Mina the Hollower has jump scares that would make Resident Evil blush

Mina the Hollower is a gothic but largely whimsical adventure — not a horror game by any stretch. But Yacht Club Games buried one genuinely terrifying secret inside it: a clown named Klumpy who will stalk you for the entire playthrough if you make the mistake of talking to him.

Klumpy hangs out northeast of the fountain in Ossex, the central town on Tenebrous Isle. He looks like any throwaway NPC, but if you agree to hear his jokes, you're signing a deal with the devil. From that point on, Klumpy launches out of bushes, the ground, and even enemy corpses at carefully spaced intervals — always with a new one-liner about murder or executions. Polygon's Giovanni Colantonio notes that Yacht Club Games spaces the appearances out just far enough that you'll forget about him before he strikes again, and that the jump scares are Resident Evil-quality — enough to make Resident Evil Requiem look like a walk in the park by comparison.

Klumpy is also a neat showcase for what makes Mina the Hollower's NPC writing stand out. Every character in Ossex has personality, even the ones with a single line — chatting with residents reveals the town's internal politics, the state of its newspaper, and life in the western slum. Yacht Club Games packed a lot of world-building into small conversations.

So talk to everyone. Just know what you're getting into with the clown.