HOLFACE

HOLFACE sends Isaac to visit his dying grandfather's farm, where a parasitic ancient evil has dwelled in the family bloodline for generations and now wants a new host. Released on 9 April 2026 for $4.99 on Windows by solo developer Jonny's Games — best known for the earlier horror hit Fear the Moon — it tasks players with donning a series of strange, power-imbued masks to progress through a short, cutscene-dense campaign toward one of two distinct endings. This review's research found a "Positive" review sample (32 of 37 total, 86.5%) built substantially on trust in the developer's earlier work, tempered by a specific, recurring complaint about how much story the game tries to pack into a very short runtime.

A trusted developer's follow-up, judged against a beloved predecessor

The clearest throughline in this review's research was how many reviewers approached HOLFACE as established fans of Jonny's Games rather than as first-time players. One wrote simply, "wud rec, another Jonny Classic," while another explained directly: "I bought Holface because I really enjoyed Fear the Moon, that's why I wanted to support the dev and try their new game." That familiarity shaped a lot of the reception — reviewers frequently measured HOLFACE against Fear the Moon specifically, sometimes favorably and sometimes not, treating it less as a standalone unknown and more as the latest entry in a trusted small studio's catalog.

A mask mechanic reviewers compared to Majora's Mask

The specific gameplay hook that drew the most consistent praise was the mask-swapping system itself. One reviewer called it "an underrated gem" specifically because of "very cool things with the mask gameplay that reminds me of Majora's Mask," while another described the mechanic as offering "diverse gameplay with a maze and a shooting section" layered around it. Combined with horror-media references reviewers noted throughout — the Noroi mask, Junji Ito's wall-hole imagery, and comparisons to The Blair Witch and The Wicker Man — this review's research found a consistent sense that the mask system gives HOLFACE its own distinct identity even within a crowded field of short indie horror games.

A specific complaint: too much cryptic lore for too little time

Set against that praise, this review's research found a clear, specific critique from reviewers who otherwise wanted to like the game. One longtime fan, careful to note they wished Steam had a neutral rating option, wrote that "the overall story is trying to be too cryptic and trying to be way too much for a game this short," contrasting it directly with Fear the Moon's more gradual buildup: "here it's just one annoying wannabe scary cutscene after another that just destroys the immersion." A separate, harsher review called the game "rushed to deadline and unfinished," arguing that "too much vagueness in a storyline makes it uninteresting." This wasn't a majority complaint, but it recurred specifically enough among reviewers with prior context on the developer's work to be worth reporting as a genuine, if minority, reaction.

Instakill mazes drew a pointed complaint — and the achievement data backs it up

The most specific gameplay complaint in this review's research targeted a cluster of maze sections with instant-death monster chases. One reviewer requested a refund directly because of it, writing: "Three separate maze monster sections in a row........... No thanks. ill take that refund... instakill and mazes though man lmao. Diabolical." Global achievement data corroborates that this wasn't an isolated frustration: the achievement tied to dying in a maze sits at 50.6% completion, meaning roughly half of all players who've engaged with the game's stats have died to one of these sections at least once — a concrete number behind what could otherwise read as one reviewer's outlier complaint.

Two endings, one clearly more substantial than the other

HOLFACE's two endings drew consistently specific, if mixed, commentary. One reviewer summarized the split well: one ending "was bombastic and blew my socks off," while "the other one felt very short, underdelivered and kinda boring." Achievement data reflects the imbalance in how players actually experience this: the main ending sits at 78.2% completion, while the secret alternate ending sits at just 29.5%, suggesting most players either don't find or don't prioritize discovering it — consistent with reviewer complaints that the path toward the secret ending isn't clearly signposted, and that finding it first can actually disrupt the main story sequence entirely.

A same-day fix for a launch bug affecting ending progression

That last issue was real enough to require a patch. This review's research found the developer acknowledging, directly in a reply to an early review, a bug where "getting second ending first prevented getting the ending 1 without a game restart," and shipping version 1.0.3 the same day to fix it alongside UI and menu input issues. For a solo developer working on a $4.99 release, that turnaround speaks to an attentive, hands-on relationship with the small community actually playing the game at launch.

HOLFACE succeeds most clearly as a tightly atmospheric, hour-long folk horror experience for players who already trust Jonny's Games' particular brand of unsettling, mask-driven storytelling, even if its story sometimes outpaces its own runtime and its maze sections won't land for everyone. Fans of the developer's earlier work found plenty to like here, and this review's research suggests newcomers drawn to its Majora's-Mask-meets-folk-horror premise should go in expecting density and cryptic lore over a smooth, fully explained narrative arc. At $4.99, it asks for a modest commitment in both time and money, and most of the reviewers surveyed in this review's research judged it a fair trade even when they had specific complaints about its pacing or its harsher instant-death sequences.