It has potential – House of the Lost Review

As a Binding of Isaac player, I was very excited to learn that something similar was available on iOS, since the developers of that game have no intention of porting it. I really hope that this app is successful, but in my opinion there are some serious problems with the controls. Unlike with BoI, you can only shoot in the direction you are currently facing. In order to face in a given direction, you have to move at least a little in that direction. So, to aim at a monster, you have to move towards it at least a little bit, which is just the opposite of what you want to do. Meanwhile, the monster is also moving towards you, closing the distance very quickly, so you really have to be on the other side of a room for this to be safe. To make matters worse, some of the monsters shoot at you, so you have to dodge, which means you will then have to gain some distance and go through this arduous aiming process again. And unlike your character, the monsters can turn and shoot on a dime. Because of this, I found most of my time was spent dodging rather than shooting, and I was still getting hit a lot anyways. It was a lot better when I used my joystick, but still pretty awful. Now, I'm sure this would become easier as I practice more, but this is just not a fun mechanic. I can only assume the developers felt the need to distinguish this game a bit more from BoI, but they shouldn't have mucked with the controls. It needs to be a dual-stick shooter! I will probably buy the full version and recommend it if this gets changed, but I haven't even seen all the content in the free version due to the aforementioned difficulties. Positives: the art style is good. I also like that the monsters do friendly fire (including status-effect attacks). I was a little unclear about the difference between certain weapons, like the wooden sword and wooden bat, but that's ok. Seems to be a good variety of weapons, at least on the first floor that I have seen.
Review by benissimus on House of the Lost.