Weeping Doll hits the PSVR just in time for Halloween offering a genuinely creepy vibe as you explore an old empty house to uncover a horrible secret. There were times while playing this game I was reminded of other walking sims set inside empty houses – games like Gone Home – that were eerily creepy just because the environments were so familiar yet inexplicable empty. In Weeping Doll we don’t know how long the house has been empty. Fires still blaze in the fireplace; prepared food is in the kitchen and on the dinner table.
But that is part of the secret you must unravel as you explore every room in the house in a somewhat linear fashion. Using a control scheme coined as Shadow Step you move by using the analog stick to move a phantom image of yourself out ahead of you then pressing the button to teleport to that location. It works surprisingly well despite being nothing more than the standard teleport system used in many VR games – just with a bit more flair.
As you explore the house one room at a time you are channeled into the linear storytelling and gameplay with a series of locked doors that require numerous one-use keys found in previous areas. In each new area you might find one or two interactive objects that can be triggered with the L2 button. If you are lucky you might get a puzzle or two but the only real puzzle of any substance was a picture puzzle where you first had to find the pieces then assemble them to give you the “combination” to access a secret area. This was the highlight sequence of what was otherwise a very short (60-minute) game.
There is a cool gothic vibe to the whole experience with an old musty house littered with dolls and doll parts. A few trigger points will pop up slideshow-like cutscenes of static black and white imagery with voice overs. More story is delivered if you interact with a radio and there is a really disturbing story told through a child’s drawings being torn off one page at a time.
None of the puzzles are terribly difficult, and the entire thing is over in about an hour, although you won’t even know this for sure until you wander back into the starting foyer and see all the credits have now appeared as pictures on the wall. It’s pretty easy to get all the game trophies on a single pass. I did have to go back to find one overlooked hammer to get one missing trophy, but even when the game is over you are free to roam the house to get anything you may have missed.
Thankfully, they are asking only $10 for this game otherwise I would be unable to remotely recommend it. And even at $10 this is a cautious recommendation because there is no real reason to replay the game yourself, but if others in the house want to play you can probably get your money’s worth. It’s a cool and comfortable intro into VR, and while this game plays out much like a creepy bedtime story, it’s probably not one where your kid will say, “one more time mommy/daddy…”
