The Tragic Aftertaste of “Mouthwashing” — Game Recommendation

I hope you are ready to take responsibility. … Are you?

I’ll cut to the chase and say that Mouthwashing has some of the most inventive graphics I’ve seen for a game following a retro 3D aesthetic. The use of visual glitches and surreal spaces does wonders in building a very enthralling space.

If you’re looking for a short but visceral horror game that’s sure to leave you thinking about it, you can’t go wrong with Mouthwashing. It’s got a great presentation and a phenomenal story that hooked me from the first minute.

Our aforementioned game is a first-person horror game in which you mostly interact by clicking around the environment and looking for useful things.

While the general formula has been explored many times before, Mouthwashing does a great job refining the experience and facilitating the more cinematic moments.

Frequently, your interactions are framed in carefully-crafted vignettes with great camera work and character positioning. Clicking around and exploring a given scene stays engaging all the way through. It avoids feeling like token gameplay separating narrative sequences, and that’s to be commended.

The story itself deserves praise for such a diligent and human feel to each of the characters. As their spaceship suffers a crash and they become stranded without hope of rescue, the crew and their situation start to quickly devolve.

But it’s the nature of their crisis, rather than some primal bout of craziness, that defines their interactions and downfalls. There are very human conflicts lying at the heart of each character, making for excellent drama and emotional catharsis.

I wouldn’t like to spoil such a narrative-heavy game, so I’ll just add that there’s a lot of heavy emotions to be had while playing. What starts as a situation that seems almost supernatural ends up feeling horrifyingly human.

While I think the game succeeds at channeling story through gameplay, I was left a bit confused by the inclusion of a stealth section in the middle of the game. It wasn’t badly implemented or annoying, but I did feel the narrative flow stumble for a bit.

That’s just a minor gripe, however. The game is packed with enough emotional punch and wonderful imagery that, once the credits roll, you are most likely to be left pondering it all.

It’s a great game that stays in your head. Gets inside you, makes you think. You should be able to fix it, right? It all depends on you.

You can see more of our games coverage here.

You can buy Mouthwashing for PC on Steam here.

Author: Claribel M

Writer, narrative designer, journalist. Perpetually doing too much.

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