Mouthwashing |

Publisher: Critical Reflex

Developer: Wrong Organ

Release Date: 09/24/2024

Available Exclusively On

As new retro horror games take over and try to capture the nostalgia and strangeness of the 90’s and early 2000’s, horror games like Mouthwashing really show us not only how close we can come, but also how far away we are still. Mouthwashing is, sadly, another psychological horror walking simulator. While it does its job well, I would love to see more details about this world and the strangeness that the crew delves into. A lot of space horror games tend to rely heavily on the Aliens franchise in terms of using space only as a background wallpaper and nothing else. We don’t get to feel the suffering in space; while it’s hinted at, the main focus is the slow descent into madness that the crew experiences, which we’ve seen time and time again.

That’s not to say Mouthwashing does a bad job at this. At least the characters and short story line are cohesive and make sense, rather than spinning out into a collage of psychedelic visual effects that mean nothing to the players such as Layers of Fear. What we get is a little background on each character and the chance to actually see a personality develop between them, which is hard to pull off in such a short run time. The game can be finished in less than three hours, and the narrative and storytelling quickly stray from traditional walking simulator conventions for more metaphorical visual effects to represent mental states of sanity. The mission for your crew involves transporting a product, which I won’t reveal to avoid spoiling a significant plot point, across a lengthy shipment haul. A mistake by the captain causes the hull to breach, and then the entire ship is flooded with expanding foam to seal hull breaches. Your mission is to complete the mission and return home. On board are five crew mates. The crew consists of a nurse, an engineer, his intern, the captain, and an additional crew member.

You spend the first half of the game getting to know them, completing simple objectives like “Talk to Swansea” and “Bake the Cake.” There are only two hallways in the entire game, which you can explore outside of the scripted areas later on. Some of the scripted areas feel the most like a “walking simulator,” where you can simply run away from obstacles or explore as the world changes around you. There are a couple of neat gameplay ideas, such as using a blacklight to find codes that only the captain can use to access doors, as well as a certain recipe in the kitchen. The scene only uses the others once, but I won’t reveal their details to avoid major spoilers.

The visuals are reminiscent of PS1 graphics with blocky characters, flat pixelated textures, but surprisingly decent lighting effects. The game boasts a stunning visual aesthetic that surpasses most other games in this genre. The effects are outstanding, and the grotesque designs of some scenes are truly remarkable, not to mention the excellent sound design. Sadly, there isn’t really any music other than ambient sounds. The game does have a creepy and unsettling atmosphere, but nothing that will scare the pants off of you.

Overall, Mouthwashing is a decent new retro walking simulator with space horror elements. It’s not revolutionary and doesn’t do anything we haven’t seen before, but the story is decent enough and feels like it gets its message across during the short play time. The characters aren’t anything memorable, but just intriguing enough to want to know what happens to them. The visuals feel retro, and there are some cool effects, but some better music would have helped here.