Tormentum - Dark Sorrow

About Tormentum - Dark Sorrow

Tormentum - Dark Sorrow is a point-and-click adventure by OhNoo Studio, released on Steam in March 2015 for Windows and Mac. It is also sold on iPhone and Android, under the names Tormentum - Mystery Adventure and Tormentum - Adventure Game.

The story starts as a hooded man wakes up locked in a metal cage hanging below a flying machine. He does not remember his name or where he comes from. The airship lowers towards a huge, gloomy castle, which soon becomes his prison, and from there he journeys through three realms that differ in their architecture and the creatures living there, meeting characters who help him or stand in his way.

It plays as a classic point-and-click: you look at everything, pick up and use items, talk to the people you meet and work through 24 logic puzzles and minigames. Along the way you face moral choices, and the makers say these affect the ending. They give about 4 to 6 hours of play.

What frightens is the world itself. Its 75 hand-painted scenes take their look from H. R. Giger's biomechanical art and Zdzislaw Beksinski's bleak dream paintings, with influences the makers name from Demon's Souls and Dark Seed: walls of bone and fused bodies, a monstrous worm beside a hanging cage, chained skeletons, a train that seems alive and wastelands on fire. It is slow and atmospheric rather than full of jump scares.

Critics liked the art more than the puzzles. Reviews gathered on OpenCritic praise the painted world and the dark story but find the puzzles short on variety, and one reviewer found most of them came down to putting objects in the right order. The moral choices are less obvious: their weight only shows at the end, which is why some players go back for the other endings. It suits players who come for a world to look at more than for hard puzzles or frights.

On Steam it costs 9.90 euros and is also sold in a bundle with its follow-up, Tormentum II, and a digital artbook. It is rated PEGI 12 on Google Play for moderate violence and horror, and 12 in Germany for frightening content.

How to play Tormentum - Dark Sorrow

1. Click on the scene to walk, look at things and talk to the people you meet.
2. Pick up items and use them on the world or on other items from your inventory.
3. Solve the logic puzzles and minigames that block your path.
4. Make the moral choices the story puts to you; they shape the ending.
5. Travel on through the prison and the three realms to learn who the hooded man is.

Tips

• Look at every scene closely; the paintings hide small items you will need later.
• Talk to characters more than once, as they often hint at what a puzzle needs.
• Many puzzles ask you to put objects in the right order or rewire a mechanism; try the pieces one at a time and watch what changes.
• Choose with care when you can help or take revenge: the effects of those choices show only at the end.
• In the cathedral, take time over the painter's canvases; they are a gallery of the game's art.

Questions