The Hat Man: Shadow Ward on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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Based on a true story, discover the horror of the Canton insane asylum as you attempt to rescue your daughter. Experience the scariest game of 2014.
The Hat Man: Shadow Ward is a horror, indie and first-person game
developed and published by Game Mechanics LLC.
Released on June 10th 2016 is available on Windows and MacOS
in 7 languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish - Spain, Portuguese - Brazil and Russian.
It has received 3,326 reviews of which 2,177 were positive and 1,149 were negative resulting in a rating of 6.4 out of 10. 😐
The game is currently priced at 9.75€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified The Hat Man: Shadow Ward into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at The Hat Man: Shadow Ward through various videos and screenshots.
System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS *: Windows XP/Vista/7
- Processor: 2.0Ghz - Low budget CPUs such as Celeron or Duron needs to be at about twice the CPU speed
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: Radeon X1000/GeForce 6 - Integrated graphics and low budget cards might not work.
- Storage: 250 MB available space
MacOS
- OS: Mac OS X 10.5.8 or newer
- Processor: 2.0Ghz
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: Radeon X1000/GeForce 6 - Integrated graphics and low budget cards might not work.
- Storage: 250 MB available space
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
The Hat Man at it's core is a Slender Man clone with a few new brushes of paint for distinction. Consider this recommendation with a caveat -- only purchase if you are a fan of the Slender Man series. You play as a mother (or father) of your presumed missing institutionalized daughter. The hospital you last checked her in has not replied to your messages so naturally, you head over to investigate. The game begins with you riding up an elevator to the lobby of this hospital. To your surprise, you arrive to a desolated, dilapitated and somber hospital -- no one at the front desk, no nurses and all the doors seem locked. Graphics are nice, controls are easy -- again, Slender Man-esque. You walk up a set of stairs to a room where you find your daughter's journal. After reading it, the game begins . You are transported to the Shadow Ward . I would like to emphasize to qualities of the Shadow Ward that serve as divergence points from the classic Slender Man series. If you stay too long in the room that teleports you to the Shadow Ward, (i.e. collecting journal papers or just looking around) strange shadow figures will start to appear and attack you. This happens occassionally throughout the game and the way to counter it is by pointing your flash light at them. Nothing revolutionizing, but a good small detail as far as Slender Man-esque games are concerned. This next quality is arguably the most reedeming quality of the game and one that I honestly wish more horror games would experiment with . After breaking a door with an axe you enter a maze in the hospotal where your task is to collect the missing journal entries while also escaping the Hat Man. The interesting part here is that the maze is constantly randomized. There are a few checkpoints that are stable but to the routes and locations of the journal entries are entirely randomized every time you hit a checkpoint or every time you restart the area. I think this is very ingenious and at least to my experience, something not most horror games do. I think it's a curious application of RNG that serves to disorient, displace and confuse the player. More so when you have Slender Man's cousin chasing after you. In other aspects, the story is easy to follow if you read the journal entries and the soundtrack is good as far as this niche sub-genre of games is concerned. All in all, The Hat Man: Shadow Ward is a worthy attempt at a Slender-clone. It decidedly has its faults, does not revolutionize the genre, but it also has just enough redeeming qualities to appeal to hardcore fans of the horror sub-genre. If you enjoy the way I review games, join and follow my curator group! It comes with a fun discord channel for horror fans to chill and game. [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/malkavianmadness]Malkavian Madness
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The Hat Man: Shadow Ward + Creepy Soundtrack + Trading Cards + Horror game set in a deserted asylum + The voice-overs are so well done + You have to collect the missing pages + Not bad graphics - You can choose to play as Father or Mother for no good reason - Can't walk backwards - Your character has no personality whatsoever and basically - Too many bugs The game is not so terrible
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Hat Man is scary! It is legit creepy. The only thing that irritated me were some of the mechanics in the game. Getting stuck on the monsters with no where to go (like on Stairs etc). If you want to know what this game is like, if you've ever played Slenderman (the original), it's just like that, in that you have to pick up papers (pages) to proceed. It just needs to be patched up a bit more and some of the 'player tested' mechanics adjusted, but it's definitely a nice little romp for cheap. My livestream viewers were creeped out more than once. The way you are stalked by the monsters has to be the most tense and excited I have been in awhile. If you'd like to watch me play a bit of the game. Take a peek in the video below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwR0EAs6ZaU
