Mouthwashing’s best triumph is inserting you on the scene. The primary being the obvious crime: a captain steering their house freighter into hurt’s means, solely on goal. You are there, staring via the eyes of the particular person within the cockpit. You open the locker and seize the important thing and insert it into the security override panel with a satisfying click on. You see the plastic casing spring open and the purple button emerge. You press it and hearken to the sirens whirr. You seize the steering wheel and yank it.
Proper from the beginning, you wish to know why that is simply occurred and the place, maybe, did your character present indicators of extra plaque and a disregard for flossing. However the scene’s modified! And also you’re Jimmy, a bloke on an area freighter nonetheless many months earlier than the crash. You be taught that you just had been in the course of hauling 1000’s of bottles of mouthwash for a corporation referred to as Pony Categorical. After the captain’s actions, you are now shipwrecked with little or no hope of survival. And the mouthwash? Yeah, it is clogged up 90% of the ship, so only some tunnels and areas are accessible.
Nonetheless, you meet your crewmates who aren’t overly proud of the state of affairs however surviving nonetheless. Swansea is a grumpy veteran and engineer, Daisuke is his surf bro intern, there’s the ever anxious nurse Anya, and… Captain Curly who lies on a stretcher within the medical room. Basked within the orange glow of a sundown scene projected over his bandaged shoulder, Curly is a horribly disfigured sufferer of the crash, and a brilliantly upsetting flash of blood-soaked bandages and purple scar tissue: a beacon and a intelligent reminder that, sure, it’d appear type of advantageous at that very second, however it’s solely going to get a complete lot darker.
To say any extra in regards to the story can be to spoil a horror recreation that solely takes possibly a few hours to complete (maybe a tad kind of). Nonetheless, it is the way it presents you with scenes that grants the sport a compelling cinematic form. The place different video games hit you with pure closing sequences, like bosses or fades to black, Mouthwashing is abrupt. You would possibly latch a door closed and the sport will freeze and the PSX visuals will bleed, a chugging noise within the background harking back to a tape spooling to an in depth. It is actually fairly one thing.
Not solely is it a intelligent visible, although, it is a means of converging timelines that allow you to piece collectively essential context. Early on you bear witness to the crew’s first foray into survival and the way they deal with the crash. The Pony Categorical mascot within the lounge is pristine and folks have provisions subsequent to their sleeping luggage. Then the scene would possibly swap and it is weeks out from the crash. Right here, you get an perception right into a freighter earlier than stress and stress and despair filtered into everybody’s psyche. As one timeline strikes forwards, the opposite stays shut behind. You would possibly swap to that scene, the place you are latching a door closed in a panic – however you do not know why. Oh don’t be concerned, you will be taught, as the primary flashback would possibly begin you within the lounge, the place the Pony Categorical mascot lies splintered aside.
And like I mentioned earlier, you reside via all of it, and it actually helps plant you within the ship as you each piece collectively how the story ends and everybody’s inevitable descent into insanity. Not solely is it a brilliantly realised house, with the ship’s slim tunnels eternally feeling a bit too quiet and twisty, or wall screens projecting calming night time or day scenes – it is a pleasure (nightmare) on the ears. The hole clunk of your steps, the sound of Curly’s jaw creaking open as you plop a painkiller into his mouth, and the hum of your scanner actually do envelop you within the ship’s more and more oppressive ambiance.
Sounds? Spot on. Stuff you do along with your fingers? Additionally nice. The make-up of what you really do on the ship is easy, however splendidly tactile. Aims are sometimes curt and typically weird, the place Curly would possibly request a cake, so that you flip to the retro-futurist food-making machine and interact in some immerse simmery. You flick via directions pinned to a wall, then discover the sachets and plop them into the machine within the right order, the machine depositing the completed article with a ping. I like how Mouthwashing all the time includes you in the whole lot, the place even the only actions have this air of, “I wager this’ll have an effect on the longer term timeline in some horrible means”. You by no means really feel comfortable.
I would not say, although, that Mouthwashing is all that scary; coming from an enormous wimp like me. And I perceive that scariness is subjective, however simply know that this is not a giant, huge jumpscare type of expertise. I would say it is extra upsetting and grisly, with solely a few surreal sequences which are really scary from a risk standpoint (somebody or one thing is out to get you). In any other case, there’s plenty of weirdness or yikes-ness, as you endure psychotic breaks spliced into scenes, the place the ship contorts and eyes would possibly spring from the partitions.
Generally I would say it suffers from a little bit of surrealist tunnel meandering that drags on for just a little too lengthy, or surrealist interpretations of your character’s psyche that appear a bit too on the nostril. Some scenes additionally endure from an absence of course, the place it is like, “Go right here”, and also you would possibly run across the ship for ages bumping your nostril into each interactable factor, hoping it is the interactable factor that’ll show you how to progress. On a few events, I really turned to a walkthrough as a result of I used to be genuinely a bit stumped. One answer I might have found out if I actually put my two mind cells to work, however one different? Nah, not an opportunity.
Mouthwashing’s a tough one to assessment, specifically as a result of I’ve to bounce across the story in concern of spoiling it for you. I hope I’ve no less than obtained throughout the way it tells the story and the way it actually is a well-told, succinct descent right into a crew’s deepest darkest secrets and techniques and struggles. Belief me, you will wish to play it in a single or two sittings, primarily since you will not be capable of peel your self away from it. The one occasions you would possibly, are when it does not signpost these options properly sufficient. Go forth and swill your mouth out with this one, I say.
