![Horripilant [IMPRESSIONS] – Clicking in the Dark](https://i0.wp.com/www.useapotion.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/horripilant-review.jpg?resize=1077%2C640&ssl=1)
You’re a battered old knight who has woken up in a bad way, dumped in a dingy, forgotten dungeon, and immediately, strange whispers start emanating from the walls. They refer to you affectionately as ‘my child’ and actively encourage you to explore the pitch-black depths below, and you listen, because… you know… listening to creepy disembodied voices in a horrifying underworld is always a brilliant idea. Just get ready to do some clicking too.
Check out some screenshots down below:
Despite the unsettling psychological horror vibes that you might not conventionally associate with the genre, Horripilant is actually an incremental (or clicker) game. Your grand adventure begins by simply hitting a stumpy little branch to gather some wood, before eventually moving on to hoarding other materials. You then spend these hard-earned resources on upgrades – like getting more materials per click or crafting better equipment to improve your survival odds when you actually venture into the dungeon.
The dungeon crawling itself is fairly straightforward. Players vanquish bizarre enemies and move between floors, with your equipped gear determining the damage you deal out and take – all of the action plays out automatically, with the player just having to press a button to perform the occasional bonus attack. A handy indicator on the side of the screen shows how far you’ve progressed through a specific floor, and if you survive and beat a boss, you get a choice: unlock a stat-boosting boon to push on to the next floor, or play it safe and return to camp. Returning is usually the smart play, as you earn ‘meat’ during runs, and if you die? You lose a percentage of it, which always stings – especially since it’s used to get some additional upgrades or items back at camp.
Honestly, the clicking loop becomes surprisingly addictive and satisfying… for a while, anyway. While there is some genuine depth to the gameplay mechanics that isn’t always found in the genre, the reality is that the vast majority of your time is spent mindlessly clicking. After about an hour, I found myself putting on my favourite podcast in the background, and you know what? It felt like a perfect combination, especially when playing on the Steam Deck whilst kicking back and relaxing in bed.
What really sets Horripilant apart from other idlers is its eerie sense of mystery. You constantly encounter strange creatures and environmental oddities, and it’s rarely clear what they actually do. For example, I found a weird hole in a wall housing a strange, grinning presence, and I had no idea what it wanted, but after chucking a crow’s beak into it, it offered me the opportunity to ‘rebirth’. It immediately got me intrigued to see what other weird mysteries I hadn’t uncovered yet, with a few secrets teased at early on but not quite explored.
Check out some screenshots down below:
Speaking of rebirthing, it’s a massively important part of the experience. You lose your current progress but unlock permanent stat boosts that make subsequent runs much easier, and trust me, you need any advantage you can get. The game is challenging, but not in a conventional, skill-focused way – it’s a game of patience, preparation, and knowing when to retreat. Success comes from the method you apply to the madness: knowing exactly when to loop a floor, when to simply grind materials, or when to just run away.
Thankfully, you can make life easier for yourself – you can hire creepy little creatures to do the resource gathering for you, ensuring you’re constantly gaining materials even when you’re busy doing a dungeon run. You also earn materials when you’re away from the game entirely, and whilst your resource cap ensures you can’t just exploit it by not playing for a week, it’s a handy way to keep things ticking over and perfectly complements the main gameplay loop.
In all, Horripilant is an odd and horrific experience where the sheer weirdness keeps you invested. I’ve played clicker games before, but something about this one kept me hanging around. And sure, played completely on its own, the repetitiveness might start to grate after an hour or two, but as a ‘podcast game’, it is genuinely perfect. Will I stick around long-term once all of its dark mysteries have been revealed? Maybe not. But as it stands, I’m intrigued enough to keep clicking in the dark for a little bit longer to see what Horripilant has left to uncover.
Developer: Alexandre Declos, Pas Game Studio
Publisher: Black Lantern Collective
Platform(s): PC (Played)
Website: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3525970/Horripilant/
What are our ‘Impressions’ features?
As a small part-time team with busy lives, we can’t always play every title to completion for a full review. Instead, our ‘Impressions’ features serve as a snapshot of our early experience with the full release of a game. We dive in for roughly 1 to 2 hours to get a feel for the mechanics, the presentation, the atmosphere, and the vibe of the game, all whilst offering our initial thoughts to answer the question: has it hooked us enough to want to keep playing?
