Point & click escape rooms had a baby with Iron Maiden’s entire catalog.
Platform: iOS, Android, & Steam
Price: $4.99 on iOS, $3.99 on Android, $11.99 Steam
Story & setting
Your mysterious cloaked protagonist began Tormentum: Dark Sorrow imprisoned in some sort of medieval fantasy steampunk inquisition dungeon. In typical escape room fashion, the goal was to escape.
The entirety of Tormentum was beautifully painted from the characters to the panoramic settings. The art had a Frank Frazetta heavy metal style about it that gave the game a unique feel.
Puzzles
Tormentum: Dark Sorrow was a point & click, pixel hunt digital escape room. It leaned heavily on searching. There were some entertaining puzzles, but they were not the centerpiece of the game; the art was.
Standouts
The art was gorgeous. Everything looked like a bleakly beautiful hellscape. It worked.
I enjoyed the fictional world of Tormentum. It felt like a heavy metal album had been turned into an escape game.
There were some great puzzle designs.
Shortcomings
While I liked a lot of the puzzle designs, I found myself wishing that they had leaned into their ideas, pushed beyond basic execution, and asked me to more thoroughly master those puzzles.
The pixel hunt searching overstayed its welcome. It was easy to completely miss critical things within the game’s elaborate art.
On more than a few occasions I made critical in-game moral decisions, by accident, without any intention or understanding of what was about to happen. These moments kind of pissed me off. If I’m gonna murder someone, I want to know that I’m about to do it.
Should I play Tormentum: Dark Sorrow?
Tormentum went all in on the art. If you like point & click escape rooms and this game’s art direction appeals to you, then it’s worth a few bucks and a few hours to play it.
If both the game format and the art don’t speak to you, then I don’t think it’s worthwhile. There were some great puzzle designs, but they left me wanting more. I found Tormentum’s interactions were often too opaque, especially when it came to moral choices, which frustrated the hell out of me.
If Tormentum feels like a fit for you, it’s got a dark and twisted beauty about it.
Download Tormentum: Dark Sorrow today.
Download Steam (Don’t play it on Steam, $12 is too much to pay for this game)
