Web Reviews

A Mortician's Tale really does live up to all the accolades. It's an hour-long story that, whilst familiar to anybody who has followed channels like 'Ask A Mortician' in its critique of the American funeral system, remains incredibly moving and effective through its presentation. For me personally, there was an added sense of nostalgia from the setting—it's set from late 2014 to early 2015, a whole decade ago now, and feels almost like a time-capsule. There's a sense of hope and levity, even as the story gets darker and more uncomfortable, and if you were on youtube death positivity/historical sewing/vintage fashion circles during that era, you might find little familiarities too.

This is a game that touches on incredibly dark subject matter just by nature of the setting. Not only is there death and grief and sorrow from the fact that you are working with dead people, on behalf of their relatives, but the added layer of capitalist exploitation that creeps in adds another layer of horror to the proceedings.

I've considered myself death positive for a long time now (my family is well aware of my desire for a green burial, should anything happen) but I was surprised by just how quickly I found myself thinking of the people on my slab as people, rather than lifeless bodies, people with histories and families I'll never get to know. From the very first person I had to prepare I was thinking of who they were, and doing my best to treat them as respectfully as possible, even though on some level I know they were artwork and code. If you can handle depictions of death and funeral preparations, I would thoroughly recommend this game just for how quickly it pulls you into the world it creates.

The amount of options you have to customise your character is stunning, and makes the reading experience feel incredibly personalised. You normally have about six different options for how you react to, or interact with, the characters and events in the games, giving you a huge amount of freedom to develop your Hunter's personality down whatever path you want. You can also choose the genders of the romance options, or have them randomly selected (I chose this for my first playthrough).

The story starts woven between the main missing-person case and a murder mystery, and quickly spirals into a network of potential conspiracies tangled with interpersonal disagreements, shadowy organisations, and competing viewpoints. The world grows around you as you read, answering some questions and hitting you with new ones as the story develops, always keeping the most important information tantalisingly out of your reach. There are action scenes, and you can choose from one of 6 main combat focuses, which each give you unique scenes and combat options—and a few non-combat options related to your choice as well.

I went for A as the romance option I focused on most, because I'm a sucker for friends-to-lovers, but all the options seem equally fleshed-out and I enjoyed seeing the cast of conflicting personalities forced to work together. I'm already planning a replay, focusing on N and checking out some of the branching paths I didn't go down the first time, because I just enjoy spending time with these characters and watching them bounce off each other. Plus, I'm hoping to get more clues regarding the central mystery to see if my current theories hold water.

The game keeps track of your character decisions in a profile you can access at any time, which is especially useful to monitor your relationships with your romance options. There's also a codex, which occasionally updates with extra details to help flesh out the setting (I really enjoyed the implication that garlic is MSG for vampires).

In terms of accessibility, there are options to choose light or dark mode, three different fonts (including one designed for dyslexic readers) and you can alter the font size to make it easier to read. It also provides content warnings for each chapter.

There are mini-stories/clues associated with each item (found through clicking the unfound object button for a hint as to where it could be, then checking again when each object is found for a hint as to where it need to go, then a final time when the object has returned to its correct place to finish the mini-story). However, these clues can be easily missed or accidentally skipped--especially for objects that require multiple objects to be found, like the watermelon box, for which the clue changes after each object found. Hopefully the full release has a way to read mini-stories in full, even if you accidentally skipped a clue.

You also have the ability to interact with physics elements in the map, and multiple objects require more than just clicking the world to be found. Despite this, interacting with the world through click and drag can be very finicky, especially considering how small the objects on screen are, and it's hard to tell what is and isn't interactable. Either a change in the mouse icon when hovering over 'interactable' elements or some other visual indicator would be useful, although it seems like the idea is for players to be able to poke or drag most of the items for a reaction.

The relationships that develop between the Contestants, positive and negative, form the emotional core that the plot needed to keep the reader invested. At first most of the characters are abrasive, stressed, and either insulting to or dismissive of each other. The only friendly face is Aether, the girl who woke up in the same room as you, but she has her own secrets she's keeping. As you can imagine from people picked to play a deadly game, all of them have hidden depths that they're unwilling to trust the other Contestants with—including Ink. Uncovering the pasts of each Contestants is as much part of the mystery as who brought them together, and why.

Generally I found each backstory reveal satisfying, placing each character's previous actions in new context. There was one particular reveal that worked so well on a meta-level that I felt genuinely called-out by the fact I hadn't realised what was happening. Actions that felt unrealistic or confusing could often be explained through later information, as well as the high-stakes situation revealing the best and worst sides of each Contestant.

The mystery plot was excellently foreshadowed. As new information is revealed, through Ink's internal monologue the reader is also gently reminded of relevant points they may have forgotten—allowing them a chance to put the clues together as Ink does without being excessively heavy-handed. Many of the biggest twists were hard to predict, with enough clues that I could guess some of the elements, whilst the actual unveiling left me staring at my screen in shock as my mind went over all the clues I'd overlooked or missed. The plot started slowly, picked up the pace as revelations started stacking on top of each other and revealing the shape of the plot, and in the last few chapters definitely sped up as the different mysteries converged together. The ending felt a little rushed, but each major plot thread and mystery was neatly resolved when the true purpose of Exit/Corners was explained.

This won't be a game for everybody, but for a completely free game that doesn't even require a download? If any of this interests you, give it a try. It might surprise you.

Spoiler-free warnings: This game includes depictions and discussions of graphic violence, depictions and discussions of mental illness and suicide, derogatory language, and internalised bigotry.