When I first booted up Terror in Little Creek and witnessed GameMill Entertainment’s logo appear on my screen I was incredibly pessimistic. The publisher behind a ridicule of travesties such as The Walking Dead: Destinies, Skull Island: Rise of Kong and Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing is now making a Goosebumps game? What could go wrong? However, after 5 hours with the game I can safely say that Goosebumps: Terror in Little Creek is not as bad as I thought it would be; and whilst it won’t change the industry with it’s gameplay what it offers is surprisingly decent.
Ruh roh…g-g-g-g-GHOST!
At the heart of Terror in Little Creek’s gameplay is puzzle solving. Throughout the game you will be presented with a wide array of puzzles that you will need to complete in order to advance to the next stage or obtain a new key item that you’ll need for something later. It’s a very cookie cutter formula that most games similar to this use. The puzzles themselves were also surprisingly well done. The developers have stated that this game is designed mostly for younger players aged 12+, but that didn’t stop them from making the puzzles quite challenging. The puzzles very rarely are the same. For every code that you have to find and enter you’ll then get one that tests you. The one standout being the abacus puzzle which will see you have to correctly figure out the code from the nearby paintings and riddles and then inputting the code on the ancient counting frame. They’re surprisingly the right amount of difficult and gives you a lot of satisfaction when solved.
Terror in Little Creek also has other mechanics that you’ll be using too. As the game is described as a stealth puzzle game you will find yourself in a number of scenarios where you will have to hide from deadly monsters. I never found these sections to be all that challenging. The monsters are always on a set path which can easily be memorised and allows you to effectively sneak past them. On the off chance that you do get seen there are two options: Run or Hide. Hiding immediately stops the monster from chasing you and after a couple of seconds their path resets and you can try again. If you do get caught you can easily mash a button to escape and lose the monster so you can try again.
It’s here where my biggest problem with the stealth comes from: it’s too forgiving. It felt like I had so many get out of jail free cards in my pocket that it became laughable. For example, when you break free from the monster’s grasp you will lose some health to go with it and you’ll have to find a med kit or a snack bar to replenish the lost health. However, the game hands these out to the player so frequently that it never feels like there is any true risk. You could simply run past the monster, get grabbed, escape and then eat a snack bar to replenish your health, it’s that simple. Even if the game is designed for younger players I feel like there should have been some level of difficulty so that players would have to play the game the way it was intended instead of relying on exploits to advance.
The final piece of the gameplay puzzle is the limited combat. The player will be armed with a slingshot with unlimited base ammo that they can use to incapacitate smaller enemies. However, around the levels you can find other types of ammo. Strong and explosive pellets pack double damage, smoke pellets can provide you with a quick getaway, and firework pellets can be used to distract enemies. Each one has their own benefits can be useful but some don’t work the way they’re intended. The biggest culprit being the firework pellets that hardly caused the distraction they were advertised to create. Even if they were fired right next to the monsters they would hardly notice it and carry on as usual. Explosive pellets also hardly pack a punch. You would think that they would be the most powerful pellet in the game, however, they feel about the same as the strong pellet which will be the one ammo type you use the most considering how frequent you will find it in the levels. Whilst the combat feels the most undercooked out of the three, it is still serviceable and achieves it’s main goal nicely.
A Mystery to Solve!
Terror in Little Creek will put you in the shoes of Sloane, a nerdy, teenage girl who speaks like she’s on her 10th cup of coffee. After being tricked into summoning ancient spirits from the dead back to life, monsters plague her quiet little home town of Little Rock in an attempt to take over the world. It’s up to Sloane, and her friends Harvey, Lydia and Lizzy, to stop the monsters, save the town and be home before their parents notice. The story is quite basic and takes a lot of cues from classic children’s monster stories mostly from Scooby Doo. A group of teens solve a mystery and stop a monster whilst uncovering secrets and having huge revelations, the only thing that’s missing here is a talking dog. However, the plot does have a few twists that, whilst some were predictable, were surprisingly interesting ideas.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the characters, more specifically our main lead Sloane. Whilst Sloane does have a few good moments, and quite brilliant voice acting, she is all around a irritating and annoying character. Her constant asinine quips and jokes were always duds and the repeated dialogue of her saying the same 5 things over and over again were painful to continuously listen to. It also doesn’t help that the dialogue feels the need to inject slang that is regarded as hip and cool with the targeted Generation Alpha demographic, but even they may roll their eyes at some of the words that are coming out of these characters mouths.
Let’s Unmask This Creep!
Terror in Little Creek was genuinely surprising. I wasn’t expecting much from this title, and whilst I don’t think it’s perfect it certainly has a lot of charm and fun hidden in it’s DNA. If the game was more challenging and the dialogue less cringey it may have even scored higher, but the final product is a satisfying, albeit short, experience that will distract you for a good couple of hours. Get ready to solve a mystery filled with terror, monsters and scares that are sure to leave you with goosebumps!
The Review
Good
