Horror in the Library is adapting the board game into a VR escape room on Quest, and we interviewed the studio to learn more.

Developed by Portsmouth-based team Blue Donut Studios, Horror in the Library's first edition originally launched six years ago as a strategic 19th-century themed tile-based card collecting board game. The VR adaptation promises “sinister” storytelling and escape room puzzles as you explore the Mad Professor's mansion, trying to uncover the mystery of Lady Hermione Elderoy's disappearance.

Finding yourself trapped within this mansion, the upcoming adaptation promises a single-player experience with Wes Johnson (Skyrim, Oblivion) voicing the Mad Professor. I recently sat down with managing director Marcus Pullen to learn more during a recent face-to-face interview at Develop: Brighton 2025.

Discussing the board game's history, Pullen “got into games by accident” while working with a local council and a mentorship program. After being approached about a potential idea, Blue Donut Studios released Line: The Skateboard Game, and Pullen was inspired to keep going. Having always been interested in horror, he found himself exploring ideas around a name, Horror in the Library.

“So I came up with a concept. I looked at the idea of House on Haunted Hill, and it really grew from that. I created then the rooms, rotation, and we spent five years developing and refining the characters, theme, and game mechanics of it,” says Pullen. Later on, I'm told other inspirations include H.P. Lovecraft, gothic literature, and British horror comedy like Carry on Screaming.

Going further into the game's history, Pullen informed me that the company also provides enterprise software for healthcare providers across the country and other commercial organizations, reinvesting money earned there into development. This saw the company creating a multiplatform museum that supports VR, which helped inspire choosing VR for the video game.

“We reached the critical point where we're going, “it would make sense to bring the game to virtual reality,” rather than just take the board game and play it like Demeo. Which is a wonderful game, but we didn't want to do that for this. We worked with Tabletopia for a digital version, so for this, we wanted to go into this world by bringing this story and characters to life in a way only VR can do.”

Querying how the studio's adapting the board game mechanics, Blue Donut is putting considerable focus into expanding the narrative and worldbuilding, all while translating the gothic aesthetic. Pullen stated you can play as a character with “a lot of agency,” uncovering evidence and clues regarding Lady Hermione Elderoy's disappearance.

Pullen also explained that the studio's strategy for the VR game relates to its funding, and a Kickstarter campaign is coming up. The initial plan is for the video game to offer a story-focused single-player experience, and while there are challenges to expanding this further, it's working on a multiplayer concept based on one of the board game's expansion pieces, Apparatus.

“Apparatus turns Horror in the Library from a competitive game into a cooperative game. You have to build the apparatus to destroy monsters before they destroy you.”

It's soon to share more about the multiplayer plans, though I'm told the studio is “working on enabling an experience” that can solve certain problems by going back to the board game. As for other platforms beyond Quest, Pullen advised Blue Donut would love to put this on Steam and potentially PlayStation VR2. However, this depends on what investment support they can get to make this happen.

Horror in the Library is coming to Meta Quest headsets, though a release window is currently unconfirmed. We'll update this article once the Kickstarter campaign goes live.