Dinner With an Owl is a horror game about an owl person who has a deep appreciation for dinner. You’re a traveling businessman named Mr. Webb who has an important meeting with Mr. Brown to discuss some contracts at his mansion. The butler, Declan points you to his office, and you quickly notice something very wrong. Mr. Brown is an owl! What’s going on around here, why didn’t anyone say something about this?
It’s best to act normal for now, so we start working on the contracts. After a hard days work, it’s the owls favorite part of the day. It’s time for dinner… You meet the other guests, April Merrit and her daughter Josie, who also don’t mention the fact he’s an owl. Everyone interrupts you when you try to bring it up, because they’re so terrified of the owl human.
Once dinner is over, April talks to you outside of the dining room. Her daughter had to stay with the owl, why though? She reveals that they’re all trapped there, and they can’t escape. Everyone is a dinner hostage. Mr. Brown doesn’t seem violent, but nobody can leave because of a powerful spell he put on the house. April refuses to leave without her daughter too, who’s being watched closely by the owl.
Declan tells you the same thing as April. We aren’t sure if he can be trusted yet, but we ask him for a weapon anyway since it’s our only chance. He tells you to meet him there the next day.
The next day he’ll hand you knife. You kill the owl and meet everyone outside, it’s time to leave. However, the horrific spell the owl has on you stops you before you can do anything. He possesses your body and everyone is still trapped. You’ve become the new owl.
Dinner With an Owl – Ending the Loop
You re-enter the house as the businessman, but with a new name. Since the owl took your past body, he also takes your past name. Everyone acts like nothing happened. Now you see, you’re trapped in a endless loop. You have to figure out how to break it or you’ll be trapped forever!
Eventually, one of the guests will hint that only someone who recently entered the house can kill him to break the cycle. His spell fully takes effect after a few hours. So if you stay overnight, it’ll be too late.
He really loves to declare “It’s dinner” in a charismatic tone, dinner is what he really cares about most. There’s also a neat random element to the game where Declan picks a different meal for dinner every day.
Although the other trapped guests are afraid of him, and said he has been aggressive in the past, he doesn’t seem like he would do anything violent. When April says he’s been aggressive in the past, maybe she was talking about you, who kills the owl person ‘host’ in the endless loop. We never really see the owl act violent, though he may have done something when they’ve tried to escape before.
Highly Recommended!
Dinner With an Owl is a surreal point and click adventure with a unique story and an excellent sound track. I really liked the calm music that played while standing around in the hall and talking to the other guests. Also at one point the owl stops you in the middle of the hallway and breaks out in song. It was hilarious, but still really good singing.
The voice acting is smooth and professional, it’s some of the best there’s ever been in a free indie game. I also loved the graphics style they used. It sort of reminds me of Neverending Nightmares, but with color. It adds a lot of creativity and liveliness to the game.
Developed by BoringSuburbanDad for the Adventure Jam 2017 on Gamejolt. It takes around 30 minutes to play, and I’d highly recommend trying it out!
