One part puzzle game and one part trial-and-error, Otti the Housekeeper is essentially the same concept as Neighbours Back From Hell. The goal is to protect thieves from stealing the wealth in your house by placing traps in specific spots and then activating them from a 2D perspective.
What is the best way to Home Alone your house from burglars? Why using ridiculous traps of course! For example, to make intruders run scared and turn around, place a spider on the ceiling or sound can be used to make distractions. This might then make thieves enter a different door which leads down a path of the least amount of treasure. In a way, gameplay is sort of like setting up one of those Rube Goldberg machines. Each stage ranks the player from one to three stars. There is usually only one way to earn a three star ranking and it requires tedious trial-and-error.
There is a learning curve as the opening tutorial doesn’t really explain the full details of how the game actually works. After a couple stages, gameplay and the scoring systems starts to make sense. Once the threat has been neutralized, the player needs to click on the remaining gold stashes in the house to try and earn that three star rank. Only through some experimentation do you realize there is a difference between earning three stars with enough cash versus playing flawlessly. Often times there is no way to prevent a thief from stealing at least one pile of your hard earned gold but it still is enough to earn the best rank.
Otti The Housekeeper is a low cost, budget digital download but even with this in mind I still found the gameplay to be a little tedious for my tastes. At the same time, I can understand how the experimental gameplay might please some casual puzzle players looking to recreate a digital Kevin McCallister experience.
Also Try: Tecmo’s Deception series
Better Than: having thieves invade your treasure while you sleep in your own bed
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By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com
Twitter: @ZackGaz