Last updated on December 1st, 2025 at 06:16 pm
Horror in the Darkness – Adventure Game Review
Horror in the Darkness is a Adventure/Puzzle/Entertainment game from Craig Kadziolka, first launched in 23rd June 2017.
It’s rated 17+ and currently has 263+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Horror in the Darkness Stand Out
Horror in the Darkness is an exploration and puzzle solving adventure game inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, where players explore and investigate, putting together clues and solve puzzles to uncover the secrets of Wentsire Manor. It is a mobile phone adaption of the classic text-based adventure genre, similar to the point-and-click classics. The game combines a bleak environment and an sense of underlying dread with moments of comedy to keep you entertained.
Fresh back from the horrors of World War 2, our protagonist was working as a private investigator. Not hugely successful, but it paid the bills. Mostly. But when the widow of his old friend needed his help nothing could have prepared him for the bizarre and uncanny events that were about to unfold.
This Adventure game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Horror in the Darkness is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 14th March 2021
Recent improvements include:
Fixes intermittent crashing during the upgrade process.
Download & Availability
Horror in the Darkness is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Horror in the Darkness on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Loved this game honestly amazing expected it to be longer though after all we did pay what could be done though to improve is allow the player to find markers so he can mark places of importance or ones hes already checked to help organize and not get overwhelmed also wish it was longer or more chapters otherwise it ok to buy the upgrade its cheap but still its short.
Its really fun and spooky! We screen share and play together with our partner.
In this game we love the fact that you can play through the whole base game without having to make any payments usually games of this quality require you to make money transactions also the premium content is cheap for some good fun honestly we dont leave a lot of game reviews but this was worth it good game.
We dont write reviews and Im mai Lu doing this because Im bored but this games we actually really good. Im a bit slow so we had to use hints but this games was really fun overall :) The story is really good and the gameplay was fun.
We really enjoyed this game and reminds us so much of Zork, the lovecraftian storytelling is riveting. We were playing this and didnt notice the time fly by. Being a game developer ourselves , we have a plan for our own horror game and this is very inspiring on that front. We liked this so much that we downloaded the whole series.
This game was awesome! Love these type of games. Really makes you think with the ability to open, push, pull, use everything. Etc. It really gets your mind going! Please make more of these. Great story. Super addicting. Loved it.
Really enjoyed this. We really enjoyed the atmosphere, the language and the accompanying music. We got stuck forever trying to find the trophy room. The only reason we knew it existed was the hint. Had there not been this hint we would have never finished this lol. We were so frustrated. The map did not show an adjoining room for the first floor landing and so for a long time we didnt realize we could go north rather than up. When we finally got into the trophy room, it was a couple of clicks and we were done (we had already done everything else). But overall we really loved this game. We know Im a big late to the party but couldnt resist writing a review. Will be playing your other games. :) Thanks for this.
We a huge fan of Lovecraft and the genre of Lovecraftian horror. It is hard to find something with true Lovecraftian feel without being clich fan service. This game delivers wonderfully and balances perfect difficulty, puzzle solving and narrative. Best of all there are no adds to break the immersion of the experience.
Its like the text adventure games of our youth but with a map.
We LOVE this game and we wish there were many more of these types of games.
We were OBSESSED with these but forgot the name of them So when we finally found them again we played NON STOP again. Nothing compares in the way of text adventures to these games.
Love the ambiance it creates and the logic to solving the puzzles : ) it really helped that we noted down locations where the description hints at something unresolved or more actions could be taken with the right tools, not just locked doors.
Love the feeling of the impending doom and dread. Great spin off of Eldritch horror. Music adds a level of atmosphere we wasnt expecting. Will there be more for those of us who purchased it? Keep up the good work we want more Eldritch horror text based games. But from you all.
We loved playing this game. There are a number of more popular text adventures that use randomly-generated stories and rooms, but we prefer having a fully written narrative, and this game delivers. We only wish it were longer – and that the developer would make more games for IOS.
This game is a really nice nostalgia of text-based games or choose-your-own-adventure games! We suggest spending the $1 to encourage this person to make more.
This puzzle has to be one of our top favorites! We highly recommend you play it (if you havent already.) we didnt have any glitches and it didnt kick us out. Five stars.
EDIT: Fixed! Thanks developer So the game itself is great (read other reviews for more info), but as of March 2021 (and maybe before), upgrading to premium will crash the app and lose any unsaved progress. Hope the developers see this and make any necessary updates . Would love to use the fast-travel feature.
The game itself was super fun though very confusing at times. Like with the fertilizer, really our only other complaint was extra items. We had no idea what the piano line was for or what the mirror was for. It could just be our ignorance but we couldn't find anywhere to use them.
Very good adaptation of a lovecraftian style story into a Mobile friendly text based game. We feel like enough was given for the player to figure out what happened, although we do wish there were more Flavor Hints to really paint what happened here. Although that may be the appeal of the mystery. It seems easy to miss some things but's thats the nature of the Text Adventure format. We enjoyed it a lot, and for the first game from this developer we hope to see more interesting and dangerous adventures in the next few games.
Hello, we tried to start the first chapter and the text was good but we couldnt go any further after we think making to the station because whatever that was on the screen was not accessible for people who have voiceover that are visually impaired. If you can please make it accessible, we feel this game will be really good.
Loved this game so much! The story was very well-paced and some of the puzzles of figuring out what else you needed and what to use were sometimes difficult, but not obnoxiously hard. We loved the story and the mystery was the kind that gets under your skin. Our only small complaint is that it didnt feel like we got a whole lot of closure at the end. We solved the puzzle and fixed the curse, but there wasnt much explanation on what exactly the curse was, why it came from that artefact, why that artefact was important and how and when the family had gotten ahold of it. We see the results of the excavation because you find like four bodies around the property but we dont really know a lot about how the curse played out. Just felt like the ending was a little rushed but other than that we loved it.
