Review | Tormenture - If You Die In The Game...
I wasn’t even close to existing around the 80’s, but I have heard about how fearful parents were of demonic influences corrupting their children. Music, fashion, and dare I say video games, were all portals to everything dark and unholy. So, have you ever wondered what it would be like if the Antichrist really did infect a video game?
Tormenture is an immersive puzzle-horror game, with heavy emphasis on the immersive part. You’re placed in the shoes of a kid who was too curious for their own good, and bought a copy of a game called Tormenture after hearing rumours that it was haunted. The most important thing to know is that you’re playing as a kid who’s playing Tormenture. This means that you’ll be switching from ‘reality’, which is interacting with the bedroom the game takes place in, and playing Tormenture on a TV. The bedroom is simple because you can’t move, and are only allowed to interact with whatever is around you. Speaking of, when you interact with the TV you’ll switch to a full-screen perspective of Tormenture and begin controlling a yellow square, moving from screen to screen by touching the edges of an area. This should sound a little familiar, because the visuals and gameplay of Tormenture are directly inspired, (a little more than inspired if I’m being honest) by Adventure (1978).
As soon as you boot Tormenture up, ominous text tells you that you need to find four hidden relics, and head north. You’re able to tackle these relics in any order you wish, which was really nice, because if I ever ran out of ideas in one area, I could simply go and make progress in a different one. Each area has a unique style, and an item attached to it that's used to solve the puzzles you’ll encounter; a torch, TV remote, magnet, and a shovel. Where things really get interesting is when a puzzle requires the use of two or more items. Figuring out how each item worked and then finding out how they worked in tandem felt rewarding. Also, there are 34 secrets to find throughout Tormenture, and the truly difficult puzzles are reserved for these. They usually require outside-the-box thinking, and while some of them took a decent amount of time to solve, I never felt frustrated.
There’s really not much to say in the way of the story, and the entire plot is spelled out in the Steam Store page. I didn’t really mind this though as my narrative itch was scratched by figuring out the details of what was up with the cursed game, especially with what was truly going on with the four main bosses.
Did I mention that reality and Tormenture are connected? Some puzzles in the bedroom are only solvable by doing things inside Tormenture, and vice versa. Unfortunately for us, this also means that the game can influence reality. This is a fun concept, but didn’t happen as often as I’d liked, but it did feel impactful and surprising when it did happen. What I appreciate the most about this feature is that it’s a perfect metaphor for how reality and games are connected; especially those from the 1980’s. Older games opted to give many quality-of-life features a physical form, like manuals. Tormenture is no different. The in-game guide is a literal guide that supposedly came with the game after the kid obtained his copy of Tormenture that can be flipped through, and is complete with a notes section at the back with hints from previous ‘players.’ Similarly, the map is on a notepad that the kid scribbles on as you progress through a new area. This added a layer of charm and further immersion that hooked me because it took me back to when I was a kid looking through game manuals for whatever I was playing on my GameCube. I can’t imagine the amount of nostalgia someone who played the classics would experience.
On the horror side of things, the game relies heavily on atmosphere, which is good, because the other scares pale in comparison. Inside Tormenture itself are a few scares, but they never really landed for me because of the 8-bit style. There’s various monsters that look weird and offputting, but not necessarily scary. No, the real horror for me came from a deep feeling that something was wrong, (which I mean duh, the game is haunted) that I felt through the entire game. There are various NPCs that can be encountered, and they all feel off. There’s one that does nothing but screech when you approach, and another that is what I can only assume is a large sentient geode that simply says, “I didn’t move much.” Complemented by the soundtracks which range from sounding violent to ominous, to sorrowful, I never felt comfortable.
The kid’s bedroom also feels anything but safe, because you’re placed right in the middle of it. I always felt exposed, and that if something was in the room, it could always manoeuvre just out of my sight. I tried brushing this feeling off, but that became especially difficult when things in the room started moving when I wasn’t looking. There are letter blocks in the room that will rearrange themselves to form different words, seemingly at random. They never spelled anything pleasant. There are also toys in the room like the Speak & Spell, which is a children's toy meant to help teach spelling. The toy says a word, and then the child types in the spoken word on a keyboard. This Speak & Spell was unique because it had me spell words like ‘demon’ and ‘mortality’. Not to mention that when I asked for a hint on the more difficult words, it instead said ‘something in the closet’, which I assumed to mean there was something inside of the closet right behind me. I never quite took my eye off of that closet again.
Tormenture is a unique ‘game within a game’ that has an unsettling atmosphere, and creative puzzles. Everything from the visuals, audio, and gameplay contribute to creating an immersive experience that transported me to a past that I never even lived. More importantly, its faithful recreation of the 80s and direct inspiration from Adventure (1978) makes it a tender love letter to classic video games.
