While horror games are becoming increasingly popular and successful in the modern day, they weren’t always like this. Throughout the early 2010s, indie games that focused entirely on jumpscares dominated the genre. It took Resident Evil 7‘s release to set horror video games back on track. How did it do this? By relying on a unique combination of thrilling tension, interesting gameplay mechanics, and an engaging narrative.
Since its release seven years ago, both indie and AAA developers have taken these lessons and run with them. Over the years, we’ve had games inspired by horror titles of the past, ones that take the genre to its creative limits and others that manage to infuse a little bit of fun into the terror.
At first glance, Apartment Story seems to honor these lessons. On the store page, it’s described as a “third-person thriller about three people and a gun in a single apartment.” It goes on to mention how it balances narrative moments with Sims-esque mechanics as you prepare for a tense “showdown.” A short two-hour adventure with a great mix of tension, mechanics, and a thrilling narrative? It should be perfect!
Unfortunately, however, Apartment Story falls short of expectations. Its story is uninteresting, its mechanics are messily implemented, and worst of all, there is very little tension to speak of. While there are some engaging moments, it never gets close to reaching the heights of other entries in not just the horror genre but the broader gaming medium as a whole.
A Thriller Without Tension
Apartment Story begins with a short tutorial going over the mechanics. Alongside the narrative, players must take into consideration their hunger, sleep, “mind,” “toilet,” and hygiene. These are lower and raised depending on when and how the protagonist eats, sleeps, cleans themselves, goes to the bathroom, brushes their teeth, takes a shower, and more. Of course, these responsibilities are controlled by the player.
I’ll touch on how the gameplay functions more later, but it’s worth noting that the narrative begins with Arthur, the main character, preparing for his day. He takes a shower, makes himself food, goes to the toilet, and so on. Soon enough, his old roommate Diane stops by. The both of you party, drink, smoke, and more, with Diane, hinting that there’s something going on in her life.
You discover what she’s talking about the next day when Arthur finds someone at the dining room table. This is Blondey, Diane’s ex-boyfriend and obsessive stalker. The tension ramps up as you realize what he’s capable of and see that he’s willing to do anything and everything to keep you and Diane apart. His tactics escalate, and at one point, he breaks into your house while you’re having dinner and ties you to a chair.
To be honest, this is a very intriguing premise. There are a lot of ways that the narrative can take these characters and position them into engaging conflicts with satisfying resolutions. The problem is that Apartment Story never fulfills this promise. For starters, none of the characters ever truly develop. Arthur and Diane grow closer as the story continues, but they never fundamentally change as people. The only thing that changes is their relationship status.
Secondly, the choices available to the player feel limited. While there are many mechanics like paying for the electricity, choosing who to let into your house, and making sure that your room looks nice, these have no consequences to the narrative. There would be a few days when I’d forget to pay the bill, and nothing would change. Further, while the store page claims that I never had to interact with Diane, I never had the desire to explore these options due to how limited they were.
When I let Diane into Arthur’s home, there wasn’t any option to kick her out after she walked in. This option remained absent, even after Arthur discovered that Blondey was only targeting him because of Diane. With all that said, the main issue at the core of Apartment Story is that the game is barely two hours long.
While some games manage to do a lot with a shorter runtime, Apartment Story is not one of those examples. There are no narrative heights that it reaches, no climactic moments that create satisfaction. More to the point, the game’s pacing is so slow. The gun mentioned in the trailer only appears when Apartment Story is twenty minutes away from reaching a conclusion.
Additionally, there is no tension. While there are some instances when Blondey is intimidating, I didn’t care enough about how threatening he is since he is barely developed. Plus, that showdown that I mentioned earlier? There is one moment while Diane is away where you have to keep an eye out for Blondey. At this moment, I did admittedly feel a little tense as I wondered when he was going to pop in. Yet, when he arrived, he just barged in through the door, and I shot him three times. That was the beginning and the end of the showdown.
At the end of the day, I felt nothing for any parts of the narrative from beginning to end. I never felt any sort of interest or care for Arthur and Diane despite a genuinely uncomfortable sex scene. Despite how many times he cursed, I didn’t feel any hatred for Blondey, and when the credits rolled, I felt no sense of satisfaction or joy despite an optimistic ending. So, if the story isn’t engaging, how are its mechanics?
