/i]" this game has to offer. The story, music, and gameplay were okay, but nothing striking in my opinion. What I do dislike about the game is that it is unnecessarily slow. When you're injured, you're unbearably slow, and even if uninjured, the stamina runs out constantly and takes ages to refill. Which I still don't understand the use for, since there's hardly anything to escape from, excluding the scenes where you actually run from something and get infinite stamina. The autosave could be more generous in some places, considering the movement speed. Overall it's a fun experience, and I can see some hard work went into it.

Nice horror atmosphere, intresting story, unusual puzzles,good looking pixelart, I definitely recommend try this if u r looking for good inde game^^

Good sound design and graphical aesthetic. Lighting, shaders, and effects look really cool in my opinion! For the full price of $10, some mechanics and level design could use a bit of work. Examples: • Some bookshelves you hide behind, some you don't. • Plants and other objects repeating as you walk with the same descriptions (if it doesn't add to gameplay, atmosphere, or fun then it's just breaking immersion.) It's better to just leave some of these objects out or shorten the hallways instead of having a Flintstone's effect. • A lot of very slow backtracking through areas (run doesn’t seem to work early game at all) • Controller support is half working/broken currently and kind of needed considering how long you have to hold down a button to walk. • Case notes were a bit confusing at first as it wasn't completely clear that each line of ???????? was for a different case note. You might want to apply the same method you used for collecting visuals or have some delimiter t...

I've beaten the first chapter and I am loving the game so far. It runs well on my laptop, the scares are terrifying (play it with the lights off and wearing headphones for a better experience), and it's just an all around tense thriller, loaded with frightening imagery and sounds.

Ellen is a unique experience unlike anything I've played before (I haven't played many horror/psychological thriller games, let alone 8-Bit ones. So maybe this would be a true statement regardless). I found Ellen on an online gaming blog and figured I would give it a shot. Normally I don't play games like this, but I was actually really happy with the game and I'm glad I bought it! One of the things I love about the game is that it doesn't always teach you how to play it. You get a few pointers here and there, but eventually you get how the game works. Everything is self explanatory enough that you'll understand it without a tutorial every five minutes. A lot of modern games give you too many instructions to the point where you're not even playing a game, you're just performing commands given to you by on-screen text. Ellen NEVER has moments where you have to button-mash to get away from a monster. I hate being held hostage in a cutscene where your only hope of escaping is mashing t...

Just getting started with the game, but already I can say that its bringing some great quality to pixelated horror!! I'm very excited to delve deeper into the game as I progress. Only con is the intro portion having somewhat of a slow start, but once it picks up you'll definitely want to keep going! Definitely recommend to any horror/pixelated art style fans. Here's my playthrough for a deeper look at the game! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e16K-Pf8zJ8&t=874s

Solid side scrolling pixel horror game and takes a few hours to complete. This game is up there with The Last Door, Claire, The Long Reach etc..... Really nice music and atmosphere, good little story about revenge and grief. The side notes, drawings and cassettes add to the story if you search for them. There are a few downsides including not being able to skip the logos and disclaimers at the beginning, the rough translation at times and horrible stamina (main character is a smoker, I get it). Solid game regardless