Well... It was... Something...

Created by the Fading Club studio, Psychopomp is a game that can be viewed as a very interesting piece of alternative art project, since it's a free, short and marvelous experience that will stuck with you.

It is an dungeon crawler with psychological horror elements, an unique art style and a very vibey soundtrack (The after credits menu song is a fucking banger).

As for the plot, it is very confusing, but I say that in a good way, this is game is not meant to be understood, it is meant to be felt, so, if you have some spare time, give it a shot! I also recommend other games by the dev such as Dashbored and DREAMWILD if you want more of Fading Club's unique games.

Psychopomp is a perplexing, and unsettling 3D dungeon crawler that’s currently free on Steam. It’s intentionally esoteric in just about every aspect in its design. It has a kind of vibe that’s very reminiscent of other indie games like Milk inside a bag of milk or OFF, a sort of dark perversion of early-to-mid 2000s nostalgia with its fuzzy polygonal visuals and its ambient downtempo soundtrack. It’s not a game that especially blew me away, but it was a nice palate cleanser. It’s something different, something new that I hadn’t really played before. It’s very short, only an hour long, and it feels more like a small experiment than a fully realized project, but it was still a pretty solid time.

You play as an unnamed protagonist who is clearly very paranoid and believes everyone in the world is keeping secrets from her. She may even possibly be suffering from psychosis-induced hallucinations. She develops a helmet which she refers to as the “Psychopomp” that allows her to see “a world hidden in plain sight, with all sorts of animals and creatures and dead bodies.” According to her, “there are catacombs hidden underneath every public government building”, and she sets out to infiltrate those hidden catacombs and uncover their secrets.

Despite the game’s cryptic dialogue, I think the themes of its narrative are very clear. It’s very much a game about capitalism and how the system is abused to keep those with money in power while the common people suffer through neglect. The dungeons you explore are located beneath a sewage plant, children’s hospital, and a public school, and you discover how each of these locations feed off of or drain resources and materials from people. It’s commentary on how these institutions can fail those it was meant to provide for. Despite the protagonist’s behavior giving the impression that she’s insane, I think that her belief that everyone is keeping secrets from her is supposed to represent how complacent we as a society are in letting these institutions get away with a lot of the awful things they do. To the protagonist, any sensible person would realize that something needs to be done about the people who are running these places, but no one is doing anything about it but her. For the sake of transparency (and to hopefully avoid any sort of debate in the comments) I will be fully up-front and say that I don’t feel that I’m educated on these topics enough to be able to hold an extensive conversation regarding them, nor do I feel my stance on these topics is necessary to elaborate on for the purposes of this review. I’m just sharing my interpretation of this game’s narrative themes.

I’ve never played a dungeon crawler prior to this, so it was a bit of a challenge getting used to its controls. It may be 3D, but you don’t have a full range of motion, you can only move in the cardinal directions. You’re also limited in your ability to control the camera, you can only look around if you stand still and hold ctrl while moving your mouse. Despite being unusual and taking some getting used to, I didn’t really have any major issues with how the game controls until you’re forced to engage in combat. Combat feels really clunky. It’s very difficult to gauge your range of attack, and I found I often had to get in the enemies’ faces in order to be at a range to do damage to them. This basically forced me to stay in one place and mash left click while I prayed I killed them before they killed me. Thankfully there aren’t really many combat encounters in the game, but I definitely found this to be a sore spot. If you die, you do have to redo the entire dungeon from the very beginning, but the dungeons are so short and easy to navigate that it’s not as big of an inconvenience as it sounds.

The game’s biggest appeal to me is its presentation. Its art direction is excellent. The designs of all of the different creatures you encounter ride a fine line between grotesque and playfully unsettling. While environments can be very dark, the game uses various colored lights to great effect in different areas. I love the artstyle the protagonist is drawn in, it reminds me heavily of that late 2000s anime/Invader Zim-inspired art that could be found on DeviantArt back in the day. The soundtrack is also such a great listen, ambient downtempo is one of my favorite music genres and I really wish that more games used this kind of music in their soundtracks.

Psychopomp was a very refreshing game to play. It’s a neat trip that managed to really enthrall me with its aesthetics. It’s not revolutionary by any means, but I’d be hella down to play something like this that’s longer and more fleshed out, especially in regards to the combat. If you’re looking for something short but different, give this game a shot. It’s definitely not a game that’s going to be for everybody, but it’s free and it’s only an hour long, so you’ve got practically nothing to lose by giving this game a try.

Don't have a ton to say about this game honestly. The presentation absolutely ruled and everything about it's world and art seems interesting as hell but there just isn't a whole lot to actually go over here. However at the same time it's free so this works out! Makes it a extremely easy recommendation if you want a really short (30 mins to a hour) horror dungeon crawler experience. I'm excited to see what the dev does next.
PS. The music is absolutely my shit all the way through, I think it's amazing sounding. However I know some people who think it sounds just kinda shit.

