This review contains spoilers
Flesh Water is a “dead body disposal” simulator and side scroller developed by the Euphoric Brothers (known as Faris and Ghepo), known especially for the series of games named the Garten of Banban, of which they created four titles in the series, along with other smaller games such as Human Apocalypse, Egghead Gumpty, and another side scroller horror game called He Needs His Medicine. I don’t really know much about these guys other than their previous titles (and how Flesh Water is remarkably different from the likes of Banban) and some Wikia page that outlines some drama that I’m not sure is true, nor do I care to look into it because that’s not what I’m here for. My personal engagement with this game comes from the fact that my dude, Mr. Bad Ghosts showed it to me as he was scouring for games to potentially cover amongst many and I thought “Eh you know, this looks pretty interesting, I want to give it a spin”. There’s also the other game he showed me by these guys, the previously mentioned He Needs His Medicine that I want to try out and stream for another friend of mine some day and so I felt like it would be appropriate to throw out my thoughts here first.
The plot to Flesh Water is pretty simple (spoiler warning): you play as Liz (a woman who has a condition where she’s mute), along with your coworker Chloe are sent one last time to an old, soon to be abandoned aquarium or something as a part of their pet feeding service. For the most part, you’ll generally clean up around the place (on orders from the manager Mark), take out the trash and such before fulfilling one final task: dumping a dead body into the pool out back. This is where you’ll get one of a couple of endings, depending on the chemical and whether or not you pick up the gun. You pick up the “Yellow Bottle” and after bringing the body over a makeshift couch boat to the other side, and shutting down the nearby control room, one of many things could happen. Either you picked the wrong chemical and the body got burnt, leading to Chloe attempting to kill you as a sacrifice (which depending on whether or not you use the gun may or may not succeed) leading to one or the other surviving and getting out of there); you could get eaten by the fish by choosing another wrong “Yellow Bottle”, or you choose the right one and you both get to leave. It’s simple, but for me I wanted to know more about the background events. How did this monster come about? Who owned it? What company is it where they feed dead bodies? Who was this “other team” that was “discharged”? It’s short and sweet but leaves me wanting more answers about the world that they’re in.
With this game being a free indie game that only lasts a couple of minutes, for the most part you’ll just be walking to certain areas, picking stuff up and opening doors. You’ll press a button sometimes here and there but as a narrative game, you’re mostly just focused on doing what Chloe asks of you. It’s simple, and it works fine for what it is. I know some people complain how when they go for another run for one of the other endings that it’s scripted nature is repetitive and unskippable, I didn’t really mind because you can get the other endings in less than an hour anyways but I guess I can see why people would get upset at that.
The sound design will be a rather short section, since your main character doesn’t talk, the only voice you’ll be able to hear is the one from your coworker Chloe. Her voice acting is believable and the mixing here is pretty good. All the sounds from the footsteps, to the sounds of cleaning the walls to opening doors sound solid and I have no complaints about any of it really. There isn’t anything in the way of music, unless you count quiet droning ASMR you would hear in any sort of abandoned facility with air vents.
The atmosphere around the game, while only taking place inside of the abandoned pet store feels dark and oppressive. Taking the course over one night, the only form of lights you’ll see are the ones inside the confines of this pet shop, and even then you get dim lights that only hit up the most important spots. Graphically as a side scroller narrative horror game it’s minimalistic and pixelated, dreary even with dark colors. The one thing that came out of this side of the coin is that for some reason, the environment it gives off mixed with certain story beats makes me feel like it’s in a strange universe of its own, one where the atmosphere is ALWAYS like this. You only get brief glimpses of the monster in certain instances, but you don’t really get too much of a bead on its size either, making it that much more threatening and ominous as to where it’ll be or when it’ll come out.
The final thoughts are that it isn’t bad at all, it’s a small and enjoyable (most importantly FREE) indie game that while doesn’t always feel like it makes out on it’s full potential, gives a good enough glimpse into a strange world that left me potentially interested in more. The game literally took thirty or so minutes for me to get all the endings that I was looking for, and will most likely take everyone else around the same time or maybe more or less. Again, the devs released a bunch of different games after this one, mostly Human Apocalypse and the Banban series of which I know absolutely nothing about. If you’re interested in a small indie horror game and your budget is tight, consider giving this one a try and see what you think.