For anyone that loves horror games, and text adventures, then this is the game for you. This kept us quite entertained throughout our plane ride where we had no service or WiFi and was the perfect way to pass the time. We just downloaded all the other games from this developer and we cant wait to try them out.
We liked the length of this game. Often we find puzzle/mystery games go on too long for us and then we get bored, but this one wasnt too long nor too short.
We really like it, a YouTube walkthrough from 3 years ago says Tom has a silver key but on our game he had a toy magnet and we are stuck and dont know what to do, do far lots of fun.
This was a lot of fun! Quite a bit a subtlety went into building this little adventure – sure glad there was the map to help us navigate as we had to retrace our steps several times! :).
This is the most immersive AppStore game Ive played to date. The detail and logic of progression is much beautiful. The description of environment paints a picture in the theatre of your mind. Its purely text based, no visuals, but we saw everything. It took us hours to solve all he puzzle with hints. Maybe Im not the most logically developed gamer to play this game and you may finish much faster but please give this game a try, its had to believe its free. Im going to try the premium.
Extreme attention to detail. Very creative. Very good exercise for the brain as well.
Great UI but the story felt rushed and the puzzles were extremely simple. It's obvious what objects you need to interact with because of the UI. It tells what you need to take and this led to a very short experience. It took us an hour to complete and we didn't upgrade for fast travel. The devs did a good job but this feels as though a writer would have been a great benefit for the game.
Only because the SECOND we decided to upgrade, our game crashed, and kept crashing. So like, .99 isnt that big of a deal to us, but the fact that we were really enjoying ourselves and enjoying the game then only to basically not be able to keep playing it… It was… Well… Upsetting to say the least. Im more than willing to give 5 stars, but only if this issue is fixed. Haha thanks! (we also downloaded all of your other apps, since we were loving this one so much up until the incident).
We love the gameplay, story, descriptions and user interface of this game. It feels open and free, while being linear enough to keep the player moving. Creepy, suspenseful fun.
This game was so thought provoking and interesting. We gave up a couple times but we didnt stop until we made it to the end! It was such a good journey. The mystery was engraved in our head to the point where we couldnt handle not knowing what the ending would be! We recommend it to anyone. We upgraded to premium because trust us, using fast travel is so much easier and more useful than constantly having to look at the map and go in different directions. Its worth it, if you want to finish the game. We recommend this game 10/10.
Well written and very entertaining.
Reminds us of the old Infocom text games.
Us: walks past the lake Tentacle beast: VIBE CHECK breaks our leg and drags us under.
Loved story, music, and great user interface for IF.
Great game fun challenge and nothing too hard to understand as long as you pay attention.
(SPOILERS) we loved this game so much… Though getting it premium was way better cause of fast travel! Anyways the storyline still confused us on why THEY ALL DIE like what happened to them and WHO IS THE GUARDIAN??? Anyways this is really fun IT OCCUPIED ME FOR A WHOLE ROAD TRIP! Please make more of these games.
Wish it were longer! We had fun, and the price was definitely right.
Ive always had a warm spot in our heart for text-based adventure games. Fun game that captures the morbid mood of a Cthulhu short. Ill definitely be buying the rest in the series.
The first review visible on the page says that after purchasing the upgrade, the user was unable to open the game. If that was the case, we can confirm the issue has been resolved, because we got the upgrade and have had no problems. Hopefully that review doesnt stay on the front page for this app, because this game deserves a better first impression. This game and the others in the series are challenging, fun, and exist in a universe that truly does feel Lovecraftian. We sincerely hope the developers continue making more games like these.
This game is minimal in design, but is incredible in terms of writing and wittiness. We never ceased to be entertained by this game.
We would like to make it VERY clear that the game itself is incredible. It's mysterious, unnerving at all the right points, and very well written. There is not a problem with the actual game at all. However, we did have to delete it before fully finishing it. While downloading it, there was a notification warning about more adult content. We assumed it meant gore, maybe some violent language, and other things like that. We were not prepared for multiple areas of the game to be based around suicide. Anything to do with suicide is extremely triggering to us, and many other people we know who wanted to finish this game. Unfortunately, we were unable to play the whole way through because of those triggering thoughts/memories. To anyone who isn't triggered by those topics, we'd encourage you to download this game. It really is wonderful. For the developers, we'd ask you to put a more specific warning notification in the game. Well done, and keep up the good work.
Well written game. A few minor spelling/grammar errors but fun. As with every game we wish it was longer.
Feels a little short and there are some typos, but overall really well done.
Im partway through and a toaster is plugged in and also lying in a puddle on the floor. Meaning the toaster cord is 6 ft long. Also we can already tell that the rich people messed around and summoned an old demon god named ….shaggartoth?? __.
What a ripoff! It worked fine for free… But it wont open after we buy the upgrade? Ill never get another app from this company till you fix this.
Pretty similar to the turn based Cave and Adventure games of years ago. We got a little confused a few times but was eventually able to figure things out (after upgrading to get unlimited hints). We definitely enjoyed this game and we're about to download the next installment in the series.
Dark humor and an open world to explore. What more could we ask for.
Nice interface, good story and nice level of difficulty. This is the pinnacle of text adventure gaming.
Engaging game based on Lovecrafts works. Well done.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.4
- Size: 25.69 MB
- iOS: 10.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References, Frequent/Intense Realistic Violence, Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence, Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes, Frequent/Intense Horror/Fear Themes
- Developer: [Craig Kadziolka]()
Last updated: 14th March 2021 | Genre: Adventure, Puzzle | Developer: Craig Kadziolka