The solo developer of Mother Hub, Seth, reached out to me via email to offer a free game key. He shared the game was similar to Dead Space, which I recently played through. I accepted being a lover of horror games, especially ones like Dead Space.

Mother Hub is simple with limited menu options and controls. Obviously inspired by Dead Space, it also included references to Bioshock and Fallout, which was a pleasant surprise for the Easter egg fanatics.

The difficulty wasn’t bad and it took some strategy and focus without being frustrating like other older games. I, of course, used the strategy and spray and pray while screaming. The horror elements were fitting with jump scares which didn’t become tiring. Some of it was predictable while other times it had some new takes on traditional horror gameplay.

The story is shared via your character, Thea, making commentary as you progressed and finding logs of previous NPCs. I love the voice acting, which was a pleasant surprise for an indie game. I did desire more subtitles when characters talked, but that can be added later.

The weapons felt balanced and enjoyable when fighting enemies. Bosses were a bit rough, with lots of kiting (and screaming) required. But, I managed to kill them without dying.

There’s mystery leading up to the end with a nice clean wrap up to close out the game. Mother Hub has a “choices matter” approach in the whole ordeal, which is a nice surprise. There are 4 separate endings, which Seth allowed you to see without having to do a full replay. The game was approximately 2 hours long and full of fun!

I went into this game with an open mind and fell in love: the story, environment, and gun-play were great and a nice surprise from a solo developer. I had a blast playing and looking forward to the next game!

Habilis

To prepare for Mother Hub, I did purchase Habilis by the same developer. It’s a prequel to Mother Hub with a found footage, hide-and-seek style of gameplay. A simple game with some bugs (I couldn’t reload the flashlight) but the gameplay was only about 45 minutes and straightforward. I’m glad I played it to give some more context to Mother Hub. I would highly recommend both games to those who love old school horror!