“When you settle in, there’s something in the attic I need to pass on to you. Look for a tape. But know that once you watch it, there’s no turning back.”
Amanda the Adventurer, developed by MANGLEDmaw Games, is a first-person horror game which uses VHS tapes, 90s animation and a series of puzzles to tell the story of a local TV show linked to the disappearances of several children.
After receiving a letter from their Aunt Kate, Riley discovers a VHS tape in the attic of their aunt’s house. The VHS tape shows an episode of a children’s show called Amanda the Adventurer, in which Amanda and her friend Wooly the sheep help you bake an apple pie. Using clues and instructions scattered throughout the tape, Riley is able to solve a puzzle in the attic that will reveal a new VHS tape. And so the pattern continues.
I immediately fell for the premise of Amanda the Adventurer. I was constantly scouring the videos for hints that could help me unlock secrets in the attic and the game cleverly lets you interact with several things that will be relevant for puzzles later on meaning you never quite know what to expect. This is a game I would recommend keeping a piece of paper handy for, especially towards the later puzzles.
But then I got stuck. Unfortunately, during my initial playthrough I encountered a bug in the game that soft-locked me and made it impossible to continue as a safe that was supposed to unlock wouldn’t open. I spent almost three hours trying to figure out if I was missing something, unsure of whether the game was broken or I was just not seeing what was changing. Thankfully, playing on a completely different PC worked but this soured my experience of Amanda the Adventurer quite a bit.
Despite the setbacks, I enjoyed Amanda the Adventurer a lot once I was able to get it back up and running. The game does an amazing job of bringing back the nostalgic memories of learning games and cartoons that I would watch as a child. The VHS tapes ask you questions and ask you to find things in a way that, if not for the creepy static, talking about death and rotting things and Amanda’s tone, would make for a great kids show.
At it’s core the gameplay is very simple. You locate clues in the tapes and in the information around the room, and use them to solve puzzles which help you progress and there is no need to run, or hide, or fight.
There are very few jumpscares, mostly images popping up unexpectedly in the tapes, but Amanda the Adventurer does a great job of building atmosphere and a sense of foreboding. The creepy soundscape, 1990’s cartoon graphics and the eerie contrast between what you expect to see and what really happens works well to create that exact sense of dread you want when playing an atmospheric horror.
Amanda the Adventurer uses a lot of repetition. If you die in you are sent back to square one and, while the puzzles you have solved often remain solvable so you do not have to completely go back to square one, you will probably find yourself watching the same tapes a few times, redoing the same puzzles and skipping through dialogue over and over again.
I think I would have minded this a lot less if I hadn’t experienced the previously mentioned bug that saw me replay the initial sequence of videos so many times that I can now recite some from memory. There is a reason for this and, once you unlock the pause button, stopping at certain points will allow you to change the outcome of the video.
I did love the puzzles and, despite the game’s childish exterior, some of them were genuinely a bit challenging. There were a few occasions were I wasn’t sure exactly what I was supposed to be doing and found myself going back through the game looking at different tapes and trying to find things I had missed.
This is where secret tapes come in. Some videos have clues in them which, when implemented in the attic, unlock brightly coloured tapes which do not contain episodes of Amanda the Adventurer. These tapes show real life stories of people who watch the show and are a lot of fun to find, watch and decipher. There are also a few letters and newspaper clippings that show up in the room that will help you find out more about what exactly is happening with the show.
Amanda the Adventurer is a short game, probably completable in about three hours depending on your puzzle-solving skills. The length works in the game’s favour however, making sure that the puzzles stay engaging and the premise doesn’t feel played out.
I would recommend Amanda the Adventurer to anyone looking for a new horror game to try, especially if you have any nostalgia for the cartoon kids show style. Amanda the Adventurer is a joy to play and a really fun, short horror experience.
Megan played Amanda the Adventurer on PC with a code provided by the developer.
