In a day and age where every turn-based game with comedic elements of some kind is labeled as "inspired by Earthbound," it's ironic that one of the few indie games to actually give me Earthbound vibes isn't even an RPG at all. The Mother series's reframing of JRPG tropes through contemporary American towns is succeeded in Yuppie Psycho with survival horror and a gigantic, labyrinthine office building- you save your game by making a photocopy of your face, brew coffee for health instead of combining herbs, and scavenge for these limited supplies by searching through desks and filing cabinets. The survival horror elements, though, aren't exactly a highlight, as it's often more funny than unnerving, and it focuses on experimentation and pure exploration rather than making getting from point A to point B as draining as possible. I'd instead summarize it as a game where the fun comes from accessing new areas and seeing weird things happen all around you. Most of it is downright dumb, a lot of it is cool, but all of it is entertaining. Where else can you trade slices of cheese for printer paper with the creepy guy upstairs, talk to your sexy coworker who literally can't speak in anything besides innuendo, or realize that your guiding partner character has completely bailed on you after an hour? But again, like Earthbound, Yuppie Psycho acknowledges that the humor should stem less from wackiness and more from how people react to said wackiness. The game's story revolves around tracking down an actual, literal, broom-riding, cauldron-stirring witch who's supposedly corrupting the corporation you were hired by from the inside, but the crushing stupidity of this premise is downplayed by the player character, who is instead more concerned about concealing the fact that he's a witch hunter from the people he works with. The end result is a genuinely refreshing experience compared to the current landscape of indie game writing, which is paired with a surprisingly deep pool of secrets and optional content that never diminishes in quality from the rest of the game's sense of pure creativity. Unfortunately, however, by the end of the game it becomes clear that this stuff is there to set up the good endings, which require doing really specific actions at specific points, a design pattern that's, as a general rule, not my cup of coffee. But this inclusion doesn't revoke Yuppie Psycho's status in my mind as a bona fide hidden gem.

Every year I feel like there's 5 or so indies that come out that everyone talks about for a while, get a few nods at the GOTY discussions, but never really win out anything. Your Hollow Knights, your Baba is Yous, your Insides. Yuppie Psycho isn't one of those games, but it damn well should be.

You are Brian, a young man, recently graduated, in a dystopian Alt-1990's and you've gotten a dream job at a MegaCorp in The Big City - but something is weird about your work place... its basically a Lovecraftian nightmare? Well not Lovecraft, but there's plenty of messed up shit. There's a witch on the loose in this building, and she's slowly driving everyone to madness and despair. You're a secret Witch Hunter, here to bring her down and save the company. There's a fantastic set of side characters, each are mostly one note of course but they hit that note with charm and style. There's an excellent gag where one of the "faceless" employees (those with a dialogue portrait!) goes to introduce himself, and one of the named characters says they don't have time for everyone's name hahahaha

The gameplay is an isometric style older "puzzle" game, with some light stealth elements as well. You're moving throughout the building trying to find out more about the witch and how to defeat her. You have the help of a handy robot Sitra (who is, unsurprisingly, more human than she appears)and your aforementioned quirky colleagues. The game has a very strong horror element, and there's a great variety of monsters and scares along the way to one of several endings. As it is all pixel art, it can't really be terrifying like Resident Evil 2 REmake, but it is inventively creepy and often enough horrifying to set my toe a tappin'. Ironically, where the Resi series also knows how to cut horror with humor, Yuppie Psycho follows its lead with MANY laugh out loud and quirky moments. A character who rides a horse around the office (that horse later gives you some real sage advice), over the top sound effects for characters, and a scaredy-cat main character provide a superb juxtaposition with horror and humor.

I had to use a guide on a few sections because I really wanted to finish the game today, but after looking up the answers I saw immediately what the dev was going for 99% of the time, no bullshit troll logic puzzles like old adventure games, it is all fairly straightforward. The gameplay may not have been too out there to write home about, but its charm, wit, humor and macabre situations made this a real joy to play.

This game is one of my all time favorite horror indie game, the soundtrack for the game is amazing, the gameplay put tension on you as you try to figure puzzles that are actually challenging to get away from a monster or simply trying to get to a new area, figuring out how to have you inventory perfect and have enough papers to save makes the game have a whole new puzzle making you think "should I use this?, should I pick this up or will it just take up space" the story itself is great and lastly the artwork for this game is stunning

Es un gran juego que mezcla el gore con los puzzles, el misterio y el humor. Todo genial en este juego excepto algún puzzle bastante obtuso y sobre todo una cosa. El sistema de guardado. Yo entiendo que los desarrolladores han querido darle ese tono de supervivencia limitando mucho el guardar, pero cuándo tengo que repetir secciones enteras con conversaciones por 4ª vez, todo el mundo empieza a caerme gordo. Personalmente no aguanto que me hagan perder el tiempo, y si no se lo perdono a los souls, no se lo puedo perdonar a este por mucho que resuene conmigo. Me ha gustado, pero aviso por si hay otro como yo que entres sabiendo que durante un 10% del juego te vas a cabrear a base de bien.

You have been hired at Sintra Corp for one specific job. Kill the witch that resides in these offices.

