Hollow Castle

Hollow Castle is short-ish form horror puzzle world with a mysterious plot and unusual challenges to solve.

RobertWK’s Review:

One of the staples of VR is the variety of actionable content. Escape room or puzzle style worlds need to have different kinds of things to do in order to be successful. Hollow Castle offers a variety of challenges with solutions that are not obscure and don’t require incredible leaps of lateral thought. There is some repetition of themes such as unlocking doors and searching for items, but having to scrounge around for clues or items is part of the fun of virtual reality. In Half-Life: Alyx, I searched practically every file and kitchen cabinet.

There is kind of a plot in Hollow Castle, but it’s mostly alluded to and isn’t at all explicit. I wish there had been more to develop a story of where you are and why you are doing the things. Some of the puzzles do feel a little magical, and the environment is nice albeit a little dark. The cheap jumpscare factor is also almost totally nonexistent, which is a huge plus. The overall world is fairly short, and I think you could probably wrap it up in a little over an hour, maybe faster. This is still a quality entry and is a good way to kill an hour or two, tops.

(Rating: 7)

Katchy’s Review: Hollow Castle falls under the “spooky-scary” sort of horror-themed puzzle worlds in that it’s not very scary at all. It’s a good world for people that can’t really handle big scares. Thematically, it all works well together as you explore a large castle that seems to have been covered in darkness, and are meant to discover its secrets. It’s not too short or long, and the puzzles are thought out well and not too difficult. There is a bit of backtracking now and again as you search for multiple keys to open doors, but thankfully there is a central hub area where it all comes together. (Rating: 7.5)

(Author: Quap) (PCVR/Quest:PCVR) (Last Updated: 10/20/2022)