Paper Cut Manion is a spooky roguelite set in a cardboard mansion, clearly identifiable by its unique art style. You, NPCs, enemies, and all your furniture are made from lovingly designed paper models. The goal of the game is to find out how and why you got to this spooky old house in a handcrafted world.
Explore the house to find clues. These clues are collated against an evidence board that can be viewed between runs. The map is randomly regenerated each run. The goal each time is to find the talking door and convince it to grant access to the gatekeeper who opens the hatch to the next level.
There are three worlds you can spawn in, each with different characteristics and enemies. You can jump between worlds through portals. In the reptilian world there are many enemies to shoot with rifles. The limbic system is freezing cold and needs a lamp to light while searching for memories. In the Neocortex, you can rummage through furniture to find puzzle clues that open doors to new realms.
Each time you run it, completing a task in the spawned world will open a speaking door. The Gatekeeper will only open the hatch if you complete a task in the alternate world.
You will meet NPCs who will ask you to complete side quests, such as finding and destroying various items. These reward you with medals that boost one of four stats you choose based on what works best for your run. , but wits are useful for unlocking chests.
If you complete a quest once, the NPC will remember you on the next run so you can get a boost without repeating yourself. This helps prevent too much repetition of the paper cut mansion, a common roguelite pitfall. However, there are some additions (such as unchanging non-skippable dialogue) that allow for more variation to keep the game fresh.
There are collectibles scattered around to keep between runs, such as cards that offer boons. Equip up to 3 cards before starting a new attempt at the mansion and swap them out whenever you find a better card.
The deeper you go into the mansion, the more dangerous, but the more powerful, and the closer you get to discovering what’s really going on. You start out in a typical spooky sprawling house, but then explore restaurants, casinos, speakeasies and all sorts of exciting origami facilities.
The world is beautifully made. The art style fits well with the eerie atmosphere. The effort put into the furniture design is incredible, with perfectly rendered details like the corrugated insides of thicker cards. It’s complemented by a great soundtrack consisting of both original songs that tell the characters’ journeys in between.
It’s clear that a lot of thought went into giving Paper Cut Mansion a sense of character. There’s a sense of humor both in the NPC’s dialogue and in the way the floating paper hand beckons when you sit idle for long periods of time, acting as your cursor.
There are some elements that could be smoothed out a little more. Point-and-click sections are not well suited for switch controls. Especially when examining furniture, the way the camera moves can be easier. None of these are game-breaking enough, but they’re enough to make you feel a little frustrated if you’re playing for too long at a time.
