I loaded this game up at 9AM on a Friday morning and had to repeatedly apologise to my partner for screaming. 10/10.

There is nothing more terrifying than children.

The Cabin Factory is a spot-the-anomaly horror game set in a factory manufacturing spooky cabins for amusement parks and movie sets. However, due to a spate of reports that the cabins are actually haunted, the cabin factory has hired you to inspect each cabin, check whether it’s haunted, and if it is haunted, run away before whatever poltergeist inhabiting it can catch you.

It is absolutely terrifying, and I loved it.

This is me, and I am scary.

There is only one criteria for determining if a cabin is haunted. If something moves, the cabin is haunted. If nothing moves, the cabin is safe, however creepy it might be. Each cabin’s layout is identical - even if its furnishings are not - forming a weird familiarity to the process of moving through the space. I could step in, sweep through my regular steps, checking whether the familiar things were moving, and then get caught up by something new. At multiple points, I found myself swaying from side to side, trying to decide if a painting’s head was moving, or if it was just an optical illusion from the eyes. At other points, an object I’d dismissed as harmless started moving behind me. At still others, movement I’d thought was harmless would turn into something chasing me as I crashed helter-skelter into walls, doors, and furniture, trying to escape. The constant shifting of a nominally familiar space makes the game a deeply unnerving experience. Even in a mundane, safe cabin, the lack of true security leaves the heart pounding and the tension thick.

i do not trust this man

Undergirding it all is the story of the cabin and the people inside it. While the cabins you are inspecting are recreations, they are recreations of an actual cabin. While the story itself is fairly basic horror fare, that there is a developing story and that the various people scattered around the house are trying to recreate it in their own, tormented way adds more to the experience than I would have believed was possible. I wasn’t invested in their story, per se, but that these were more than wax figures made the cabin spookier. This is a game with a clear atmosphere and which lives and dies on its atmosphere, and oh, it lives.

The Cabin Factory could well be one of the best horror games I’ve played in a while. It’s short, understands what it is and how to make the most of its space, and doesn’t overstay its welcome. It thrives in its simplicity, and leaves the player rattled.

Developer: International Cat Studios
Genre: Horror
Year: 2024
Country: Japan
Time to complete: 1 hour
Playthrough: https://youtu.be/gbFWjPynHb4