Purgatorium

About Purgatorium

Purgatorium is a short Flash horror game by Ben Leffler of LefflerWebDesign, the Australian maker of the Exmortis series. Jay Bibby of Casual Gameplay (now Jay is Games) asked him for a game to celebrate Halloween, and he made it in about a week; it went up on that site on 31 October 2006, hidden behind an anagram puzzle, and on Newgrounds two days later.

You start in a dim, dirty room: a rocking chair, a cot, a trash bin and a door that leads nowhere. You click around to pick up what you can, use it to get further, and a fragment of story about what happened in the room comes out as you go. Jay is Games described it as a short and creepy escape-the-room game with some rather horrific graphic visuals nestled inside, and promised a jump or two.

The maker himself was modest about it, calling it a cheap and nasty little Flash made in the spirit of Halloween and very vague on story. It is best taken as that: a few minutes of grim atmosphere and shocks from the maker of Exmortis, not a full adventure. Newgrounds rates it Mature, and it plays in the browser through Newgrounds' Flash player.

Play it after Exmortis and Exmortis 2 if you want more of Leffler's style, or as a quick fright on Halloween night.

How to play Purgatorium

1. Open the game's Newgrounds page and press play; Newgrounds runs the Flash game in its own browser player.
2. Move the mouse over the room to look around, and click on the furniture to search it.
3. Pick up what you find and click it on the part of the room where it might help.
4. Get past the door to reach the end of the story.

Tips

• Search everything, including under the furniture: Jay is Games' own hint to a stuck player was to look under the cot.
• Play with the sound on and the lights off, as the maker intended for Halloween.
• It takes only a few minutes, so do not expect a long adventure.

Questions