MADLANDS: Caged Cannibals (HHN 35)

[StaticShock]

I think a zoo house is a really interesting concept that I haven't seen before, and that alone would rank this reasonably high on my anticipated list. Very similar to the solid concepts for a twisted Carnival Midway or an evil "Night of the Museum" house, I think the location gives a lot of liberty to make really fun, novel, interesting setpieces.

Unfortunately, I've been burned before. IMO Carnival Graveyard was mediocre at best, and Museum was actively bad. Mostly because they seemed to work around the theme, rather than with it. CG had far more Junkyard than it had Carnival, and Museum was a conceptual and visual mess all around. It seemed to want to avoid most of the obvious Museum Gallery motifs in favor of strange and contradicting niche concepts.

There seems to be a lot of passion from the creatives behind this one, which is nice to see - but I worry that this house will simply repeat history over again. Doing an "abandoned zoo" house, without any animals is ... a choice. I hope they've got interesting ideas to back it up.

I’m shocked you didn’t like Carnival Graveyard. It wasn’t received too poorly when it debuted in HHN 28, unlike Museum. That house was total garbage, along with Hellblock: Horror.

 

[DOOMBOT]

I’m shocked you didn’t like Carnival Graveyard. It wasn’t received too poorly when it debuted in HHN 28, unlike Museum. That house was total garbage, along with Hellblock: Horror.

Just wasn't for me. In a year I loved as much as 28, it was unfortunately middling in energy on my personal runs and didn't deliver on the premise in the ways I was looking for. The visual palette specifically didn't click with me at all either.

As it's own thing and with some different runs / cast energy levels, I could see people enjoying it fine though.

I thought Hellblock was only okay. Definitely rough, as it was always going to be, but far from the worst I've ever seen. I would love to see a proper redo of the "SCP Containment Breach" house concept, cause I actually think it's a very, very good one.

 

[MAC]

I'm starting to dig into all that's being offered fully at HHN35 (instead of being on the periphery and talking about ticket drama and guest flows).

This is one of those houses that I think leans into what the creative team over the years does really well. These 'in your face', super detailed, gore-heavy houses that removes the restraints and lets them to go the edge of their creativity. I think this is one of those houses that will be in everyone's top three houses when it's all said and done. I'm interested to see the first bits of key art and graphics as they are released to see if they've captured the right level of aesthetics.

 

[TheCodeMan95]

There seems to be a lot of passion from the creatives behind this one, which is nice to see - but I worry that this house will simply repeat history over again. Doing an "abandoned zoo" house, without any animals is ... a choice. I hope they've got interesting ideas to back it up.

Yeah, I think this is the biggest concern for me. I love the idea of a house taking place in a zoo, wandering through different themed areas (aquarium, reptile room, etc etc) - but with no animals.. it might be weird