With that vague job description you are thrust into the world of Yuppie Psycho, traveling between different office floors and avoiding the witch's monstrous creations all in the effort to kill her, and free the office from her curse. This game reminds me heavily of old RPG maker horror games, with a touch of more 3d survival horror games such as the resident evil series. While a walkthrough was helpful at times to avoid hitting dead ends, that is nothing new for the genre of survival/puzzle horror. Overall, it was a very enjoyable game with comedic and horrific moments alike that made you really feel like you were exploring the different floors and slowly tracking down the witch.

A blood filled workplace satire survival horror comedy. Brian Pasternack is on a low rung of a caste system until the day he receives a letter from a major corporation wanting him to appear for his first job, later revealed to be working as a witch hunter. A witch having been corrupting the company for decades. With most of the corrupting influence and employee attitudes being directly or a metaphor for work and social issues. Monsters are ignored or worshipped, work is done over and around dead bodies, your job is targeted at lower class people to lure them into the company as hunters and sacrifices, employees looking for promotion attempt to get their rivals killed, employees make excuses of getting used to the company culture, not wanting to quit with it looking bad on their resume, or needing to help the team as reasons to stay with the company.

Good soundtrack and sound design. Satisfying puzzle for navigation and the corrupted bosses and enemies you encounter, lots of secrets with multiple endings with the updated version that released last year adding an alternate path for the endgame. Cast of likable and appropriately hateable characters. Well done and mood fitting manga influenced pixel artwork and short cutscenes.

Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1376103030756499464

Yuppie Psycho se nos presenta en esta executive edition como un survival horror de oficina en 2d pixelado. Ambientado en unas oficinas de los años 90, con mucho humor, personajes muy locos y que no se cortan en soltarte lo que piensan de ti, horror psicótico y con muchos easter eggs, pero infinitos: desde la búsqueda incansable por todo el edificio de VHS de películas caseras a puertas y habitaciones ocultas.
No os esperéis «por su apariencia» un juego cuco o sencillo. Las muertes están a la vuelta de cada esquina y los sustos asegurados, con esos agentes de vigilancia en persecución por zonas muy oscuras, y Brian con unas lastimosas barritas de luz y un simple café para curarse un poquito.
Consejo, id varias veces a la cocina y BUSCAR bien en cada lugar y cajón ingredientes y alimentos para curar a nuestro amigo Brian. Lo vais a necesitar.

Gran parte de Yuppie Psycho usa cinemáticas propias de un juego de terror, pero lo absurdo de la ambientación y cómico de sus diálogos, rompen la tensión y esa atmósfera de horror y agobio de sus escenarios, para darnos a los jugadores un respirito, y que pensemos: bueno, no ha sido para tanto.
El juego juega con el jugador con ese horror Psicótico de matar por matar. De descabezar y acuchillar a tus compañeros de curro por estrés y el agobio que produce estar sentado 12h en un cubículo a media luz dándole a las teclas sin descanso alguno. El horror estilo american Psycho, de ese sobresalir por encima de todos sin importar el precio ni lo que nos cueste, mezclado con las historias de terror japonesas, dan el toque perfecto a este juego, y lo hacen, diría yo, único en su genero.
Jugablemente, Yuppie Psycho navega entre una aventura gráfica y un survival horror. Se controla maravillosamente bien con mando o con teclado. Por un lado tendremos esa búsqueda infinita de objetos, y puzles sencillitos por todo el edificio y por el otro, los monstruos y ambiente infernal que quiere matarnos. Y no solo eso, si no que el toque de supervivencia viene dado también por la escasez de objetos de salud y puntos de guardado, los cuales necesitan de objetos para ser activados, algo así como las cintas del primer Resident Evil, pero aquí con tinta y folios. Os aseguro que encontrar uno os hará dar palmas con las orejas. Aunque esto anima a jugar sin guardar durante largos períodos de tiempo, para ahorrar papel, pero también es peligroso por las muertes…

El edificio es enorme y tiene una cantidad proporcional de secretos, rutas alternativas y zonas opcionales. Eso también da lugar a un par de momentos del juego en el que la forma de progresar en la historia varia, dando lugar a varios finales. El DLC gratuito y añadido en esta edición, añade nuevas salas y nuevas formas de ejecutar y finalizar nuestro trabajo en la empresa.
El apartado visual es magnifico, tanto en las zonas de juego como en las cinemáticas, el equipo español de Baroque Decay ha realizado un trabajo muy cuidado y precioso, incluso con las escenas de actores reales de los VHS de cine amateur de terror. De 10.
La Banda sonora viene a cargo de Michael “Garoad” Kelly y crea una atmósfera escalofriante cuando tiene que ser escalofriante y tranquila o de reposo en las zonas de dialogo.

Yuppie Psycho es para mí una verdadera joya. Intenso y escalofriante a ratos, y cómico y alocado en general. Con unas 22-23h de juego para ver todos los caminos y finales. Un gran descubrimiento que me ha encantado jugar a solas, sin directos, disfrutándolo poco a poco. Leyendo cada dialogo y comprendiendo la historia. Una historia de empresas, ejecutivos, familia, brujas y ¿sapos?
Sin duda alguna, muy recomendable.