The Pineview Drive series is a series of low-budget indie horror games by VIS-Games, available for PC on Steam as well as on PlayStation 4 through the online store's indie game section. The games center around a haunted abandoned mansion at the end of Pineview Drive. Instead of combat or running away from monsters, the games focus on jump scares and simple scripted sequences.
Pineview Drive, released in 2014, follows a nameless protagonist who returns to the abandoned mansion at Pineview Drive 20 years after the disappearance of his wife Linda, in hopes of finding answers to what happened to her. To do so, he will need to survive 30 days inside the mansion. The game is based around a unique fear system in which startled behavior during jump scares (as detected by things like mouse movement) results in your character losing health.
Passing Pineview Forest is a short, free game released later in 2014 as a tie-in to Pineview Drive. The player's goal is to make it through Pineview Forest while being stalked by a malevolent unseen presence.
The Secret of Pineview Forest, released in 2016, is another short, free game intended as a prequel to Pineview Drive - Rising Storm (which was cancelled and later replaced by Pineview Drive - Homeless). Similar to Passing Pineview Forest, the unnamed player is traveling through Pineview Forest while creepy occurrences are going on around them. The game is somewhat more complex than Passing Pineview Forest, as it features a larger less linear map and incorporates basic inventory and key items to progress through areas.
Pineview Drive - Homeless, released in 2019, serves as a sequel to Pineview Drive. The game follows a iterant Army veteran named Miles Roberts who seeks shelter from a thunderstorm inside the abandoned mansion, only to find himself trapped inside and forced to survive for 10 hours until sunrise before he can escape. The game uses the same fear system as the original Pineview Drive game, and has more of a focus on inventory puzzles rather than simple key hunting.
These games provides examples of:
- Cat Scare: A cat will appear inside the house after several days, and will periodically jump scare you as you travel through the house from that point on.
- Creepy Doll:
- A child-sized clown doll can be found in one corridor of the mansion; it will begin jump scaring you in the latter parts of the game.
- The Gainax Ending of the first game seems to imply that a creepy child's doll is the source of whatever's going on with the house.
- Dead All Along: According to
Word of God, the protagonist of Pineview Drive is actually a ghost exploring a afterlife version of the mansion, while his wife Linda actually survived and escaped 20 years ago while he was the one who died to the curse of the house. This explains why there's fresh plants and fresh fruit laying around a house that's been abandoned for 20 years; it's not the real house but rather a ghost version of it. The ending of The Secret of Pineview Forest as well as Pineview Drive - Homeless shows that the real version of the house is considerably more derelict, as you'd expect for a house that's been abandoned for a couple decades. - Don't Look At Me: The hostile presence in Passing Pineview Forest will grab and kill you if you move, run away, or try to turn around and look at it whenever it approaches near you from behind or the sides (as revealed by things like footsteps or rustling bushes).
- Gainax Ending: The ending to the original game was incredibly obscure and didn't really explain anything. The developers had to clarify their intention of what the plot was supposed to be in a facebook post after the game was released.
- Guide Dang It!: Much of the game has progress tied to triggering supernatural events in a specific room, depositing a key you'll need to progress to a new area of the house. There's often no indication that you're supposed to look in the specific room involved, so each new day often has you wandering aimlessly throughout the house, systematically going through each room you've already unlocked until you find the jump scare you're supposed to trigger to proceed. To make matters worse, many events won't trigger until after nightfall, so you can miss them completely if you search the right room but do so too early. The devs did add a hint system in which the protagonist gives a short clue as to what he's supposed to be doing if you wander around for too long with no progress.
- Haunted House: The core of the games' premise. Pineview Drive - Homeless seems to imply the house is haunted because the wealthy original owners, the Harmsworths, would kidnap and kill children in a secret basement lair, and now the house tries to entrap the souls of anyone who stays there.
- Jump Scare: The two main games are heavily focused around these; you lose health if you show fear (i.e. your mouse hand trembles or jerks) during these jump scares.
- Mundanger: After the incorporeal and supernatural threats of the first two games, The Secret of Pineview Forest introduces a hostile man with a gun as a threat early on.
- Non-Standard Game Over: You can trigger one by running away from the house before you finish the full 30 days.
- Nothing Is Scarier: The Secret of Pineview Forest employs this heavily, in contrast to Passing Pineview Forest where you were actively hounded by a malevolent presence. In fact much of the tension in the game relies on you having played Passing Pineview Drive and believing that you're being stalked by a supernatural force (you're not, at least not overtly). It seems the only way to actually die is to engage in a Violation of Common Sense and run up to the hostile creepy man with the gun.
- Resources Management Gameplay: There are a limited number of matchbooks and flashlight batteries found throughout the house; you'll need to use them judiciously because the mansion is incredibly dark after nightfall. You also only regain a portion of your health at the end of each day, so losing a large amount in one day can make the next day more difficult. Pineview Drive - Homeless is similar, except the game also adds a limited number of health jars found throughout the house that also need to be managed, since you don't restore health after each hour.
- Scary Scarecrows: A scarecrow can be found in the back yard of the house; it starts migrating around the property later in the game, and towards the end will actively pursue you when you're not looking. It also appears as the main opponent of a Slenderman-inspired bonus game mode made available after you finish the main game.
- Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: In Pineview Drive, what appears to be the ghost of your wife Linda will haunt you throughout the month in a steadily escalating series of encounters. She even has the classic long black hair, glowing white dress look down pat.
- Surreal Horror: After spending the whole game experiencing escalating supernatural phenomena inside the mansion, the finale of Pineview Drive takes a bizarre turn and has you making your way through a maze-like underground concrete bunker that culminates in your trying to activate a bizarre industrial-punk machine of unspecific purpose.
- Unseen Evil: The hostile presence in Passing Pineview Forest is never seen, only heard, except as a pair of pale hands that grab you from behind if you get killed.
