MOTHER

About MOTHER

MOTHER is a first-person psychological horror game by Anya Segarane, a passion project she developed in her personal time while studying and released on Steam in August 2020. It takes around three hours to finish.

You play Mary, who has recently lost her husband and has to take care of her two children by herself. She suffers from insomnia and wakes each night to strange events in the building, and soon finds there are secrets she cannot escape. Her neighbour texts that someone seems to be roaming the building at night, searching for something.

Each night you must go to sleep to move on, but you cannot sleep until your daily tasks are done and the children are in bed. Your main actions are using a phone, using a gun and interacting with the things around you: tucking a child in, starting the washing machine, answering messages. When something comes for the children you must defend them at all costs, because if they die, their death is permanent. The pictures show long-limbed, rotten creatures crouched over a child in a bedroom and a laundry room.

It suits players who want horror about family and grief told through daily routine, in the line of SHE WAS 98 and Bad Parenting.

How to play MOTHER

1. Finish Mary's daily tasks around the apartment.
2. Put the children to bed so that Mary can sleep and the next night begins.
3. Use the phone to follow messages and what is happening in the building.
4. When something threatens the children, defend them with the gun.
5. Survive each night without losing a child: their death is permanent.

Tips

• Check on the children often; you cannot undo a death.
• Read your messages: the neighbours notice things before you do.
• Finish tasks quickly so you are free when the night turns.

Questions