An Amazing and Creepy Visual Novel, Scarlet Hollow

Scarlet Hollow is a visual novel about a small mining town with a few secrets. You play as an outsider who happens to be a relative of the founding family who owns the coal mine. It is a fish-out-of-water story about a small town full of cryptids and secrets.

This game is still in early access, with four episodes currently available. According to the developer, Black Tabby Games, the fifth episode will be out in 2025. I’ll cover that as soon as I can get to it.

TLDR: A fun and creepy story about a family’s past and the dark secrets of a small town.

A Fantastic Story

The story is the main draw to a game like this. This story has branching dialogue paths, and you can shape who your character is. The more people you talk with, the more of the story you get to experience.

At the beginning of the game, you learn that you’re traveling by bus to the town of Scarlet Hollow for a funeral. Your aunt died, and your cousin Tabitha invited you to the funeral. The two of you seem to be the only living members of the Scarlet family.

There are a lot of cryptids in the game. Some are more recognizable than others, but they do show up in the different episodes of the game. Something else is going on in the town that is slowly revealed to the player.

This is a company town, something that hasn’t existed for a long time for very good reasons. Unlike historical company towns, Scarlet Hollow doesn’t have its own currency, which is great. It is clear that the Scarlet family controls everything in the town.

Here is a brief rundown of what happens when you get to the town. Keep in mind you’re only there for a week:

• A guy gets killed when some creatures attack him
• A coal mine collapses
• You exorcise a ghost
• Some creepy guy named Wayne follows you around
• These strange mutant Pillsbury doughboys are everywhere
• You run into a Jersy Devil inspired entity

This is based on my playthrough and the choices I made. It might be different during your game or during a future playthrough. That is the beauty of this game. Every choice matters!

One funny thing about the story is that everyone seems to be totally on board with the idea of monsters running around. The group has a skeptic, but it doesn’t take much to convince her that monsters are real. It made me laugh a few times when something like this happened, or you explained the situation to someone, and they acted like, “Oh. Sounds legit.”

I enjoy stories like this. A town with a dark past and a secret is always an excellent setting for a horror story. It doesn’t always translate to a good story, but the developers made a great one here. It also helps that you can play through the game again and see a different game play out.

Gameplay

The gameplay is very simple, which is what you should expect from a visual novel. It is all about reading a story and making dialogue choices. You don’t move a character around or interact with anything. The game also gives you plenty of time to make your decisions.

The decisions you make impact the story and the relationship you have with the characters. I like this because it makes each playthrough different. It is fun to see how the characters react to you and what parts of the story you missed.

One thing that I didn’t like was how the game crowbars in the flirt options. I wouldn’t mind if my character acted that way during the game. I wasn’t interested in flirting with the characters, so it was a little annoying that this option kept popping up.

You can ignore dialogue options, so it isn’t a big deal. Scarlet Hollow lets you act however you want, which I enjoyed. There are dialogue limitations, but those are understandable because they need to fit into the overarching narrative.

I like the story so far. There are a few more episodes to be released, but what I’ve seen so far has been awesome! It raises the question of why my character hasn’t left town, but you could say this about many video games.

A Beautiful looking Game

The game looks great! Scarlet Hollow has a hand-drawn look. While playing the game, I felt like I was staring at someone’s sketches turned into a video game.

There is an unsettling atmosphere in the game. Things get creepy as the game goes on, especially when you get the cryptid and ghost parts of the chapters. It looks great! I like how unnatural things look and how your character reacts to it.

Scarlet Hollow looks beautiful when needed, but it is sometimes scary. Something is unsettling about the way characters look at you, especially Tabitha. She has a painful smile at times. I would love to see how her story unfolds.

9/10. This has one of the best stories I’ve come across in a video game. It is creepy and reminds me of horror movies and campfire stories I’ve heard over the years. I can’t wait for the other episodes to be released.

Pros

• Amazing Story
• Great Characters
• Creepy atmosphere
• Wonderful Graphics

Cons

• It wanted me to flirt way too much
• It isn’t finished (This is the only other con I could come up with)

Conclusion

Scarlet Hollow is an excellent game! The story is very engaging, and I like the gameplay. I look forward to seeing how the story unfolds in the last few episodes.

This is the same developer behind Slay the Princess, which I enjoyed. The story in this game is much better and easier to follow. The graphics are the same, which is a good thing, as I love how both games look.

This is one of the best indie games I’ve played this year. I would have put it on my Best Games I Played in 2023 if I had played it last year. It will end up on my list for 2024.