Saint Kotar

About Saint Kotar

Saint Kotar was made by the Croatian studio The-Mark Entertainment, formerly called Red Martyr Entertainment, after a Kickstarter campaign in 2020, and published by SOEDESCO. It came out on Windows on October 28, 2021, on Mac and Linux on September 2, 2022, and on PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X|S and Nintendo Switch on November 22, 2022. The console editions include The Void, a large update that added endings and scenes, and The Ritual, a free story chapter that is also on PC. It is voiced in English, with subtitles in twelve more languages.

Benedek and his brother-in-law Nikolay, two troubled, godly men, wake up in Sveti Kotar after nightmares, looking for Benedek's missing sister Viktoria. The town is in the grip of something that preys on the weak, and the evidence ties Viktoria to grisly murders, devil worship and occult rites. The question the game keeps asking is whether you, too, are to blame.

You play both men in turn through pre-rendered scenes of the misty valley: its lodge, graveyards, gothic church, lake and the woods around them. It is a point-and-click adventure built on conversation more than puzzles: you talk to wary townsfolk, examine objects, use items where they plainly fit and follow a list of tasks, many of them optional side stories about the town's past. Adventure Gamers found essentially no puzzles until one near the end, plus a screen maze. Your choices change the story and the ending, and the town even lets you denounce a neighbour through a post box at the police station. A wrong decision can get you killed, which rolls the credits, though the game autosaves often. The Ritual adds about two hours as Viktoria on the night before the main story.

Its fear is slow and religious: hooded congregations, a burning effigy, crucified bodies in a burning forest, a flayed corpse on a hook and a town where nobody is innocent. Reviewers call the acting and animation clumsy, and Adventure Gamers found it endearingly janky, with an impeccable atmosphere. It suits players of narrative point-and-click horror who want an occult mystery and do not need action or hard puzzles.

How to play Saint Kotar

1. Click to move Benedek or Nikolay through each scene; the cursor changes to show whether you can look at, use or pick up a hotspot.
2. Talk to the people of Sveti Kotar and listen to what they say about the missing woman, the murders and the town's past.
3. Pick up items and use them on the scene or on people where they fit to move the story on.
4. Open the brain icon to check your list of tasks and the old map of the town.
5. Choose carefully in conversations and events: your choices change the story and the ending, and some can get you killed.

Tips

• Hold the spacebar to show every hotspot in a scene, and double-click to run, since there is a lot of walking back and forth.
• Explore off the main path: hidden locations and optional tasks tell much of the town's history, and some count towards a better ending.
• Deaths can come from a choice that gives no warning; the game autosaves often, so you lose little and can try again.
• Play The Ritual, the free chapter as Viktoria, for the night before the main story.

Questions