I don't know about you, but sometimes, I need a break. Sometimes, I don't need to feel like I'm controlling entire armies or galaxies. Sometimes, I don't need to be a lone action hero, fighting my way through an alien army. Something like Dark Souls is great, but games like that, where half the fun is the stress, the self-improvement at a discipline, can sometimes feel as stressful as work or that household project you've had in the back of your mind for the last few months.
That's when a game like Unholy Heights comes in, acting as a palate cleanser. A game you can pick up for fifteen minutes on a break, or an hour while watching a show with friends. Sure, you are a devil, and you are trying to create an army of monsters... but let's be honest, you're doing it by creating an apartment complex. The first monsters you can hire are large chicken like people, and some of the more dangerous ones are spell-casting teddy bears.
This is a cute, fun, and quite silly game that still has plenty to keep your attention, making sure you are having fun.
The game starts off small, and with enough of a basic premise that would be 'believable' in a fantasy world: You are the devil, and after some rough times, you have come up with a cunning plan to lure monsters into your service. Build them a nice home with plenty of amenities, until you have enough money to lure heroes into your den, and enough monsters to kill them and take their money. This might, for many people, conjure up spectacles like Dungeon Keeper, or perhaps the nefarious orcish mines we see portrayed in the Lord of the Rings series.
Instead, we get... what looks to be a bipedal chicken that is checking into a one story motel. They apparently want cigarettes, and basic cable.
Pretty simple instructions, right?
The whole game is laughable, but that's part of the charm, in the end. You don't get this game for an epic challenge or grandiosity, but because you want to play a game, something to pass the time casually with mirth and amusement. The game is simple, in how it builds, much like any Sims style game; in fact, if you remember SimTower from about twenty years ago, this feels like an indie rendition of that game in many ways, which I mean as compliment.
There is still quite a bit of 'oomph' here, don't get me wrong. There are multiple types of monsters you can grab, from a variety of undead to the shambling weird Abyssals you would find from anything Lovecraft inspired; each of these different groupings of creatures have different requirements for moving in, from some of the elementals requiring high end air conditioners while skeleton samurai require a large amount of expensive luxuries to be tempted. Some groups enjoy seeing satisfaction in your apartment, while others like demons only want to move in when enough of your own monsters have died horribly against questing knights and elves and mages. Demons are jerks like that.
Keep in mind that there is combat. When quest waves or wandering heroes get close, a warning goes off, and your monsters stop going to and from work, or hanging around outside to shut themselves into their apartments. This is when its important to decide when to knock, disgorging the creatures inside to fight. There is a method to it: some monsters, like zombies, can have more hitpoints and can endure a lot of physical damage, while other creatures throw elemental blasts from behind the front line. Knock on the doors in the wrong order, and suddenly your archer-type units are getting ground up by large knights while your own tanks are trapped behind the front line.
This is a 'go at your own pace' sort of game, and I ended up clocking ten hours before I ended up conquering the world. Mileage may vary though, since you might choose to just get to the most powerful faction of your choice and just blaze through...or take your time, tinkering and waiting to get the perfect four stories of monster types that you want. Heroes do appear to attack every so often, but they don't show up en masse until you choose the quests on the quest board: the more of these you do, the tougher it all gets, with more money in your pocket as it goes on of course, letting you experiment more and more. I sort of took a mixed approach, toying around with three groups of monsters, waiting until I filled up many different families, then blazed through the last few missions with my troops. Sometimes, I did find myself getting a bit frustrated as a quest surprised me with how difficult it was, or when one of my best leveled tenants decided to stop paying rent, but this is a low stakes game: a few days of rent and recruitment, and its easy to try again as if nothing bad ever happened.
A silly little game, but it still feels awesome when you see what you'vebuilt from shambles.
Sure, this game might not have that epic story line or those well crafted graphics.... but in the end, there's a very wonderful light-hearted fun that really is instilled in everything, which is what is really important. There's enough crunchy details to let you micro-manage, and enough combat or questing to let there feel like there's an end point, not just being a building simulator. Unholy Heights is in the end, a game, not something you have to commit hours to perfecting to get to the fun bits. There's no right or wrong way to build your apartment...as long as you keep building it, and keep that aspiration to conquer the noble humans of the world high.
The game is about four dollars on Steam, and the fact that I spent ten hours on it? That's a heck of a deal. Even if you have your new favorite AAA game, don't let yourself burn out on it day after day. Sometimes, you need a palette cleanser, and in that case, I can whole-heartedly recommend this game.
