F2P Friday: VICTORIA AND THE HOUSE OF SHADOWS

Lauren Darnell

Simple illustrated room with black and white girl standing in front of bed (Victoria and the House of Shadows)

Welcome to this week’s installment of F2P Friday, where we highlight our favorite Free-2-Play games. The video game market is oversaturated, and sometimes, hidden gems fall through the cracks. This is where we dig for you and feature a new F2P game we know you will enjoy every week. This week, we play Victoria and the House of Shadows, a point-and-click narrative adventure game set in an Edwardian house. 

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Victoria and the House of Shadows

Victoria is a gloomy teenager and aspiring writer in the early 1900s. Absorbed in her books, Victoria looks up one day to realize she hasn’t come out of her room in quite some time. But one fateful day, Victoria’s pet rat, Vermin Allan Poe, escapes, and she remembers her mother’s words, “I will squash that ugly pest with my broom next time I see it in my house!” which prompts Victoria to take action and rescue her furry friend. Can she push past the looming presence to rescue her companion? 

The Basics

Let’s get down to the basics. At its core, Victoria and the House of Shadows is a point-and-click puzzle adventure game with light horror themes. The controls are easy to master, with logic-based and novice-level puzzles. Combining or breaking apart objects will be the key to escaping the room. 

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The creative team at Kindermann Corp made the game, which also made Shikon-X, an experimental adventure game available on Steam and Nintendo Switch. The humor and tongue-in-cheek writing are very similar to their other titles, with an added layer of gothic teenage angst. 

Why Should I Play?

Why should you play Victoria and the House of Shadows? This introspective puzzle adventure is a unique experience that fans of Fran Bow will adore. You can complete this demo in about 10-15 minutes, and it’s the perfect game to play alone in your room between longer campaigns. The hand-drawn, whispy art style creates an eerie backdrop for this tale of woe. The creators plan to add voice acting to the full version of the game to match the opening narrative. The current version of the game uses a set of unserious computer-generated voices, but the music is expertly done, so don’t turn the volume down too much. 

If, like Mary Shelley, the dark has no effect on your fancy, you can play Victoria and the House of Shadows on Itch.io for free

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Lauren Darnell
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