The Cabin Factory

Since P.T. came and went all those years ago, the horror scene in gaming has revived and thrived by providing more immersive experiences, harbouring intense scares and psychological manipulation (much like trying to play any recent COD games in 2025). Even the smallest experiences in scale can provide laser-focused intensity, and the great thrills by taking the core elements of P.T. itself and shaping the venture with unique twists. The Cabin Factory, inspired by another small-scale horror puzzler, Exit 8, brings together something that combines Portal’s dark comedic vibes, Exit 8’s puzzler elements, and P.T.’s horror sheen to make a rather enjoyable and engaging horror venture for you and your friends to play together.


Not the only cabin in the woods

As a new cabin inspector at the Cabin Factory Corporation (say that five times fast!), you will be in charge of checking from top to bottom all cabins produced, and sent along a massive conveyor, before being shipped off to movie sets and so forth. These are the most realistic, mass-produced haunted cabins in the world, offering a near authentic haunted experience that simple movie props can’t recreate anymore… even to the point where plenty of these mass-produced cabins from the Cabin Factory Corporation are indeed … very haunted.

We can’t allow famous actors and the public to encounter unpleasant supernatural experiences, so as the inspector, it’s your job to go into every cabin that passes by, check it from top to bottom for any signs of hauntings, and deem it either safe or dangerous. Now, these hauntings could be harmless, be it a moving cup, a prop in the cabin moving of its own accord. But then there are those which reveal the darkest secret within the walls of the spooky, mass-produced log cabins… being much more intense and terrifying.

When you’ve inspected and guest 8 cabin conditions in a row, then that’s it for the day! Job done, you can go home and feed your cats. But while quick, there is interestingly a great deal of depth to the world-building, and figuring out the hauntings can become a challenging task over time. Especially so when the atmosphere is so brutal and unnerving that simply approaching the entering the cabin is enough to give you major creep vibes.

What I liked about The Cabin Factory over Exit 8 is the design of the cabin. Where Exit 8 was a straight corridor, which you could proceed down or run back if there was something off, the cabins have a more malicious design. You will have to enter and walk through a living room, kitchen, and up a set of stairs to a small room, and to leave, you must walk back through them again. The design of the cabin and the requirement to go through and back on yourself, knowing something is very likely to jump out and kill you, makes the job daunting, yet incredibly thrilling.

The Cabin Factory nails the atmosphere and the level design, and while simple and repetitive, it manages to captivate and intrigue you every time you step through that wooden door. Be is with a prop moving, or one of the “mannequins” doing something odd with a small or rather imposing gesture. I loved discovering most of the weird goings on with each cabin, and some of them evolve into absolute nightmare fuel scenarios. I will admit, some of the hauntings are so small that you can easily miss them a few times over. But most are enjoyable, and clear enough to find and be scared by.

The game itself is not a massively long experience, clocking in with a full completion for me at around 2 hours. But I have played this a couple of times alone, and once with a group of friends who thoroughly enjoyed it as a shared experience. Like I said, the simple, yet powerfully gripping design, and random nature bring about a joyous group or solo experience that remains terrifying in either position.


P.T would be proud

What made P.T. so memorable, aside from the intense scares and pacing, was the narrative. Be it confusing at times, the mystery was harrowing, and the breadcrumbs were so visceral that they left you in a cold sweat. My partner recalls when we played it over 10 years ago, that the image of a horrific baby fetus in the sink is burned into her brain. That’s raw emotional storytelling right there, with all the clues and unsettling details emerging into something haunting and memorable after so many years.

The Cabin Factory has a quirky vibe in some regards, with the announcer in the elevator sounding as though they were ripped straight from Portal, and the general manner outside the cabins themselves being a mockery of capitalism. Do a good job? Here are some balloons and the chance to go home! Whereas the cabins themselves are dark, gloomy, and thoroughly intense with the story of a family, a fire, and other sinister deeds happening behind closed doors. While P.T. linearly paced the narrative and clues, it was quite vague. The cabin factory's random nature does mean the mystery never truly settled in for me, nor did it build in a meaningful way.

I get that there was some bad stuff, a fire, and death. But there were quite a few open questions I had, and not in a fun interpretation kind of way, but more a “What the Hell?” kind of way.  The Cabin Factory clearly wanted to merge P.T. and Exit 8, and that could work, but both games are vastly different overall, even if there are some core similarities. The plot, or lack of presence of the mystery, was a letdown, and due to the random nature, it never fully comes together, unlike P.T. However, despite this, The Cabin Factory is still a fascinating game to play, and the horror elements and creepy vibes are indeed strong enough to compensate for this.


Overall?

I, and a few friends had a blast with The Cabin Factory, a short and utterly sweetly terrifying venture that tested our nerves, lateral thinking, and made us all thoroughly hate log cabins even more. While the story elements could’ve been more interesting and fleshed out, the scares, level design, and atmosphere are pitch-perfect, with an amazing and disturbing sense of discovery and challenge that will make you feel like a champion when you hit all 8 of those correct inspections in a row.

For its price, impact, scare value, and fun factor, solo or with friends, The Cabin Factory is a no-brainer and a high recommendation from me.


++ Fantastic level design and tight pacing
++ Great atmosphere and scares
+ Good for solo play or with friends

-- The story could’ve been more engaging


The publisher kindly provided a copy of The Cabin Factory for this review