Harthorn Review

Back to School Scares Inspired by 90s Slasher Films

As if going back to school wasn’t scary enough. Harthorn and its developer Vincent Lade will send you down the hallways of Harthorn High School and into a psychological nightmare. This short, story-driven, and immersive exploration game is just as scary as it is self-aware. It feels like a 90s slasher film that hits all the nostalgia points. The spooky high school setting, the dialogue, and the score for this game set the mood for this high school horror show. The game has many features of old survival horror games but with modern high-quality graphics and great dialogue. Harthorn is a gem among indie horror games and will have fans of the genre walking the halls and feeling the pressure of returning to high school and facing a terrifying antagonist. So be ready to solve puzzles, explore every room, and fight for your life in Harthorn.

Developer Vincent Lade released Harthorn back in 2020, and the game has since developed its own cult following. The game may be somewhat short, but considering how cinematic the game is and the horror film inspirations, it works well with a shorter runtime. There is a heavy focus on the story-driven psychological horror, with great dialogue and seemingly endless exploration. You will play as a parttime security guard who is hired to patrol the halls of Harthorn High School during the winter break of 1994. Throughout the game you are aided by April, your radio dispatcher. Together, the both of you will investigate some strange happenings at Harthorn after a sudden change in security, the new locks and alarms were meant to keep intruders out but may have trapped something worse inside of Harthorn High School.

Almost every room of the high school the game is set in can be explored, adding to the immersive environment and the heavy focus on exploration. The player can spend a lot of time exploring and looking for notes in classrooms at Harthorn High. The game features puzzles like finding codes and backtracking similar to classic survival horror games. I'm a big fan of nostalgia in video games, anything that takes me back to my childhood gets extra points in my book. So the 90’s slasher flick inspirations like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer are on full display and the antagonist pursuing us feels like they are taken right out of one of those films. The game feels very cinematic, the dialogue, setting, and score all work together to deliver that 90’s slasher vibe. Even the runtime works in that cinematic sense, everything is wrapped up together for us to play one of the movies we loved as kids.

Harthorn is a fun and tense game that is full of exploration and delivers a fulfilling story. It's impressive that a short game can have such great dialogue and a compelling story. The classrooms are full of detail and the hallways feel like a genuine high school. I really enjoyed my time with Harthorn and I'm definitely going to be checking out Vincents' other games. I would like to see this game someday get an upgrade someday to include some cutscenes and maybe even a little more gameplay. I had such a great time playing and I guess my only complaint could be that I just wanted a little more of it. There is so much to explore and plenty of lore to uncover that the player can spend plenty of time in Harthorn, but be prepared because you are not alone, and Harthorn is easy to lose yourself in. I had a great time playing this game and would recommend this game to any horror fan, especially for slasher fans. Developer Vincent Lade was inspired to make Harthorn by the 90’s horror films we all love and developed a game that would fit perfectly on a shelf with those old VHS tapes.

Learn more about Harthorn by visiting the official Vincent Lade development website.

DEVELOPED BY:

Vincent Lade

PUBLISHED BY:

Vincent Lade

*This review was originally published in Issue #1 of Fearzine Magazine which was distributed in June 2024.

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