One of the first things I did when I played The Sims was try to make the Addams family. Unfortunately, while my Gomez and Morticia fell rapturously in love and Wednesday and Pugsley happily played together all day, I didn't make anybody to keep Uncle Fester company. He eventually died of loneliness. At least he left a thematically appropriate gravestone in the front yard.

In MachiaVillain you're supposed to be making a spooky mansion full of kooks. You've got zombies, psychopaths, psychic killer tires, and other horror movie types living under your roof. By day they craft new rooms and traps, by night they wait for the locals to visit and murder them one by one. Then they collect the bodies, drag them to the kitchen, and one of the cartoon villains dons a chef's hat and starts carving them up for food.

It's a cheerfully grotesque game, with visuals that remind me of Don't Starve—though the interface is much messier. Like Don't Starve it's partially a crafting game, more than I expected it would be. One of the first things you need to do is chop down nearby trees to build the mansion's floors, walls, and doors. There's mining as well, and 'evil trees' that fight back but provide special, eeevil wood when defeated.

There's a rhythm to MachiaVillain, where you assign jobs and manage stats like hunger and loyalty when the sun is up, building new rooms and making sure the regular leaflet campaign is finished before the post gets collected. (To keep victims coming you have lure them with mailouts claiming they've won fabulous prizes or perhaps advertising for room-mates or D&D players). Come dark, you get everyone into position and the murders begin.

It's best to have a mansion that's divided into entirely separate wings, one containing areas like the laboratory and factory where minions work, and the other front-facing rooms with friendly lamps and televisions to lure the innocent. As well as providing tasty brains to keep the zombies happy, killing victims provides an essential resource called Evilium, and you earn more of it for playing to the cliches of horror movies. Separating people to kill them alone is good, saving the virgin for last is better, and killing the dog is right out.  

Scaring people too much can be a bad thing, as they'll call friends to warn them or try to escape, running past all your buzz saws and Draculas. That raises the suspicion score, and when it gets too high it brings the attention of monster hunters and cops, who are apparently much harder to kill. I've not had that problem yet, though I've faced plenty of random attacks by giant spiders, and I suspect there are other things lurking in the woods.

Sometimes victims don't actually make it to the front door. A pop-up telling me they're on the way appears and I get everyone to down tools and take up positions, but occasionally the victims start dying on the road before they even get to my creepy puzzle dungeon. I have to rush everyone out to mop up the survivors before they call for help. By the time I get there whatever's attacking them is gone, and only the blood remains. Is it the spiders? Evil trees? The angry ghost of Uncle Fester back for revenge? Or is something else sharing this map with us?

MachiaVillain has had a couple of patches since it launched two weeks ago to fix the most egregious bugs, so I'm hoping this isn't one of those. Because finding out there's something else out there even scarier than us would be a great twist. I wonder if they want to move in? We've got television and a tasty stockpile of smoked brains.

Last month we gave away some beta keys for monster mansion sim Machiavillain, which Joe described as The Sims meets Dungeon Keeper meets Rimworld when developer Wild Factor announced it last year. Today, Wild Factor revealed its release date: MachiaVillain is coming to Steam on Wednesday, May 16 for $20.

The goal of MachiaVillain is pretty simple. As an up-and-coming member of the League of Machiavellian Villains, you build a big ol' mansion on a fabulous estate and lure tourists inside so you can kill them and harvest their organs. The kicker is that your workers are all monsters inspired by legends and horror classics—vampires, mummies, zombies, wendigos, the works.

Your time is split between ordering your monsters around, making good use of your guests, fending off other monsters and the occasional monster hunter, and expanding your estate, all while keeping a low enough profile that the townsfolk don't call you out on your murdering. To that end, you've got a few rules to follow:

1) You must kill all of your unwitting detainees. 

2) You can only kill them when they're alone—unless they're having sex. 

3) You must kill the virgin last. 

4) You can only massacre at night. 

5) Do not kill the dog. Ever. 

I can get behind any game that's against killing dogs, and I quite liked Wild Factor's previous game, Freaking Meatbags, a quirky tower defense RTS thing, so Machiavillain seems like one to watch. 

Update: All beta keys have been distributed! Thanks for entering. 

We're giving away a bunch of beta keys for MachiaVillain, a macabre mansion management sim about murdering guests with the help of your monstrous staff. If that sounds like a fun new hobby to you, read on!

As a member of the League of Machiavellian Villains, you conjure and employ legions of horror icons like vampires, mummies and zombies. Developer Wild Factor says there are over 20 different monsters in all, and while they aren’t the best listeners, you can at least get them to gather resources to expand your mansion and defend it from other monsters like wendigos and chupacabras, freeing you up to build traps like wall blades and monster amenities like mad scientist labs. 

Your goal is to become as evil is possible by killing guests, who can be anyone from hapless tourists to hardened monster hunters. Some guests require special, er, means of disposal, and different monsters excel at different tasks. Luckily MachiaVillain works on an active pause system that helps you issue orders during each night’s waves of guests. You can only kill at night, and you also have to kill without getting caught. If you murder too hard, the cops will catch on and shut you down, but if you don’t murder enough, your monsters are liable to turn on you. So, you know, find that Goldilocks ratio. 

The fine print

• This is a raffle giveaway. Our system randomly selects winners from the pool of applicants. Not everyone who enters is guaranteed a key.
• We'll begin sending out the keys tomorrow, Friday, April 6 at 1 PM Pacific
• Keys will be distributed via email automatically (check yo' spam filters)
• The MachiaVillain beta runs until 4/23

As always, being a PC Gamer Club member guarantees you a beta key, while supplies last. Become a Legendary member today before we send them out to all members tomorrow evening (Friday) UK time.

How to redeem

This is a Steam key that can be redeemed via Steam the normal way.

1. Log into Steam2. Click on “Games” in the top left corner3. Click “Activate a product on Steam”4. Click next5. Accept Steam’s Subscriber Agreement6. Enter the product code, including the hyphens7. Click next, and follow the directions provided on screen8. Enjoy!

Wild Factor and Gambitious Entertainment have unveiled MachiaVillain—a civilian/undead management sim that's said to be inspired by "classic gaming experiences" such as Dungeon Keeper, as well as age-old horror cinema tropes. It's due this autumn and celebrates the reveal with a trailer. 

The aim of MachiaVillain is pretty simple: construct an estate, lure unsuspecting locals inside, snare them in traps (a personal favourite), and ultimately "slay by the rules." All of which involves the following: 

"Assemble and manage a menagerie of monstrous minions, balancing their unique traits, needs and fighting styles, then customize the mansion to make them feel at home," says Gambitious. "Players can use resources from the environment and leftover body parts from dismembering to craft new items to help keep the manor safe from supernatural creatures and monster hunters who would threaten to topple their gruesome ascent to glory."

Back to those rules, the key to success in crafting your mansions "from harmless houses to nightmarish palaces of terrors" is hinged on the following: 

1) You must kill all of your unwitting detainees. 2) You can only kill them when they're alone—unless they're having sex. 3) You must kill the virgin last. 4) You can only massacre at night. 5) Do not kill the dog. Ever. 

What happens if you do? Who knows, but I'm sure we'll find out when MachiaVillain arrives in later this year. More information can be found via the game's Steam page.