Scholar's Mate

I love chess, Escape Rooms, and horror games. Combining all three sounds like a promising time, if you ask me, and Scholar's Mate does indeed have some promising ideas, let down by some poor presentation and design choices.

What is Scholar's Mate?


What is the most terrifying thing imaginable to you? Snakes, spooky mansions filled with zombies? Furries? There is a lot that can scare us, but being kidnapped and locked in a decaying psychiatric hospital filled with traps, and dead bodies is surely up on most people’s lists.

 We play Judith, a young woman who finds herself trapped within the walls of a seemingly abandoned hospital. Why is she here? Why are there dead bodies propped up like statues? And why are there so many riddles and locked doors? Judith is about to find out, as she explores the hospital, solving puzzles, finding keys to unlock the many various doors blocking her exit, and all the while being hunted by a deranged killer.

Scholar's Mate does a pretty good job of setting up a compelling mystery, that gradually gets more intriguing as the documents, handwritten notes, and blood smears mount up. The plot is decent, and I liked Judith a lot here, especially since she is the main voice you will hear throughout the game. There are plenty of cliches here, and while never being a burden nor coming off as dull, they are cliches nonetheless.

I would have appreciated something, a story thread that was a little more innovative, sparking some compelling themes or concepts that would leave me utterly uncomfortable. Instead, we get all the bells and whistles of all the tropes in the horror genre, the massively overused ones and none are elevated by any interesting degrees. I reviewed a game called Oxide: Room104 two years ago, and while janky and rough, it did have some interesting story beats and a neat twist.

Still, their journey to the end in Scholar's Mate was engaging enough, providing a decent scare here and there, Judith's voice actor did a great job with the material at hand.


Checkmate my deranged serial killer friend


What intrigued me the most with Scholar's Mate was indeed the creepy vibes, a setting that slightly echoed RE7 (a game I adore), and cramming in plenty of puzzles that possibly give me the ultimate lateral workout in quite some time.

It’s not so much a series of escape rooms, but rather a great big, massive one, filled with smaller problem-solving tasks at hand, that range from riddles to finding key items, and deciphering codes. All and all while being stalked by a guy who doesn’t look like the hugging type, and more the murdering type.

If like me, you love a good puzzle or dozen, then Scholar's Mate will do the job for you. I would say that most puzzles have a good balance between head-scratching satisfaction and tediously annoying. I never found myself stuck too long on a puzzle, and the game does a great job of nudging you without outright giving you the solution at hand.

There is a great variety of problems to solve, and while the game on a whole feels quite small in scale and complexity, the developers have done a good job at making the most of the limited resources they were working with for sure. However, the main problem here and something which does get in the way of a few puzzles, and general interaction is the presentation and poor UI.

There is a fair amount of hunting for codes and looking around the scenery for clues, that would have been much more enjoyable if the controls and UI were improved. Everything felt quite janky when navigating the world and searching for certain clues was a tedious chore no thanks to the poor UI. I do understand the game does not handhold, but there is a difference between that and having poor accessibility and controls. The old Resident Evil games were limited with tank controls and hints, but the design, camera angles and controls were approachable and well thought out. And even not being allowed to remap the controls is just not on.

It's made somewhat worse with the stalking gameplay, as there is a stalker in the game that hunts you throughout the hospital, and while not overly a nuisance, they can interrupt the lateral component quite a bit. And since you can’t do anything aside from run and hide, you’ll be biding your time until your captor passes by. If you were able to lay traps or disarm him for a bit, I would say there would be something more enthralling than just waiting, running, and trying not to freak out while solving a puzzle.


Overall?


Scholar's Mate has a lot of promise, with a great-sounding concept, a good story, and some decent scares, but due to the limited, often frustrating UI, and lacking stalking gameplay, it does fall short sadly.

With some updates and needed improvements, I can see Scholar's Mate being much more approachable for new and old horror fans. While it may not go down as a classic, I would like to see the studio refine their efforts into a much grander game, since they have a grasp on compelling concepts and lateral thinking.

++ Interesting concept and gameplay ideas
+ Quite spooky and intense
+ Good leading performance

-- Poor UI elements which become frustrating
- Stalker gameplay is a little unbalanced

JanduSoft very kindly provided a review copy of Scholar's Mate