The Door Factory
Developer: David Gallardo
Publisher: Head Arrow
Platforms: PC
Review Key Provided: No
Release Date: Out now
While I am certainly exhausted by the sheer volume of anomaly-spotting horrors these days, I’m still open to any games with a fresh idea, a twist on a classic, or a combination of appealing, novel themes. When announced, The Door Factory appeared to tick a few of these boxes, most notably the novel theme—I never imagined I’d see the Pixar film Monsters Inc as a horror game inspiration.
As its name suggests, The Door Factory’s also heavily inspired by International Cat Studios’ The Cabin Factory. Your well-lit workflow panel houses a progress bar with eight lights and two large buttons. Beyond this is a rail that brings random doors across and down for you to inspect. Open them, and they reveal the same room each time: a modern-looking bedroom with hexagonal shelves, a seating area, and a long but narrow closet.
Your job is to examine each iteration of this room, checking for abnormal signs, from flickering lights to demonic apparitions. Once you’re satisfied, nip back out and hit the red button for reject or the green one to send the door off to production. The game never makes it clear for whom you are doing this, or why, giving it a mysterious tint.
The Door Factory’s limited play area is well constructed, contrasting the bright factory floor with the exceedingly gloomy bedroom interior. Fortunately, an early patch added a brightness setting, but given the unsubtle nature of its anomalies, the extra visibility doesn’t help much. Lights flicker, ghosts appear, and, in one memorable moment, the player is transported to a Backrooms world, complete with a grainy VHS overlay. None of these are challenging to spot, and there’s little threat, too, sapping The Door Factory of the unique tension of The Cabin Factory. There’s no backstory, either: you’re just processing these doors, correctly identifying eight in a row, before… you carry on, until you’ve spotted all of the anomalies.
Without context, none of The Door Factory’s anomalies are particularly scary. In fact, the whole process soon becomes boring, especially as you don’t need to examine the room—most of the anomalies are in the closet, and appear as soon as you enter. Worse, a series of bugs infected my gameplay, from annoying repeating music to getting trapped in the closet and the Backrooms level. All required restarts, and combined with the unimaginative anomalies, it’s hard to recommend The Door Factory, especially considering its derivative roots.
CONCLUSION
It could have been a great anomaly-spotter with a little more depth, inventiveness and lore. Sadly, The Door Factory fails to build on its unoriginal concept, save for a certain moodiness at its outset. A disappointment.
