Psychological horror Horror puzzle Surreal horror 2D horror PS1 horror

Sanitarium

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Wake in an asylum with a bandaged head and no memory of why.

Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux, iPhone, Android
Stores: Steam, GOG
Price: Paid
Rated: Very Positive on Steam (93% of 1,384 reviews); 4.5 of 5 on GOG (344 reviews); 4.2 of 5 on Google Play (1,710 reviews) and on the App Store (131 ratings)
Length: about 9 hours
Players: 1
Made by: DreamForge Intertainment
Released: 1998

On GOG: one of the GOG horror games.

No. 12 of the asylum horror games · No. 25 of the horror games about memory loss · No. 21 of the alien horror games · No. 18 of the horror games about madness · No. 12 of the circus horror games

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What frightens After a car accident you wake in a gloomy asylum, your head wrapped in bandages and your memory gone, then slip into dark, warped worlds, from a town of malformed children to a circus lost in an endless ocean, where you can never be sure what is real and what is in your own head.
Content: violence, disturbing imagery, harm to children, death, some strong language.

Sanitarium is a 1998 psychological horror point-and-click adventure. After a car crash you wake in a gloomy asylum with your head in bandages and no memory, and must solve your way through a series of dark, shifting worlds to learn who you are and why you are there.

About Sanitarium

Sanitarium was made by DreamForge Intertainment and published by ASC Games in 1998. It sold around 300,000 copies, a success for a horror adventure of its time, and Computer Gaming World named it Best Adventure of the year, tied with Grim Fandango. Dotemu brought it to iPhone and Android in 2015, and today it is sold on Steam and GOG under Ziggurat, with an enhanced edition announced on its Steam page.

You begin in the dark. After a car accident, a man wakes up in a run-down asylum with his face wrapped in bandages and no idea who he is. The first question is simple: what are you doing here? The answer leads through a string of places that fold into each other: the asylum grounds, a town where only malformed children are left, a demented circus surrounded by ocean, and stranger worlds still. Between each one you come back to the asylum, a little closer to remembering.

It plays as a classic isometric point-and-click. You steer the hero through pre-rendered scenes, examine what you find, talk to the people in each world, pick up and use items, and solve riddles and mechanisms to open the way on. In some worlds you even take on another identity for a while. The store calls it suitable for newcomers to the genre as well as for experienced puzzle solvers.

Its horror is psychological and visual: scenes full of decay, disfigured characters, children in danger, and the steady feeling that your own mind is the least reliable thing in the game. It is rarely if ever gory, and it does not rely on jumpscares or chases. What sets it apart from other adventures of the 1990s is how often you cannot tell whether a world is real or imagined.

It suits players of horror adventures such as Harvester, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream or Fran Bow who want a classic of the 1990s. One playthrough takes about 9 hours.

How to play Sanitarium

Buy it on Steam or GOG for PC (GOG's version also runs on Mac and Linux), or on the App Store or Google Play.
Steer the hero around each isometric scene with the cursor and examine what you find.
Talk to everyone; their answers point to the next problem.
Pick up items, use them on the world and solve the riddles in each place to move on to the next.

Screenshots

A bald patient in teal scrubs on a cobbled walkway by a skull-topped railing, beside a shingled asylum tower and a rusty tank

The asylum courtyard with an angel statue as the bandaged hero asks in dialogue: Who are you, young lady?

A gothic stone hall with a gargoyle balcony and a winged angel statue behind burning candles, patients in hospital clothes nearby

A figure in teal scrubs in a candlelit room beside a vine-choked red barn and a rusty tractor

A torch-lit Aztec calendar altar over turquoise water, where an animal-headed warrior faces a feather-crowned figure

Tips

Hover over every part of a scene; small objects are easy to miss in the pre-rendered art.
The hero walks slowly, so plan where you are going before you set off across a large scene.
Talk to characters again after something changes; they often have something new to say.
If a world seems stuck, look for a mechanism you have not tried yet rather than an item.