Avoiderdragon: The puzzle game genre is one that has been seeing quite a bit of innovation lately, especially with the number of titles that are being released in recent years. They feature different mechanics and ways to play, and a lot of them have turned out to be fun distractions. The rest that don’t exactly fit that description though are still pretty interesting, but they don’t seem to be hitting the same chords as some of their counterparts. Such is the case with this game, which is novel in concept, but does fall a bit short.
Too cute to really be classified as a true horror game, Wayward Manor produces many strange and silly puzzles to leave players scratching their head.
From the review, "What’s worse than the puzzles (and scarier than anything the characters in Wayward Manor might experience) are the game-breaking glitches. Too often the cursor used to interact with the world would become an impotent hourglass icon, incapable of anything but evoking frustration. Objects clipping through one another is a sign that corners may have been cut and when essential puzzle elements become unintentionally unclickable with unfathomable regularity, it becomes hard to forgive them as merely a pratfall of the medium. On the plus side, visual glitches can sometimes be humorous. [Benjamin Maltbie hasn't] any idea what Wayward Manor’s anti-hero might look like, but I can guarantee that he or she can look no more horrific than this one time the otherwise forgettable Madame Budds’s lady bits decided to go rogue.Or are they just wonky by design?"
Jake Richards writes: "This is some Frankenstein's monster gone terribly wrong; gurgling, wide-eyed, pleading for the sweet release of a merciful death. Then your gun jams. Where to begin? It looks bad. Like Psychonauts: not only in style - which is good - but in the year it was released: 2006 - which is bad. ... I can't recommend this despite my love of all things Neil [Gaiman]. Got ten, 15 bucks burning a hole in your pocket? Buy one of his books."
