Goosebumps HorrorTown Review for Android

Growing up in the 90s and early 2000s, R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps was the thing everyone was reading and watching. Slappy the Dummy and all the other monsters filled our nightmares. The 2015 film starring Jack Black reminded us of our love for these characters and now the PIXOWL INC. Goosebumps HorrorTown Monster City Builder allows us to be apart of Stine’s world.

Like any city builder, Goosebumps HorrorTown allows you to place buildings, collect resources, and level up. What makes this game awesome is that you get to terrorize your townspeople. Unleash R. L. Stine’s monsters and collect the scare faces to earn cash. By having your townspeople do tasks you earn resources without using your gold and cash. Use resources to craft files and investigation tools at Lucy and Dustin’s tree house or make delicious cockroach dishes at the dinner. When you run out of room in your inventory you can upgrade or sell some of your resources to the pawn shop to get gold. As you level up, your city expands and you gain access to more monsters and townspeople and the cycle continues.

One of the downsides of this game is there are in-game purchases. I don’t think it would be easy to progress in this game if you didn’t invest money into it. I was lucky enough to receive an HC pack worth $50 and I have actually considered buying more cash on top of what the developers so kindly gave me access to. Before realizing how much this game depends on in-game purchases I suggested it to my dad and that’s when I realized how much an advantage my package was. I don’t remember exactly how much gold and cash I started out with but going off of how much I have now I think I was given 100,000 gold and maybe 20 cash. Not having a package you start out with 1,000 gold and 10 cash. I have spent over half my gold in just a week. So you can imagine how much grinding you would do and how little actual progression you would achieve.

Even after the package and reaching level 10, I still haven’t been able to place Slappy’s house which requires 100 cash. After the first couple levels placing Slappy’s house becomes an objective. Without Slappy’s house, you can’t start collecting sorrow chokers, which are flasks. You need sorrow chokers to upgrade your inventory a second time, sell at the pawnshop, and complete the pawnshop owner’s objective. Without the sorrow chokers, sections of your game become stagnant. With that said, the game gives you four or five days after downloading the game to buy a Slappy package. It’s $4.99 and includes Slappy’s house and a whole bunch of stuff. If you’re going to invest money into this game I suggest taking advantage of that offer. To buy 130 cash is $4.99 and Slappy’s house alone is 100 cash so it’s a good deal. You will get more offers throughout playing the game and they are good deals but you will be spending $5+ on them.

The sound, music, and art styles are really nostalgic and provoke the classic Goosebumps aesthetic really well. The layout of the game is great and really user-friendly. Some little things you learn through trial and error and messing around with it. But overall the set up is really easy to understand.

Overall I think this is a really fun and nostalgic game. The only downside is the fact that it is very much pay to play. If you don’t want to invest money and you’re not very patient then this game may not be for you.

7/10

Check Out the Goosebumps HorrorTown Launch Trailer:

You can download Goosebumps HorrorTown on the App Store and Google Play.

Harleigh McGowan

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I'm a postgraduate Information and Library Studies student at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. I'm originally from Texas and have a BFA in Creative Writing from SFASU. I grew up playing video games and now enjoy watching other people play as well. I love anything with a good story!

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