Decarnation

Decarnation is an incredible and well written video game, supported by an intelligent and always engaging and impactful storytelling. Furthermore, the play structure fascinates and surprises. Must have absolutely.

Ultimately Decarnation is incredibly thought-provoking. Gloria’s life in the physical world is slowly falling apart, which in turn has a significant impact on her deteriorating psyche. You’ll find yourself thinking about this game even when you’re not playing it, and there can be no greater praise than that.

This is a narrative adventure short but intense that relies on a well-crafted pixel-art style to deliver a solid story about mental struggle.

Decarnation is a unique horror puzzler that tries to make sense of the main character’s emotional breakdown in ways that don’t make sense. It effectively keeps players off balance throughout, but also in ways that knock the gameplay off balance, unfortunately.

Decarnation is not about the gameplay, but about the journey. And that journey is wrought with existentialism, Lovecraftian horror, and psychological quandaries that may be trigger inducing. It will grip you, refuse to let go, and entrap you until the end of its story. Should you play Decarnation, you will be opting into experiencing horror through the eyes of a protagonist you may, or may not, empathize with. Should you play Decarnation, you should also avoid sharing its execution of horrors that should remain unspeakable. In other words, avoid spoiling whenever possible.

Decarnation flirts the line of pretension but ultimately handles the subject matter decently. The gameplay is too on the light side, and sometimes frustrating when it doesn’t work how it should. However, the audio/visuals are stellar making it a decent psychological horror that should please fans of the genre.

Decarnation is a game with a lot of potential that it just doesn't realize. There are absolutely good points to the game, such as its fantastic sprite art for the environments around you or the grotesque monster designs you encounter throughout, and the plot is also at times very relatable to anybody else going through a similar downward spiral in life, but this is not enough to counteract the overly long minigames or the unfortunately lackluster puzzles. This is made a bit worse by the fact that the game hits the point where most stories of this type usually end, and then keeps going for upwards of an hour, doggedly refusing to roll credits in favor of a drawn out series of epilogue scenes. I really wanted to like Decarnation–it was near the top of my list in terms of most anticipated indie titles for the year–but sadly it just did not deliver the experience I had hoped. It is not what I would necessarily call a bad game, but it is one held back by its multiple missteps along the way.