Janky in All Aspects
An unengaging narrative can still maintain a player’s interest if it has great gameplay to compensate. However, the gameplay of Apartment Story is boring at its best and broken at its worst. As mentioned earlier, most of the gameplay revolves around keeping Arthur healthy. You do this by doing select tasks around the house.
At first, it’s kind of charming pulling out bread and cheese from the refrigerator, putting it on the cutting board, creating a sandwich, and sitting down to eat it. It’s fun to walk around the house and manage how the home looks and how Arthur is doing. It’s even a treat to turn on the radio and have some music play throughout the house. This enjoyment, though, will quickly fade as you realize how limited these mechanics are.
Here’s one example of this problem that I noticed in my playthrough: twenty minutes or so into the game, Blondey breaks into the apartment. Once he leaves, you can’t help but notice that he made a mess out of your entire house. For a moment, I had a realization that it would be kind of interesting if I could fix the mess and Diane would comment on it. I also wondered what would happen if I just left it alone.
At first, I left the mess completely untouched. When Diane finally arrived, I was a bit disappointed to find out that she didn’t comment on the mess Blondey left behind. She commented on the damage he did to Arthur’s face but nothing else. So, after she left, I cleaned up every little piece of clutter Blondey left. The pick-up mechanic is a bit messy to navigate, but eventually, I cleaned all of the damage he left behind. Imagine my surprise when, once Diane returned, she still didn’t comment on the mess or the fact I cleaned the mess.
Here’s where I realized the main problem with Apartment Story‘s gameplay: there is no incentive or reason to engage with any of the mechanics aside from the ones that keep Arthur alive. During my initial playthrough, I found no consequence in leaving dishes unwashed, failing to pay the electrical bill, leaving boxes out in the living room, or even leaving food out of the refrigerator.
It makes no difference if you decide to move every single object in the house to a different place, as not a single character will comment, “Hey, did you do something new with the furniture?” It makes no difference if you have some clutter laying about the house because you can just throw it in the trashcan, and the garbage bag will never fill. There are not even any interesting conversations created if you let Arthur’s beard grow versus if you shave it entirely.
There were a few glitches that occurred throughout my time with the game that are of note. One interesting thing was that if you put enough items in the garbage, some will float above the object forever. I also found out that for some reason, when I specifically make a sandwich using the cutting board, it won’t let me eat it on the dining room table. Instead, the sandwich is stuck there, and Arthur has to find something else to eat.
The gameplay formula that Apartment Story brings to the table can be fun, given the right attention. It ultimately fails to meet expectations due to how glitchy the experience is and how little room the player is given to experiment with the different gameplay possibilities. So, with such a dull story and mechanics that never reaches its potential, what’s left?
Unfulfilled Potential
I wanted to enjoy my time with Apartment Story. Since I was younger, I’ve always been a fan of the thriller genre. I’ve also played plenty of horror games that go beyond what is expected from them, even with a short runtime. Yet Apartment Story never does anything compelling enough to earn that runtime.
There is no tension to speak of in this thriller, and the few moments that were tense were undone by a lackluster payoff. The showdown at the heart of this story lasts for five seconds and comes five minutes before the credits roll. The gun that is so key to the suspense enters the narrative as quickly as it leaves. Plus, when the story reached its falling action, I felt no sense of gratification despite an almost fairy tale ending.
The gameplay is rife with glitches, and despite various different mechanics, only a few of them are explored. There is no reason to play around with any of the features beyond the ones that keep Arthur healthy, whether it be moving objects around, paying off bills, or making sure that the house is clean.
Finally, the narrative is unable to reach any engrossing heights. Thanks to its short runtime and slow pacing, the three main characters (Arthur, Diane, and Blondey) never truly develop. Neither Arthur nor the player feels like they have any agency, and the ending feels both unsatisfying and abrupt.
As such, Apartment Story doesn’t feel like it follows the necessary tenets that a good narrative-driven thriller should follow. There is no unique combination of thrilling tension, interesting gameplay mechanics, and an engaging narrative. Instead, you have a game that never comes close to reaching its true potential.
Sure, maybe there are other choices that can be made in other playthroughs. Maybe I could have refused to let Diane in, stopped paying all the bills, and become a hermit who never bothered to eat food or do anything else. When all is said and done, though, I have no desire to come back to Apartment Story and find out for myself.
Disclaimer: Blue Rider Interactive provided Final Weapon with a Steam copy of Apartment Story for review purposes.
