Baba Yaga is a new quest-based game from Oculus, where the player takes control of a child in a small village. They witness a witch abduct their parent and set off on an adventure to get them back. The player uses the Touch controllers to navigate their way through a forest towards a haunted house called ‘Baba Yaga’s hut’.
The player must solve puzzles and collect objects in order to get through the forest. The game continues with the character entering the house and exploring it, by touching certain parts of scenery or interacting with objects it moves the story on. Eventually, they find their parent but instead of just freeing them and getting out, they discover a hidden room containing a mysterious orb that transports them into an unknown realm
It’s at this point the game turns into a mini-dungeon crawl, where they must fight monsters and find more objects to progress through the realm. They eventually get through to the end of the realm where they meet their parent again, but instead of freeing them or getting out – it ends with the player being captured by a giant monster with gnarly teeth and then screaming at the last second.
The game ends there, however, if you have purchased one of the bundles that include it along with another Oculus Quest game ‘Vacation simulator’, when you start up Vacation Simulator next to the option to continue playing is an option to continue Baba Yaga. This is where the real ending of the game is and it’s only available to those who have purchased both games together. The player eventually unlocks a meteor crash site which leads them out of the realm and back to where they started – meaning it all happens again, but with some more bonus pieces of dialogue between characters.
Baba Yaga is really well-made for what it is. It’s obviously not high budget, but the graphics are nice and everything runs smoothly with no crashing. The puzzles are difficult without being too frustrating, which adds to the game’s scare factor in a way that doesn’t leave players feeling cheated or like they’re just stuck.
I enjoyed the escalating scare factor as it meant that tension was built up throughout the game. I would try to tell myself it wasn’t scary, but then a spook would jump out and ruin all my concentration. My advice for anyone playing this with a friend is don’t forget you can teleport away from them if they’re standing too close, just press the menu button.
I’m not entirely convinced by the ending, it didn’t feel like much of an ending to me especially after spending £4 to get both games in order to get it. I also couldn’t help but feel that this game would be better suited for Halloween rather than being its own title. Overall I’d give it 3 stars. I hope that’s helpful!
Thanks for the review. It’s good to hear that you think it would be better as a Halloween game rather than having its own release, I agree with you on that point. Hopefully, people will still pick it up regardless of whether they’re getting it with Vacation Simulator or not.