Goosebumps: HorrorTown promises a scarily good time on iOS

By

Pixowl
Let's hope there aren't too many terrifying in-app purchases along the way!
Photo: Pixowl

Back in my distant misspent youth, I was an enormous fan of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series of kids’ horror books. Jump forward 25 years and this fond piece of nostalgia is about to make its way onto iOS — courtesy of a new mobile game. And it actually sounds like it could be a lot of fun.

Check out the trailer below.

The game is the creation of the folks behind the enormously successful The Sandbox mobile games. Called Goosebumps HorrorTown, it will draw on the series’ various memorable characters for an intriguing mash-up of city builder and monster collecting title. As Pixowl notes:

“Players take on dual roles: gathering a scary assortment of sinister creatures to terrify townsfolk and playing as humans to defend against the monsters by investigating monster activity and exploring the map to unlock new areas and adventures. As monsters, players can scare humans to obtain materials and add new creatures, while as humans they can gather resources, craft items, and spy on the monsters.”

Goosebumps HorrorTown arrives three years after 2015’s moderately successful Goosebumps movie, starring Jack Black. While there’s nothing inherently original about a popular franchise being turned into a city builder (similar approaches have been used for both The Simpsons and Family Guy games), this could still be interesting.

An original gameplay dynamic (kinda!)

The notion of playing both the monsters and the humans seems like it could be a unique gaming dynamic, so long as it doesn’t get too muddled. And what child of the early 1990s wouldn’t get a tiny pang of nostalgia at the thought of interacting with Slappy the Dummy from The Night of the Living Dummy or the Werewolf of Fever Swamp from, err, The Werewolf of Fever Swamp?

Let’s just hope the makers learn a lesson from Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery and don’t infuriate the fanbase with an abundance of pricey in-app purchases. (Although that’s sadly pretty much standard here in 2018!).

Goosebumps HorrorTown will hit the App Store on May 30.

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