Really unique psychological horror game that uses a control scheme that reminds me of dungeon crawlers like SMT2. The design of everything from the HUD to the enemies really add to the mood of the game, everything feels off and a bit gross.

The controls are pretty restricting seemingly on purpose and I think it really adds to the tension of the game. You cant move and turn at the same time so your field of view and ability to observe your surroundings is much slower and limited, and I love it. There's some parts of the game that really take advantage of this method of movement and it really enhances what the game has to show. Game is pretty short but I think it's short runtime is a benefit since it ends just before you could start getting frustrated by some of the shortcomings.

Traversing the dungeons can be a pain since your movement speed is pretty slow and sprinting doesn't last long. There's lots of backtracking in each dungeon and there's one dungeon in particular where its easy to get lost. Another one of the dungeons is a bit of a slog due to precise movement required, and since there's no saves in dungeons you have to restart if you die. I'm fine with this since it adds tension to every combat encounter you have, but certain parts could be fairer towards the player considering you have to restart upon death.

Even if the game is a bit rough around the edges, I think this game will stick with me more than most because of how great the atmosphere is throughout the game. A highlight for me is the soundtrack, which is moody and a bit catchy, the closest I can compare it to is PSX or Dreamcast game OSTs, it's really great. I highly recommend trying this game since it has a great sense of atmosphere and uses movement in a way that enhances the horror aspect of the game. Not to mention it's FREE! No excuse to at least try it.

Elite environment and art design. The sound design creates a beautifully ominous atmosphere I've never experienced before, it was so intriguing that I wanted to explore it all because every new thing I encountered was unnerving but interesting. The dialogue, setting and inner monologues create this maniacal, elated character who seems to have gone through intense mental struggles and is now relieved to be able to see the truth and the filth they were convinced always existed but couldn't see. Limited sprint for no reason, the only items are either keys or health potions so I thought either there should be a few more distinct items or do away with the giant inventory screen entirely, and at times you can get lost which is annoying in an exploration game like this, but I can't recommend this game enough.

Psychopomp is meaningless meaningfulness.

Almost nothing about the game is trustworthy. You inhabit the perspective of our main character, an unreliable narrator who believes the world has been lying to them, creating a device to perceive this world for what it really is. The problem is, this turns out to work, at least, from their perspective.

The game frames it's dialogue through our main character, with thought bubbles of her speaking to the player about gameplay tips and "tips" about the real world. Both of these tips are full of false information with the occasional true tip about the game. What's real here and what's not is hard to decipher, and that's exactly the point.

The gameplay is also designed from her perspective, the UI itself being the mechanical workings of the strange device she's devised. There's literal gears pulling up to showcase her inventory, colored tubes punctuating out of the mechanical brace of the helmet demonstrating her stamina, there's a monitor haphazardly placed to the side of her vision with an image of herself in order examine her vitals. Every part of the game is fed through her perspective.

The game harkens back to dungeon crawler mechanics, but with your primary actions being more within the realm of a point and click adventure game. You look at the horrid tentacle demons with anime masks hiding their true fleshy faces, you speak to large humonoid rat creatures with boobs the size of my head, you touch the warm felt of a metal processing worker's apron who's working under a giant creature's baby-like head who desires you to kill him. You attack in this game with your trusty hammer, which comes down with a satisfying animation and crushes everything into a fine meat paste.

You start off in each area you visit in relatively normal settings, only to descend down an elevator towards this new reality. In one, you're in a hospital wing with Alexander The Great, Cleopatra and Plato propped up by fat fleshy bodies, being kept alive with their sickly ideals until you cut their life support off. The giant creature child who only wants to die is being overworked and exploited by those around him, kids laughing can be heard inside burning furnaces, workers are ambivalent everything besides their work. The world is being exposed for it's true nature in it's most metaphorical sense.

Yet there's also hintings of something greater. There's implications on one sign that speaks of human beings like the writer isn't one of them, there's an entire epilogue sequence where we discover a note that showcases a galactic event occurring that has an entire portion of space blacked out entirely. There's a sign that reads interpretations of what stars mean, only for someone to write over it saying "there are no stars". We take perspective of someone waking up from a motel and speaking to someone on dealing with a future plan that will be unfolding, a new UI and everything to match with our maybe current reality. Maybe it's aliens, maybe it's Gods come to Earth in the form of aliens, maybe it's something else entirely.

Psychopomp feels like a stepping stone into a much larger project. Within the 90 minutes I've put into the game, it's managed to hook me in with it's visuals, dialogue, and gameplay, creating a dream-like nightmare that comes and goes in the blink of an eye. It's a fascinating title that I desperately want more of.