OMORI

About OMORI

OMORI came out on PC in December 2020 after a long Kickstarter-funded development by the artist OMOCAT, and arrived on Switch, Xbox and PlayStation 4 in June 2022. It is drawn in a pencil-sketch and pastel style, with music by Pedro Silva and Jami Lynne among others.

You play OMORI, who lives in WHITE SPACE, a blank room with a laptop, a tissue box and a sleeping cat. Through a door he steps into HEADSPACE, a playful world where he and his friends Aubrey, Kel and Hero have picnics, fight sprout moles and look for their missing friend Basil. In another world, a boy named Sunny is about to move house and has not been outside in a very long time.

Play is a classic RPG: exploration, puzzles, side quests and turn-based fights where emotions such as happy, sad and angry change how attacks land. The horror comes in waves. The sweet world tilts without warning into black-and-white rooms full of hands and eyes, a tall shadow with too many limbs appears where it should not, and a single bad memory keeps surfacing, each time more clearly.

It is a story-led game more than a frightening one most of the time, but its darker scenes are strong, and its themes are heavy; the store page warns of depictions of depression, anxiety and suicide, and of flashing images. It suits players who liked Undertale or Yume Nikki and want a long, emotional story with real horror inside it.

How to play OMORI

1. Explore HEADSPACE with your friends, talking to characters and solving small puzzles.
2. Fight in turn-based battles, choosing skills for each party member and using snacks to heal.
3. Use emotions: happy, sad and angry each give strengths and weaknesses against others.
4. Return to WHITE SPACE and the real world when the story calls for it, and make the choices that shape your route.
5. Save at the picnic blankets with Mari and the tissue box in your room.

Tips

• Use team follow-up attacks when the energy bar fills; they can turn a fight.
• Match emotions to enemies: happy beats angry, angry beats sad, sad beats happy.
• Talk to everyone in town; side quests give useful items and story.
• Read the content warnings before you start if the themes may be hard for you.

Questions