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A solid, low-budget first-person survival horror closely linked to Slenderman: The Eight Pages , housing a fair amount of haunting images and thick atmosphere, evoking a handful of steady cold shivers and durable tension within its short run, mostly due to the eerie and restrained sound design. Your daughter has gone missing from the asylum where she was being treated for attempting suicide. Once you enter the vacant facility, investigating her whereabouts, you begin looking for pages from your daughter's journal while being hunted by a dark presence wearing a hat. The basic gameplay of finding a bunch of objects to unlock new areas for further exploration is quite easily comprehensible, yet it may be a fair disorienting challenge to obtain all 20+ pages since the randomly altering level design relocate the pages on each playthrough; though once you pinpoint the location of a page, whispery voices are in effect and narrowing it down become child's play. The stiff level design is utterly mediocre at best and visually it is quite dull, but the ridiculously awkward voice-over is the shattering winner to listen to and hence should have been left out. Also, the poorly written dialogue comes out far more silly rather than intriguing, and finally - considering the source material that is based on real events - the outcome turns out quite immaterial. At a discount however, coupled with appreciating solid scares, Game Mechanics' short piece of indie horror, regardless of being a Slender copy, earns a night's attention. 5,5 / 10
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Prepare to die screaming…or more likely laughing at the horrendously bad voice acting of ‘The Hat Man: The 20+ Pages’……wait….wrong game (and more on the voice acting later). Alas, just as has happened with so many other indie horror games in recent years and with the advent of the Slender series, ‘The Hat Man: Shadow Ward’ (the ‘for real’ name) falls victim to the same ‘collect quest’ gameplay mechanic. This means that you need to find a set number of pages from your daughter’s diary to complete the game. Ultimately, that’s the basis of the game: you either play as the father or mother in search of said daughter, who has gone missing from the seemingly empty asylum she was committed to which is now populated by shadow people/The Hat Man (BTW – the idea of shadow peeps is based loosely on fact and there are many documented cases, and even some decent movies, about people that have seen or had encounters with these so-called ‘Shadow People’). Thankfully, you don’t just search for pages as you also need to find some other items to progress deeper into the asylum and defeat The Hat Man (who I guess is like the pimp of the shadow peeps) to get your daughter back. One of the more unique attributes of this game (though it’s been done before) is that sound is utilized to pinpoint the location of pages/other items you need by means of whispery voices. Also, the sound design of this game isn’t half bad for being a budget title, with some of the sound effects/ambient music being pretty creepy in my opinion. Now as promised, I must go back to my earlier comment about the voice acting. Granted, this game is super short and can be beat in less than half an hour, so you may think that voice acting wouldn’t be too important in such a game…..but it kinda, sorta totally is. Essentially, it’s hilarious. No, seriously, I’m not joking. I mean, it’s so stupendously bad that it’s good (I don’t know how that works; it defies the human intellect to comprehend how that can be) but it’s true. I figure most people will laugh at it, though some may actually want to cry at how bad it is. And for all those 100% achievement unlock Steamers out there – prepare thine selves!! There is actually an achievement for listening to your daughter reading the pages of her diary as you collect them. Sure, this game can fairly easily be ‘100%’d’ and the aforementioned achievement is easy enough to unlock, but don’t go joy-puking your faces off just yet as I seriously believe that listening to all of the pages may very well land you in an asylum. I personally just barely managed to keep my sanity intact while unlocking this achievement, so don’t say I didn’t warn you. This game can be fun for like 2 hrs tops, but I wouldn’t recommend it at full price, even if it is a budget title. With decent voice acting, who knows, perhaps this game could have been terrifying. As it is, it will likely be overlooked by most gamers, but it is somewhat interesting and good for a laugh….or cry, so give it a shot.
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Frequently Asked Questions
The Hat Man: Shadow Ward is currently priced at 9.75€ on Steam.
The Hat Man: Shadow Ward is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 9.75€ on Steam.
The Hat Man: Shadow Ward received 2,177 positive votes out of a total of 3,326 achieving a rating of 6.41.
😐
The Hat Man: Shadow Ward was developed and published by Game Mechanics LLC.
The Hat Man: Shadow Ward is playable and fully supported on Windows.
The Hat Man: Shadow Ward is playable and fully supported on MacOS.
The Hat Man: Shadow Ward is not playable on Linux.
The Hat Man: Shadow Ward is a single-player game.
There is a DLC available for The Hat Man: Shadow Ward. Explore additional content available for The Hat Man: Shadow Ward on Steam.
The Hat Man: Shadow Ward does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
The Hat Man: Shadow Ward does not support Steam Remote Play.
The Hat Man: Shadow Ward is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for The Hat Man: Shadow Ward.
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Last Updates| Steam data | 07 June 2025 16:14 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 09 June 2025 22:19 |
| Steam price | 14 June 2025 20:42 |
| Steam reviews | 12 June 2025 21:55 |
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- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about The Hat Man: Shadow Ward
- SteamCharts - Analysis of The Hat Man: Shadow Ward concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck The Hat Man: Shadow Ward compatibility
Game modes
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Online players
1
Developer
Game Mechanics LLC
Publisher
Game Mechanics LLC
Release
10 Jun 2016
Platforms