Fright Heights Review

By , on October 29, 2013
Last modified 10 years, 11 months ago


Fright Heights
Download on the AppStore
4 out of 5

PROS

  • Brain-taxing puzzle gameplay.
  • Creating massive scare combos is great fun.
  • Mechanics marry up brilliantly with the spooky setting.

CONS

  • Using the Talisman is an expensive business.
  • Feels like you get priced out in later levels.

VERDICT

Though you might feel pushed towards purchases near the end, Fright Heights is a seriously testing puzzler with a clever and compulsive hook.


  • Full Review
  • App Store Info

Games which revolve around hotel management usually involve trying to fill up your holiday inn by attracting as many guests as possible. Chillingo's spooky scare-'em-up Fright Heights, on the other hand, is all about scaring guests away.

It's essentially a block puzzler in which you arrange guests and ghosts throughout the hotel to clear out floors and empty the building. Each floor has a fear rating which must be hit in order wipe it from the screen. To cajole your guests into paroxisms of terror, you must place them next to ghosts.

Each ghoul has a different area of effect. One variety delivers a single point of fear to every adjacent room, while another elicits 2 points of fear from any guest in the rooms directly above or below.

With new guests and ghosts constantly appearing in the top right of the screen, the challenge is to find the arrangement of spooker and spookee which yields the most fear points. If you want to score big, then you'll need to max-out the fear rating on as many of the upper floors as you can before scaring off the guests on the ground floor. Though does so takes some serious forethought (and a little luck) this tactic will allow you to wipe several floors from the screen at once - an action which will earn you a tasty bonus.

Often things don't go according to plan. Once you get to the final floors, you can find yourself low on rooms with only ghosts left to fill them - a cruel twist of fate which will cost you the level. There is a magical Talisman which you power up using Boo-Bucks, the obligatory in-game currency. Using it will transform your next occupant into a beastie capable of delivering serious scares, but will also empty your virtual wallet pretty quickly.

However, once you get into the swing of things, you'll find Fright Heights an attractive - and surprisingly demanding - little puzzler. Though you can play for as long as you want for free, you do get the feeling you're being priced out in some of the later levels. Ultimately, though, Fright Heights considered strategy gameplay puts far more on your grey matter than your purse strings.

Screenshots

Screenshot 1 of 10 Screenshot 2 of 10 Screenshot 3 of 10 Screenshot 4 of 10 Screenshot 5 of 10 Screenshot 6 of 10 Screenshot 7 of 10 Screenshot 8 of 10 Screenshot 9 of 10 Screenshot 10 of 10