Scarlet Hollow's fifth chapter is full of terrifying revelations, but I'm too busy chasing a hot mom to notice

I am hot, I am gay, I am mystic, and I'm new in town. But Scarlet Hollow hasn't been the most welcoming to its prodigal daughter. It's kind of my fault, to be honest with you; my two chosen traits - Hot and Mystic – mean my character's innate sex appeal is dampened by the fact that she keeps making ominous psychic predictions. Not everyone is up for being a beautiful yet unsettling co-heiress to a crumbling coal mining town in the Appalachian mountains, spending her days vacillating between flirting with an emo kid's hot mom and telling anyone who will listen about the ill omens pointing to something dreadful about to happen, but I certainly am.

Visual novel-meets-narrative adventure Scarlet Hollow is technically developer Black Tabby's first game. Chapter one launched back in 2020, and the two-person studio launched Slay the Princess – another incredible choice-based narrative game – between instalments to help pad out funds. Six years on and with seven episodes planned out, Black Tabby has only just put out the first two acts of its fifth episode. The Holler, in all its sleepy paranormal splendor, has wound its dark tendrils beneath my skin; I have played 13 hours of it in about three days.

Feverish Scarlets

That's not a single playthrough, by the way. I've got two characters on the trot, and multiple saves going down different narrative branches, revealing new side stories and insights into my character's journey back to her roots. She's come home to the family estate for her late aunt's funeral, having never set foot in the town of Scarlet Hollow her whole life. But her arrival seems to have triggered a series of strange, paranormal events that threaten to expose the Scarlet's most dangerous secrets.

I can only select two traits per playthrough in Scarlet Hollow, but the opportunities feel staggering. My hot mystic has successfully wooed young Stella in one variant, for example. In another, she's fallen into the arms of her new friend's sexy doctor mother, having closed the age gap by sacrificing 15 to 20 years of her life to a spirit during an exorcism at the local library (note: the librarian guy is also hot).

I chose Powerful Build and Book Smart for my other save, in which I'm besties with my bitchy cousin and romancing a literal monster. So, yeah, I am very grateful for the game's many, many save slots – ten sets of eight, I think.

Chapter five's opening two acts made me glad of all my past saves; here, things really start to unravel, but precisely how that happens is shaped by you. Or rather, everything you've seen, done, or puzzled together up until this point.

First, the preamble. Chapter four of Scarlet Hollow can end in a multitude of ways. One of my saves had me sitting with my cousin Tabitha and her ex-best friend Stella – aka, my new main squeeze – as the two reconcile their differences over a tale of How My Parents Died. In another, I ignore Stella's little pug Gretchen's pleadings for me to follow her and head right back home to have a pint of ice cream with Tabitha instead of checking on my missing friend. Reece's mom is alive and well in one of these outcomes, while in another, she's been cannibalized by her monster-son – whom I am also dating on that occasion and very much in love with.

If you end the previous chapter in your own bed, you wake up in the forbidden wing of the Scarlet Estate at the start of chapter five. Alternatively, you'll simply head there with Stella after spending the night at her house. This is a pretty great outcome for my hot mystic character, whose upper body strength and lack of attention to detail would've barred her from exploring some of the rooms and inspecting items closely – but Stella's been working out, and she's more than happy to help shift some boxes.

But despite the presence of my giggly new girlfriend, the forbidden wing is clearly called that for a reason. It's a miserable, ramshackle place. Expensive furnishings moulder in the dark beneath broken crystal chandeliers, but no amount of clutter can hide long-buried secrets. The thing that stops me in my tracks is a single note scrawled on a piece of paper sitting atop an open shoebox in a cupboard: "I'm here too mommy I love you".

Sins of the mother

It only gets more harrowing from there. Black Tabby's penchant for drama is evident, with a soft yet ominous backing track eking out every drop of tension as you explore the wing. You see neither too much nor too little – depending on your traits, of course – but everything I come across has me doubting what I thought I knew about the Scarlet family's secrets.

Discovering that your cousin might be covering up a spate of kidnappings and imprisonments will either be great news for your character or very, very inconvenient. I've not had a chance to go for an anti-Tabitha playthrough yet – what can I say? Family comes first – but the insinuation that Tabby could know more than she's letting on is as upsetting as it is intriguing. It pisses me off to see Stella waving that damn camera about like this isn't an incredibly horrifying moment for my character, who's reconnected with her only surviving family member in time for her to turn out to be a potential accomplice to murder, and I'm annoyed that there's no option to slap the camera away and crush it underfoot.

By the time I make it back out of the mansion, my head is reeling. What am I supposed to do with this new information? A run-in with Wayne, Tabitha's potentially undead ex who's been stalking/protecting me this whole time, suggests I need to hunt down "the Witch", but I want an explanation first.

It's clear that this point is a major crossroads in the game. I'm given a few options for how to proceed: I can go after the Witch, confront Tabitha with my findings (with or without Stella in tow), try to find someone I trust (hint: you can go to Reece's hot mom for a hot mom hug!), or seek out the remaining stone sigils which have been giving me and Tabitha some spooky visions of the past.

That last one is easiest if you have the Book Smart trait and already know to check the farm, but I never actually get around to it – because Reece stumbles out of the woods for a big ole toothy monster smooch. This only seems to happen if he made it through chapter four un-sedated and un-shot by Tabitha, after letting him eat his mother and abscond into the night.

All of the outcomes seem to lead to a similar place: you're taken in by the police, finally arrested on suspicion of whatever it is you did that looks mighty suspicious to the small-town cops of Scarlet Hollow.

This happens whether or not you end up having someone killed in the first chapter, or manage to save all the kids in chapter three, so it's clear the police must have something a little more concrete to present you with. You hear a crackling over the radio about an incident nearby… and there, the second act of chapter five ends.

It's a gnarly cliffhanger, with the second half due for launch next week on February 20 according to Black Tabby's latest Steam announcement. But it also gives me a little taste of the drawn-out excitement that long-time ScarHol fans must have been feeling for the past six years. This is an incredibly moreish, branching narrative game with a plethora of possible outcomes, and coming from a small two-dev team, the ambitious scope of the project is as impressive as its execution.

Every choice, big or small, seems to have an eventual consequence. It's a slow yet worthwhile journey, and with two more episodes after this still in the chamber, I guess I'm officially along for the ride. If you've been pondering when to get stuck in yourself, take this as your formal invitation to join us in the Holler and date some hot weirdos.

Could it be love? Anything's possible in the best dating sims to lose yourself in this Valentine's Day!