Nun Massacre

About Nun Massacre

Nun Massacre, also known as Night of the Nun, is a game by Puppet Combo, the studio behind Murder House and other low-poly slasher games. It first came out on PC in 2018 through itch.io and Patreon, then on iPhone and iPad in October 2021, on PlayStation 4 and 5 and Nintendo Switch in March 2022, and on Xbox in June 2022. A free Definitive Edition update the same year added three new scenarios and killers, and the App Store version includes it.

A letter arrives under strange circumstances: your daughter has fallen ill at her boarding school. As you drive to pick her up, a storm blows in and the road is blocked, so you go on through the woods on foot. Inside the dark Catholic school, a nun with a knife is waiting.

The game is a night of hide and seek. You creep through halls, cellars and classrooms with a small light, pick up keys and items, and solve puzzles in the manner of old Silent Hill and Resident Evil games, such as finding a gear to set a clock. The nun patrols the halls, may wait in the shadows for you and follows you into vents. You can crawl under a bed to hide, but not if she sees you go there. Items help a little: a radar picks up movement in the dark, rocks distract her, and a pistol is there for emergencies, though its ammo may not turn up. Traps kill you at once, and a death sends you back to the start.

HowLongToBeat puts the main story at about two and a half hours; Destructoid's review notes that a run takes less than half an hour once you know the way. You can pick a VHS, black and white or PSX look, and there are multiple endings and secrets to find. The console versions add difficulty options and let you switch off the CRT filter, the VHS tracking and the jump scares. The Definitive Edition adds a clown's psycho circus, a driller killer in the factories, a trip into the Backrooms and a randomized mode for replays.

It is crude and loud in the Puppet Combo way, which is the point, and Destructoid calls it a rather unfriendly game: some puzzles are obtuse. It suits players who like short, nasty slasher horror and PS1-style looks. The console versions can be played in English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish; the App Store version lists English only.

How to play Nun Massacre

1. Explore the school in first person, with your light and the inventory to hand.
2. Crouch and move slowly to stay unseen; run only when the nun has spotted you.
3. Crawl under a bed to hide, but only when the nun cannot see you do it.
4. Pick up keys and items and solve the puzzles that open the way to the school's secrets.
5. Watch for the nun's traps: they kill at once and a death restarts the night.
6. Try the new scenarios and the randomized mode in the Definitive Edition once you have escaped.

Tips

• Learn the layout of each area before you need to flee.
• Crouch whenever you are unsure what is around the next corner; the nun may be waiting in the shadows.
• Throw rocks to draw the nun away, and use the radar to spot movement in the dark.
• Save the pistol for emergencies, as ammo may not turn up.
• Read item names closely: Destructoid points out a puzzle that asks for a wrench when the item you need is a hex key.
• On console, lower the difficulty or switch off the jump scares and filters if you want a gentler run.
• Replay for the other endings and secrets.

Questions