Forgotten Hill Disillusion

About Forgotten Hill Disillusion

Forgotten Hill Disillusion is a horror puzzle game by FM Studio, released on Steam for Windows and Mac in November 2019. The store calls it the fourth chapter of the Forgotten Hill main story. It's also on itch.io, the App Store and Google Play. Ratalaika Games brought it to PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch on December 17, 2021.

Welcome to the Forgotten Hill Museum, where the past, the present, nature, art and the unknown are on show, and the first advice is never to believe your eyes. You help Mr. Larson in his search for the truth across more than 50 locations in four sections: The Library, Flora and Fauna, Mysteries of the Abyss and Sculptural Art. You click from view to view in first person, read books and notes, pick up and combine items and solve more than 60 puzzles, from clockwork and colour codes to fossil and specimen cases.

A guard lets you into the library but keeps the other doors shut. Each wing needs its own ticket, so you work through one section's puzzles to earn a coin for the ticket machine, then move on. Early on you get a camera. Look through it and every room shows a darker, hellish double, and clues to the puzzles hide in that version too.

The horror is in the exhibits and the people who keep them. The screenshots show a cellar of chains and blood with a statue whose tongue hangs from its mouth, a foetus floating in a jar among pinned insects, skeletons, jellyfish tanks, and two glowing eyes under a library rug, while hunched, pale residents and stern guards look on. The store notes a horror atmosphere with some moderate fantasy violence and blood.

There is a one-click hint system and text in nine languages. Players praise the number and difficulty of the puzzles and the spooky drawn art; some found it hard to know which room to try next. TheXboxHub gave the Xbox version 3 out of 5. Its reviewer liked how many puzzles there are and the camera's second layer, but found some solutions plain illogical and the cursor slow, and said it never gets truly scary. The story also doesn't recap earlier chapters, so newcomers piece it together from clippings and journals. It suits players who like Rusty Lake and Cube Escape and want a longer, denser puzzle game in the same grim style.

How to play Forgotten Hill Disillusion

1. Buy it on Steam or itch.io for Windows or Mac, on the App Store or Google Play, or on PlayStation, Xbox or Switch.
2. Click around each room in first person to look closer and move between the museum's sections.
3. Read the books and notes you find; many hold the clues to codes and mechanisms.
4. Pick up items, combine them in your inventory and use them to solve the puzzles and open new rooms.
5. Once you have the camera, look through it in each room to see its darker side and the clues hidden there.
6. Use the hint button if you are stuck, and keep going until you find the truth and the way out.

Tips

• When you are stuck, go back through rooms you have opened; players say knowing where to go next is the hardest part.
• Keep notes of symbols and colours, which often belong to a puzzle in another room.
• Check every room again through the camera. Its hidden version often holds the clue you're missing.
• The hint system is one click away, so do not get stuck for long if you just want the story.
• Official walkthroughs for the series are on forgotten-hill.com.

Questions