Sanitarium(filfre.net)

https://www.filfre.net/2024/08/sanitarium/

16 comments

This is generally considered one of the most well written games of all time. The developers wwre writers, who wanted to have a go at multimedia. This would be their only game.

We regularly talk about it on /r/adventuregames!

I also highly recommend I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. Similarly psychological horror, excellent writing. Brilliantly voiced by its author.

Both among a small handful of games that have made me cry.

nottorp2 anni fa

> I also highly recommend I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. Similarly psychological horror, excellent writing. Brilliantly voiced by its author.

Just play it with a walkthrough. You can get yourself blocked iirc. Otherwise yes, I would recommend too.

Etheryte2 anni fa

Disco Elysium matches a similar description, writers using a game as their medium of choice. I feel like it fell just a bit short of greatness on the main story line, but it was a mesmerizing play nonetheless with lots of interesting world building. I recommend you try it out.

runevault2 anni fa

I've never played Sanitarium, but Disco Elysium is the closest thing I've ever seen to a Literary novel turned into a game, and the fact they did it well is wild.

I'll be curious to see if anyone else explores the thought cabinet or the skills as mind stuff again because it seems ripe for further experimentation. There's still a chance the former ZA/UM devs do, but having to start over makes that harder.

tzot2 anni fa

My wife is definitely not a gamer. Although she plays some console games now and then, even recent (and recent-ish) Zeldas —passing the controller to one of our kids for the boss fights— she rarely turns on a console to play a game on her own. But there have been two occasions, before we were married and before having a gaming console in the household, when I woke up in the morning and found her still playing a game at the computer. One was Virtual Pool 3D, and the other was Sanitarium.

jFriedensreich2 anni fa

I loved the game, though it did not feel like much of a challenge, it was just pure atmosphere and perfection regarding horror settings and storyline, felt more like a movie with me choosing the pace and being allowed to look at details and the artwork however i want. My biggest wish that will probably be unfulfilled unless AI advances much more would be to have an adventure set in diablo 1 tristram the same way sanitarium works.

akozak2 anni fa

I had somehow completely forgotten about this game, but I remember being absolutely absorbed. It was in a separate class of storytelling at the time. Come to think of it, you can probably draw a line from it to Disco Elysium.

debo_2 anni fa

I played the demo once as a kid for an hour. I still have visions of an inmate bashing their head against the wall, and the sound it made.

I'll have to add this to my backlog.

washadjeffmad2 anni fa

I still have that PC Gamer demo disc somewhere. Having to solve puzzles to get to the demos was such a highlight of my youth every month.

mrcode0072 anni fa

I share a similar experience and have recently completed the game on the iPhone.

Next up, harvester.

ideasphere2 anni fa

I have the exact same memory! Demo from a cover disc and all

integricho2 anni fa

I played through Sanitarium for the first time just last year, even though I saw the game for the first time more than two decades ago. It is a superb adventure, with an intriguing storyline that is unfolding in a satisfying pace. The environments are really creative and each one entirely different from the others, creating a very captivating atmosphere. Not many of today's titles are able to capture my attention as Sanitarium did. Kudos to the creators for this mastetpiece!

nottorp2 anni fa

One of the few great adventure titles that didn't come from an entity specializing in them.

[Clickety click] Oh, it's on GoG and I already have it there. Good.

majewsky2 anni fa

I played this with a friend at 9 years old. If there weren't articles like this, I would just assume the memory to be an actual fever dream.

COAGULOPATH2 anni fa

Sanitarium is one of those Bad Mojo-esque games that's worth playing for how unique it is.

The isometric viewpoint never really worked for me, and undercuts the immediacy of the horror. Things aren't happening to you, but to a little human figure the size of a game piece. Maybe this is a hot take but horror games generally need to be first person.

runevault2 anni fa

I'd say it depends. Horror movies work without being in first person. The idea that you likely need to relate with/worry about the character is at least mostly true, but if the game can make you want to keep the character safe as a separate entity you can do it w/o the first person stuff.