Based on R.L. Stine’s book series, Goosebumps: Terror in Little Creek is a puzzle-horror game where you must find out the mysteries pertaining to the small town of Little Creek. You take the role of Sloane, a curious teenager who goes out her way to solve the town’s mystery with her friends. A perfect setup for a spooky adventure that involves the mischief of monsters and magic.
Premise
As previously mentioned, you investigate the town of Little Creek as Sloane with her friends Harvey, Lydia, and Lizzy. Upon investigating the town, the gang sneaks into their local library. There they learn a group called the Monster Society are involved with the strange occurrences in the town. After Sloane goes to the basement of the library, she finds an ancient spellbook. This spellbook is one of your primary tools for puzzle-solving. As Sloane figures out the spellbook, her friends split up to the museum and theater. These two locations are the one of the most important in the game as they house two of this game’s major monsters. Those being the Masked Phantom from the theater and an ancient Mummy from the museum. As you progress through the game, you’ll find different spell patterns to unlock more areas of the town and defeat the major monsters.
Gameplay
With an introduction to the game out of the way, let’s talk about the gameplay. The gameplay is mostly puzzle-solving and stealth. Early on, you have access to a slingshot with different ammo types. It’s mainly used in puzzle-solving scenarios and dealing with enemies. My problem with the slingshot coincides with the game’s implemented stealth sections. If I had to sneak around an enemy in order to obtain an item, I could simply run past it and easily shoot it down with the slingshot. It felt like there was no threat at all from any of the basic enemies. The only ones that actually provided any semblance of challenge were the major monsters (Note: They are also unkillable, so your only choice is to avoid them). And of the various ammo types, some of them felt like they didn’t work half the time. For example, the noisemaker ammo is meant to draw a monster’s attention to where it was shot at. From the many attempts I’ve made using this ammo, the monsters would usually run towards my character instead of the spot I shot at.
I am aware that some of my criticisms of the game stem from it being too simple, but I am also aware that this game is targeted towards a younger audience. The puzzles weren’t complex, but I can see a kid stopping to think about what they need to do for them. I reached the end of the game at about 4 and half hours and was neither satisfied nor disappointed with my experience. It was exactly what I expected it to be, so I had no expectations of this game really engaging me. Of the few things I found nice about this game is that it did capture the experience of going through a Goosebumps story. The protagonists are kids to young teens who get caught up in the supernatural occurrences in their hometown. Not to mention that the unsettling nature of these stories is that monsters are in fact real and can be dangers to these kids.
Conclusion
Overall, Goosebumps Terror in Little Creek was pretty lackluster. Looking at the devs and publishers of the game, it kind of checks out that this game turned out this way. The developers PHL Collective and the publisher GameMill Entertainment are known for putting out low quality licensed kids games. Not to mention the pricing for Goosebumps, in my opinion, is not worth $40 USD for how short and barebones the experience was. On top of that, the game also has a $15 USD DLC pack that seems to only provide cosmetics, a 3D model viewer, and a concept art viewer. I can only recommend getting this game on a heavily discounted sale if you’re interested. Otherwise, I wouldn’t recommend this game, even if you wanted to buy it for your kids.
