The Haunted Help Desk

This is a Twine game with a neat little map in the corner showing all the rooms in a kind of maze. You navigate around with a score described as 'Survival Chance' which goes up or down depending on what you do.

It's a lot like gamebooks in gameplay style, except without randomized combat. You have different encounters with people and need to pick up various keys and tokens and other items in one area to progress in another.

Story-wise, you have to go to the help desk, but you get trapped, because it's haunted. All your coworkers are skeletons or werewolves or other wild things, and the humor is pretty goofy.

The game could use a little more polish; there were a few typos here and there, and I never really connected emotionally. But overall it was a pretty strong game and amusing while I played it. The author did add several features that improve gameplay, like the map and back button.

The Haunted Help Desk has the scariest real-world premise yet: dealing with your company’s IT department. (I kid, I kid!) The conceit is that the IT department is haunted, but you really, really, REALLY need to get your tablet to connect to the wifi, so you’re willing to brave the horrible IT maze to find someone who can help you. (Which, minus the haunting, sounds like every IT experience I’ve ever had).

The game squeezes as much out of the concept as inhumanly possible, with the ghoulies and ghosties of the maze all still happy to help you find the one guy who can fix your tablet. Of course, Haunted IT is a lot more dangerous than regular IT, so there’s pitfalls waiting for you at every corner. Luckily, the author has mercifully enabled the back button here, changing your numerous deaths from something frustrating to a comedy punchline.

Overall, this game feels like playing through a Halloween SNL sketch, and I mean that in the best way. Great job!