I have to put my hands up and admit, I’m not typically what you would call a “fan of point-and-click games”. My usual games range from immersive RPGs, to first-person shooter action, and then on to deep and engaging strategy.
In fact I can attest to the fact that the last point-and-click game I played was Beneath a Steel Sky, which was at least ten years ago while messing around with an emulator. So when Tormentum: Dark Sorrow was first brought to my attention I was skeptical, but at the same time I was also intrigued.
Firstly, the H. R. Giger art style won my interest due in no small part to how freakishly awesome it is, and secondly, after checking out a couple of gameplay videos I was interested to see where the game would go from there and it’s safe to say I was not disappointed.
By far Tormentum’s strongest asset is its graphical style, which from the get-go is ramped up to 11 on the freakin’-awesome-but-creepy-as-all-hell scale. It’s a fusion of steampunk, gothic and H. R. Giger-esque biomechanical horror.
Everything looks and feels like it was grown, or rather it grew, like some twisted organism hell bent on fusing itself with everything surrounding it, every inch of the game has this organic look to it. The hellish landscapes bleed into the game’s architecture, and that bleeds into the characters, monsters and objects that inhabit this unnerving and ghastly world.
All of the characters, environments and backgrounds were digitally drawn and painted by Piotr Ruszkowski, the lead artist on the project and it is clear where he took his heaviest influences from. The quality of these environments cannot be overstated, everything is unique, dark, beautiful and horrifying, and all with an almost ‘oil painting come to life’ quality to them.
Most of Tormentum’s gameplay is found in the game’s various puzzles, beyond this the game is one purely of exploration, both in terms of travelling the game’s world and in interacting with the vast array of characters and creatures, both good and bad. There is no direct combat, but you’ll often find yourself in situations where getting past a monster or a character requires some planning and preparation.
The game’s puzzles never repeat within the game which makes each one a unique and interesting challenge, some of which had me genuinely scratching my head, especially on the first playthrough, this however is offset by the fact that between different playthroughs these puzzles do not change; the solution to each puzzle is the same on every playthrough of the game. Given that the game offers opportunities to make moral choices for good or for ill at various points throughout, which eventually lead to one of two endings, this provides the game with a minimum of replayability. Combine the alternate ending with a handful of Steam achievements and what you have is something that is potentially going to interest the completionist gamer (those who want to get a solid 100% of achievements and endings), but probably not going to interest the rest of us.
The controls are simple and very intuitive, you examine the environment with the mouse cursor which changes to a skeleton hand if you can interact with, move or pick up something. There’s a simple inventory system where any items you are currently carrying are in your side pack, and any clues you examine are written on a notepad, both of these are directly accessible from icons in the bottom corners of screen.
The sound design is, as you might expect for a point-and-click adventure game, minimalistic. There are no voiceovers and minimal sound effects while interacting with the environment or solving one of the puzzles. This might sound like a negative but taking into account the haunting soundtrack, it provides the game with an otherworldly, dreamlike ambience.
It’s often noted that a soundtrack can elevate a story or ruin it completely, and without a doubt Tormentum’s soundtrack makes the game’s environments feel as rich and vibrant or as solemn and unwelcoming as they look. The music matches each scene in terms of mood and atmosphere masterfully, giving the already amazing visual style a whole new dimension.
The story is extremely well handled, it’s never told in a hamfisted or forced fashion with the occasional gentle reminder from characters as to what you need to do next and why you’re doing it, admittedly the ending is pretty cliché but is not to the point of being obvious, and I had no idea right up until the very end.
Be warned, spoilers ahead!
The game is split into three separate areas set in very different and contrasting environments, the first is a castle in which the unnamed and amnesic character is imprisoned from which you must escape, the second is the wastelands surrounding the castle where you must repair and travel from on a train and finally the third is a frozen village where you must forge a magical sword to complete your journey.
Throughout the game you are given various moral choices; whether to kill or release fellow prisoners, who to entrust an ancient treasure with, whether to help an old man and whether to turn in a mortally wounded criminal to the villagers who seek him. All of these are weighed up and used to judge whether the main character has atoned for his past sins or not. I won’t ruin the exact nature of the ending but it is very well done.
Okay, spoilers are over.
Each character is unique and has their arc within the game, in fact very few are what you could call ‘background characters’, almost all of them have a small, self contained story of their own that they progress through during the course of the game, changing with how you choose to interact with them. This can range from something as seemingly innocuous as choosing to entrust one of them with an object over another, or choosing whether they live or die.
It’s worth approaching all of the characters with one simple fact in mind, a bit of advice given to you from one of the characters while playing the game; nobody is quite what they seem, and nobody can be trusted.
In conclusion Tormentum: Dark Sorrow offers a rich and well fleshed out world, presented in a unique and beautiful art style, bolstered with some great characters and fantastic puzzles, but the limited replayability and short play time make it a tough game to recommend.
For fans of point-and-click adventure games I would say; give it a go, it’s worth your attention. For anyone with an appreciation of the art style, again I would say the same. My recommendation to everyone else would be; if the screenshots interest you, check out some gameplay videos, and if they interest you; go for it. I don’t regret investing my time in Tormentum, and I really enjoyed the story but given the short playtime and lack of puzzle variety during subsequent playthroughs I don’t think it’s a game I’ll be revisiting soon.