1 
0 The Cabin Factory is a short-run horror game from International Cat Studio in which you play as a woman inspecting cabins for ghosts. Similar to games like PT, I would class it as a spooky walking simulator game full of spooks and scares. I (somehow) managed to correctly process 8 cabins and get through to the end of the game and I’m here to press the button on whether it’s worth adding to your Steam library even at the low introductory cost of £2.24!
Don’t book any of these cabins for your next holiday!
Gameplay
The job is simple. Start your day, inspect cabins and ensure they’re not haunted. After a legal dispute, it’s now necessary to make sure there are no anomalies hiding behind the curtains of the cabins that are being sold. If you think there’s nothing wrong, press the green button. If you see anything move… well… let’s just hope you make it out in time, yeah?
When inspecting cabins, it’s up to you how long you spend inside. If you see something move, I recommend getting the hell out of there as death lurks just behind the locked door to the basement. Playing this game was definitely a spooky experience to begin with. Despite it being one room and two floors, there is so much tension packed into every single cabin regardless of whether it is haunted or not. I started a new save file a couple of times and it seems like the first cabin is always a safe cabin so you can take your time to learn the environment and keep your eye out for any changes in future cabins.
There is a pretty substantial collection of scenarios in Cabin Factory that range from pretty tame to downright terrifying. Sometimes a model will move, other times furniture and in some cases you’ll have a little puzzle to figure out. When playing through the first 8 cabins that you need to get right to finish the day, there was no repetition. However, once I got past the that and got the ‘Well Done’ screen, the same scenarios seemed to repeat quite often.
The Hidden Story
The story of The Cabin Factory is told through the environment itself. Starting with a simple radio news station and then the appearance of new people in the house, you have to pay attention to figure out what it is that’s haunting these cabins. As it is so vague, the real story is kind of up to players. As I played through it, I found myself creating my own story which would have to change a few scenarios later as I was given more information.
With The Cabin Factory having such a simple premise, it has to make up for that in the story. In some ways it definitely does enough to make you want to keep playing through the game. That being said, it may not be enough for some players.
Graphics & Audio
Even though there’s not really much to look at in The Cabin Factory, the things that you can look at are really well designed. Everything around you builds up the eeriness and makes you want to spend less and less time in the cabin. I played through with my graphic settings on high and didn’t run into any stuttering or graphical errors.
There isn’t much to say about the audio as there isn’t much to listen to besides ambient noise. This is done really well though and amplifies the tension created by the darkness and the graphics. It creates a really solid atmosphere.
Watch the light fade
Cabin Factory is an inherently dark game. You’re inspecting haunted cabins for upcoming horror movies after all. That being said, when you moved from the console to the cabin, there was an odd slide in the lighting. I know it’s to set the tone but the shift is quite jarring. It goes from almost painfully bright to almost darkness in a couple of seconds.
Longevity
Once I got into the swing of things, it only took me an hour to get through the 8 cabins that were assigned to you. The reason it took that long is because it felt like some of the hauntings were a bit unfair. Sometimes it was really obvious like a turning head, a twitching foot. Other times it can be something like a cup moving across the table. There were also a number of times where I scanned the cabin from top to bottom and nothing was moving yet the game said it was haunted. This could be because I wasn’t paying enough attention. However when it happened more than once it got more disheartening than anything else and really put a dent in an otherwise pretty solid game.
The real nail in the coffin for me was how the game ended. Without giving too many spoilers, it was just a bit ridiculous in comparison to the rest game. It went from spooky to silly and was enough to make me close the game and walk away. I’m sure this is something that will change in future updates and I’ll definitely go back to check whether it has changed but at the moment I don’t feel any real reason to pick it back up.
Final Thoughts
I had a pretty decent time playing through The Cabin Factory. It’s a really unique and interesting approach to the horror genre. It definitely has the ability to eventually be a contender for one of the best. That being said, the ending (which I have and haven’t mentioned) really did disappoint me. I also found that once you were in the post-game and just had endless cabins coming at you that things got really repetitive for very little reward.
I really am looking forward to seeing where this game goes and I will revisit it at some point but for right now, it just didn’t live up to the hype.
As a result, I have to give The Cabin Factory the Silver Thumb Culture Award.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
If you’re looking for more games to add to your library, you can check out our PC reviews here!
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