Links:
https://www.euphoricbrothers.com/about
https://www.youtube.com/@EuphoricBrothers/videos
https://twitter.com/euphoric_bros?lang=en
https://itch.io/profile/euphoric-brothers
https://store.steampowered.com/developer/euphoricbros
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi9xQaR7l5EMW2yY3fnYL6w (Shoutout to Ghosts for the Rec)
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The plot to Flesh Water is pretty simple (spoiler warning): you play as Liz (a woman who has a condition where she’s mute), along with your coworker Chloe are sent one last time to an old, soon to be abandoned aquarium or something as a part of their pet feeding service. For the most part, you’ll generally clean up around the place (on orders from the manager Mark), take out the trash and such before fulfilling one final task: dumping a dead body into the pool out back. This is where you’ll get one of a couple of endings, depending on the chemical and whether or not you pick up the gun. You pick up the “Yellow Bottle” and after bringing the body over a makeshift couch boat to the other side, and shutting down the nearby control room, one of many things could happen. Either you picked the wrong chemical and the body got burnt, leading to Chloe attempting to kill you as a sacrifice (which depending on whether or not you use the gun may or may not succeed) leading to one or the other surviving and getting out of there); you could get eaten by the fish by choosing another wrong “Yellow Bottle”, or you choose the right one and you both get to leave. It’s simple, but for me I wanted to know more about the background events. How did this monster come about? Who owned it? What company is it where they feed dead bodies? Who was this “other team” that was “discharged”? It’s short and sweet but leaves me wanting more answers about the world that they’re in.
With this game being a free indie game that only lasts a couple of minutes, for the most part you’ll just be walking to certain areas, picking stuff up and opening doors. You’ll press a button sometimes here and there but as a narrative game, you’re mostly just focused on doing what Chloe asks of you. It’s simple, and it works fine for what it is. I know some people complain how when they go for another run for one of the other endings that it’s scripted nature is repetitive and unskippable, I didn’t really mind because you can get the other endings in less than an hour anyways but I guess I can see why people would get upset at that.
The sound design will be a rather short section, since your main character doesn’t talk, the only voice you’ll be able to hear is the one from your coworker Chloe. Her voice acting is believable and the mixing here is pretty good. All the sounds from the footsteps, to the sounds of cleaning the walls to opening doors sound solid and I have no complaints about any of it really. There isn’t anything in the way of music, unless you count quiet droning ASMR you would hear in any sort of abandoned facility with air vents.
The atmosphere around the game, while only taking place inside of the abandoned pet store feels dark and oppressive. Taking the course over one night, the only form of lights you’ll see are the ones inside the confines of this pet shop, and even then you get dim lights that only hit up the most important spots. Graphically as a side scroller narrative horror game it’s minimalistic and pixelated, dreary even with dark colors. The one thing that came out of this side of the coin is that for some reason, the environment it gives off mixed with certain story beats makes me feel like it’s in a strange universe of its own, one where the atmosphere is ALWAYS like this. You only get brief glimpses of the monster in certain instances, but you don’t really get too much of a bead on its size either, making it that much more threatening and ominous as to where it’ll be or when it’ll come out.
The final thoughts are that it isn’t bad at all, it’s a small and enjoyable (most importantly FREE) indie game that while doesn’t always feel like it makes out on it’s full potential, gives a good enough glimpse into a strange world that left me potentially interested in more. The game literally took thirty or so minutes for me to get all the endings that I was looking for, and will most likely take everyone else around the same time or maybe more or less. Again, the devs released a bunch of different games after this one, mostly Human Apocalypse and the Banban series of which I know absolutely nothing about. If you’re interested in a small indie horror game and your budget is tight, consider giving this one a try and see what you think.
Links:
https://www.euphoricbrothers.com/about
https://www.youtube.com/@EuphoricBrothers/videos
https://twitter.com/euphoric_bros?lang=en
https://itch.io/profile/euphoric-brothers
https://store.steampowered.com/developer/euphoricbros
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi9xQaR7l5EMW2yY3fnYL6w (Shoutout to Ghosts for the Rec)
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/