Day 167 - Exmortis
SPOOKY MONTH!, Point and Click, Horror ·
Skeeter’s Take:
Exmortis came out of the gate swinging with three jumpscares in the intro credits. The game has intro credits for the single dev (Shout out Ben!), and that’s rad. I was all on board the campy haunted house feeling I was getting right out of the gate:
Exmortis is a point-and-click game. The player explores a creepy house and looks for clues to keep progressing past the obstacles that are thrown at you (usually locked doors, or safes etc.).
One thing I can say is this game looks gritty. It’s rough, and pixelated and I don’t know how much is intentional and how much is a product of the time. I really dig how gross everything feels.
Just look at the main hallway. It really gives that “jpeg compression” feeling of an internet image that’s been shared too many times. It’s really inspiring how much atmosphere is created with just the set.
I was even surprised at the amount of restraint Exmortis showed in some of its scares. With three jumpscares in the intro, I figured every scare was going to be exactly the same. Down the dark hallway there’s a twitchy-headed robe figure that runs down the other hall. There’s a cellar door that feels like someone is holding it closed, and then spooky voices whisper in your ear. There’s even a statue who’s eyes open and look at you when you enter the room:
Exmortis leans a little too heavy on it’s gore for my taste - but the head in the microwave was very funny:
And unfortunately for me, Exmortis also leans heavily on exposition told through 6 pages of reading per book:
It’s clear that a lot of time was put into the lore, and I think that’s neat. I just didn’t really care to read 18 pages of backstory and worldbuilding tonight. And damnit, this is a video game! I have player agency! I can skip your lore dump! That’s just how I play the game! Gimme the controller! I’m Player 1 now!
I do think it’s cool Ben put this much time into a flash game’s backstory.
I know I was throwing dick shaped confetti at the visual style of this game earlier, but the low-resolution graphics actually became my undoing.
In one of the first rooms I explored, I found a safe:
So naturally, I search the house for clues with any sort of number sequence I can find:
There are also symbols scattered throughout, but I’m pretty sure they coordinate with the books on the bookshelf that also have strange symbols. They seem to line up, but are really too pixelated for me to be sure.
So, I spend a while trying to crack this safe with the clues I have. I tried to put the time on the clock in (0100/0200). Nothing. I tried to follow the pentagram sequence across the keypad:
I was beginning to think I was actually going to have to read through the small novellas the dev left. Thankfully, some ancient knowledge from our Flash in the Pan days came flooding back. If you press tab in a flash game, it would put a nice yellow box around anything that was interactable.
So, there I went, searching the house to make sure I didn’t miss anything. This is one thing I struggle with in Point-and-Click puzzle adventure games. I usually hit a point where it just feels like I’m missing something. Like there is something I need to click on to progress or some items I need to combine (shoes and ladder) and I’m just not following the game’s logic.
I’m going to show you a photo. This is the hallway directly outside of the bedroom that has the safe in it. I want you to make note of anything that stands out to you.
Alright, you got it? I’m guessing you probably noticed the door, the light, maybe the rug, and the old oak side table:
But did you happen to notice the attic? BECAUSE I SURE DIDN’T!
In all its compressed nightmare image glory, I couldn’t for the life of me see that attic. I was laughing at myself. I went from “WOW this looks cool” to “How the fuck was I supposed to see that?” in the course of twenty minutes. At least this one was sort of hard to see, unlike The Door Incident.
After all that searching. After all that theory crafting and coming up with different ways to crack the safe using the clues I had found. After all the blood, the sweat, the blood, and the head in the microwave, it all came down to the simplest, least climatic solution there was.
In the attic there’s a piece of paper next to a dead guy. And on that paper:
Dagnammit, I had come this far. I wasn’t going to give up now. It was time to reap the rewards I was due.
It was time to find out what was in the safe:
A bloody symbol, A human(?) heart, and a… wait… no… it can’t be.. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Recommend: No
Replay Percentage Chance: 69 69 69
Time Played: 25 minutes
Sam’s Take:
This game really threw me back to our old review series that mostly took place on Newgrounds. I don’t want to imply that this game is terrible, it’s not, but the blood stains on everything, the jump scares, the journal from 1997 written by what seems to be an uppity British gentleman from the early 1900s:
Almost every decision is made because that’s what creepy things do. Why is everything in the house covered in grime? That’s what creepy houses look like. Why is there a ghostly whisper in the hallway? That’s what happens in creepy houses! Why does the 1997 journal entry use the word “loungeroom”? Because everyone is scared of Victorian-era language!
That all being said, this is a high effort ordeal. I don’t know if the compressed JPG aesthetic was a choice of style or convenience, but it is successful at making me uncomfortable. The demon summoning plot isn’t exactly captivating, but they sure wrote more than most people would for their horror point and click. This feels like a 16 year old’s opus. Every idea is taken from somewhere else, and they haven’t quite figured out how to blend all those ideas into something new and unique, but they have made a large house with those ideas.
Another on the growing pile of the dev should be proud they made it, but I can’t recommend playing it unless you really want to transport yourself back to 2004 era Newgrounds point and clicks.
Recommend: No
Replay Percentage Chance: 1%
Time Played: 10 Minutes
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