Scratches: Director’s Cut Review

The year is 1976 at the outskirts of Rothbury. Michael, an author of horror literature, is set to visit the Blackwood estate, an old-fashioned manor, in order to get peace to write on new novels. The manor is originally owned by James Blackwood, who died from a sudden heart attack not long after being accused of murdering his wife. The police could not find any evidence, so the house was passed oon to Christopher Milton who disappeared without a trace in 1970.

As Michael gets comfortable in the estate, unpacking and exploring, he soon realizes that the house echoes it’s dark past. Throughout the house Michael hears scratching, especially around the basement and the fireplaces of the house. Michael quickly loses interest in his writing and instead focuses his energy on the house itself, trying to research it’s history. Rummaging through the house Michael discovers old newspaper articles, journals and pictures regarding the history of the estate.

*Ending Spoiler* Whilst progressing the mystery Michael ends up digging up the corpse of Catherine Blackwood, the wife of the late James Blackwood buried in a shallow grave. In the end Michael ends up solving the mystery of the scratching, finding Robin, the deformed son of Catherine and James, locked up in the basement. When discovering this, Michael flees the house and ends up finishing his novel, and ends up becoming famous due to what he experienced at the Blackwood Manor.

After beating the game the Director’s Cut has an additional piece of gameplay bundled in – The Last Visit. In this short story the player takes the role of a reporter who is visiting the Blackwood estate to write a piece of the mystery surrounding it. Blackwood Manor has been destroyed since Michael left, and is now a vandalized ruin full of graffiti. The reporter ends up discovering Robin, who chases him down until Milton shows up, the previous owner who disappeared. Milton speaks to Robin, and ends up being attacked by him whilst the reporter escapes. The rest of the manor is then destroyed and the mystery is never solved.

As far as point-and-click horror games are concerned Scratches is one of better ones. Even though it is getting a bit old it still holds up. The game starts out slow, building up tension as you play along. The build-up works very well, and creates a great atmosphere. It is a great example of psychological horror in video games, great suspence, great use of musical score and ambient sound. The soundtrack itself is classical music that fits the game extremely well – especially combined with the suspenseful moments within the game. The graphics of the game is a bit outdated but is not that bad. There is plenty to look at when wandering the Mansion. Everything is quite dark and gloomy adding to the creep factor.

The story of the game is intriguing, interesting and scary – a well portrayed horror story. If the player is inclined there are dozens of extra information about the house and the story scattered around the Mansion for you to find. It helps with the immersion, and is in my opinion worth finding and reading. You get to learn the dark secrets of the former inhabitants whilst wandering the dark halls to the scary sounds from God knows where.

Scratches does, in my opinion, serve as a hallmark in point and click horror games, doing an excellent job portraying a creepy atmosphere. It is not riddled with jumpscares, but instead focusing on creeping out the player through the amazingly done soundtrack and ambient sounds. You are sure to be creeped out when playing it – which is a true testament, that it still after all those years can enact this emotion within the player. If you ever are in the mood for a good horror game Scratches is a surefire recommendation from here.