Game Review: Granny Horror House (Mobile – Free to Play)

It’s no secret that the moment a free to play game becomes successful, many others try to copy the formula to cash in on that success. Just look at the hilarious level of imitators that followed Flappy Bird. Recently the free to play horror game, Granny saw a surge in popularity resulting in a hell of a lot of imitators. One such unashamed one is Granny Horror House, a contender for one of the worst games on mobile.

It’s not just imitating Granny, its down-right ripping it off although with version 1.6 they have at least changed the character model so it’s not so obvious. Just not on the main menu screen.

This review is for version 1.6.

You awake in a dirty and rundown house and this is the very first screen that greets you (after you’ve got through the ads). What the actual hell? Why does it linger on her breasts for so long and why can you see her nipples!? I guess the house must be really cold.

Once control is given over, your character declares in a dead-pan voice that she has to leave this house. Wander around and find switches to open doors (that are in no way obvious or easy to find). The ‘Granny’ of this game isn’t stalking the halls. No, in this game she is waiting in rooms, appearing out of nowhere as you enter the room and disappearing when you walk out.

She’s a mess, walking back and forth and many times glitching out so she won’t actually attack you. Should she decide to actually go for you, one hit and you’re dead. Game over, start again. That’s it. There is nothing else to the game except ads.

All of that would be enough to give this a super-low score but there is even more wrong with it. The controls are awful. Move using the left stick on the screen, interact using the button on the right and look around by touching and moving your fingers on the screen. It’s slow and unresponsive so moving and looking around at speed just isn’t possible.

The interact button doesn’t indicate when you can actually interact with anything. You’ll be going up to shelves and bookcases pressing the button hoping for another awful voiceover telling you that there is a button. Even then you need to be in the exact right spot to get her to push it.

Almost immediately it becomes a frustrating experience and with little reward for carrying on, as soon as you die once, this is a game that will be deleted and never played again.

The total lack of quality control on the free to play market continues to amaze but the fact that this game has been updated several times already and is still nearly unplayable is shocking.