What is the first thing that comes into mind when you hear the word horror? Is it fear or excitement? Do you imagine monsters, ghost or demons? What about when you think about a morgue? Can you bring yourself to work with the dead or do you get squeamish?

Well, let me tell you that the new horror game created by solo dev company, DarkStone Digital, and published by DreadXP, sets us up for some amazingly good scares. Before even beginning, we receive a warning about it being based on actual events which immediately changes the whole ambience and feel of the game. How willing are you to abandon your sanity in order to complete your work?

Gameplay

In The Mortuary Assistant, you are playing as Rebecca, a newbie to the whole preparing the dead business. The story begins with a cutscene in which we see Rebecca and her grandmother talking about the opportunity of her working with whom used to be one of her professors directly in his funeral home. The first time you enter the home Raymond, your boss, is waiting for you to give you a basic tutorial of what you should do. As you begin preparing the assigned body, things drastically change into what appears to be a living nightmare and you are sent home. 

After that, your real first night shift begins. Once you get to the home, you realize you're alone and you must prepare three cadavers that are waiting for you in the morgue. Of course, the game couldn't be so simple as to just let you prepare them and go back home, or it would be called Mortuary Simulator instead. As soon as you enter the preparation room, you notice things won't be as easy as Raymond made them seem earlier. Through a call and some voice recording you learn part of the truth as to why you are there alone and what your job really entitles. 

Rebecca, who went in thinking she would just need to clean and prepare some bodies finds out that not only does she need to do her regular mortuary job but has now become a demon hunter that must follow specific clues to learn inside which cadaver the demon is hiding before it's too late and the demon takes possession of her.  If that wasn't enough, the demon makes sure to keep the shift entertaining by leaving random surprises and scares for her. 

There is also an investigative factor to the game. The deeper you investigate and solve puzzles around the Mortuary home, the more secrets you'll be able to unlock and the closer you get to understanding everything better. This is a must if you wish to unlock all 5 endings. 

Interface

Let me tell you, the game makes a great use of it's sounds. For the most part, you are playing in a calm environment with no extraordinary sounds until something happens and it startles you, or you turn on the cleaning pump, which was very noisy. 

When I saw the cutscene graphics, I felt a bit disappointed since the characters faces looked a bit awkward at first but once you're actually playing the game, the graphics are amazing, especially when it's time for scares. There is clarity and depth in the quality of the graphics for this game. Of course, you have the choice of modifying the quality to fit your needs. 

Controls are fairly easy to use and the game keeps a constant reminder of the key to use for each specific action you are doing. My chosen way to play was with keyboard and mouse. During the tutorial, you get a taste of the controls and since you'll be repeating most of the same actions, you'll adapt to the keys used really fast. 

Pros/Cons

Pros:

• Great scares. The game offers to scare you and it delivers really well on that part. Some scares are predictable but others just come out of nowhere and take you by surprise. 
• Engaging scenes and secrets. Doing a little digging has consequences in this game. Are they good? I'll just say doubt everything and never trust your sanity level to be fine. 
• Evolving loop. After finishing your first shift, things can feel repetitive but there is always something new. Cadavers, names and ailments change. You get new scares and new scenes unlock. 
• Different endings. As I mentioned earlier, the game has 5 different endings and trust me when I say that if you want to know what is going on, unlocking all endings will give you a lot of information. Just be careful of your actions.

Cons:

• Some puzzles/investigation needs work. Once you are on the personal quest to unlock all endings, there are puzzles that could use a bit of work, especially if you zoned out at any given moment and didn't pay attention to some very light cues the game might give you.
• Availability. Currently, the game is only available for pc thru Steam which means that not every gamer would have access to it.

Final Thoughts

Mortuary Assistant surprised me. When I saw the demo for this game a couple months back, I was immediately into it, not because of the horror aspect but because I had always been interested in the job done on morgues. When I had the chance to play the actual game, I admit that at first I found the whole demon hunting business a bit cliche but I still decided to give it a try and really enjoyed it.  Without going into details, having to identify and "deal" with the cadaver holding the demon felt like if CSI had teamed up with Supernatural. 

However, I would have loved it the game had some sort of quick time events that would bring the tension up and would probably make it a scarier experience. By the completion of all the endings, I still wanted to play more. Hopefully the dev surprises us with Raymond's story next, even if we get some of this information in the game, I would love to play his story.  

Rating:          

(On a scale of 1-5, being 5 the absolute best)

The Mortuary Assistant was able to do what a lot of other horror games failed in the recent years, actually jump scare me. It definitely takes the cake and it's one, if not the best, horror game of 2022 in my book. The only reason why I didn't give it a perfect score was the repetitiveness factor of the job and the cadavers. Once you do two to three rounds, you begin seeing similar cadavers with other names and ailments. I wish there was a bit more variety. However, for a game developed by a single person, it is actually amazing all that was accomplished so be sure to check it out!

Currently available on:

Steam