The Sexy Brutale

Creating something fresh in the gaming industry is not an easy feat, doing that while also push through all the noise and making that game known to the public is even more impressive. The Sexy Brutale manages to do just that. It intruduces a novel groundhog day like mechanic where you reexperience the same day over and over again with the goal being to save a number of souls from certain and at times brutale deaths. The game is seen from a isometric perspective and takes place in a vast mansion filled with hidden doors, levers and secrets. You take on the role of an at first unknown protagonist who tries to find uncover the mansions secret while finding ways to save these poor souls, one at a time. Shortly after the game starts you are given a magical pocketwatch that gifts you with the power to turn back time to when the day begins. You use this power to get to know the inhabitants of mansion who are all losing their lives at different times of the day at the hands of an unknown perpertrator. You do this by getting to know these people, learning their schedule and how you can prevent their deaths from occuring. Think of it as the board game Cleodo. But instead of just finding the murder weapon and culpit, you must then remove the murder weapon from the equation. The games cartoony estatic is very pleasing on the eye, the music fits perfectly and the game keeps intruducing new mechanics along the 5 hour adventure which keeps the game from becoming mondane. All in all Sexy Brutale is a very enjoyble indie title with a lot of personality, heart and soul. I highly recommend anyone on the prowl for a good murder mystery title to buy this one of a kind gem. Beyond that I highly recommend the developers to change the title as I believe it to only act as a disservice to the game seeing as I know a number of people who decided not to give the game a change at its release simply because they thought the game was something else entirly. Cant really say I blame them!

The game has amazing art and a great premise. Witness a murder take place, then wander around using your time rewind power to change the situation and avert the murder. Sort of like the old DS game Phantom Detective. But the execution is just too tedious. You quickly figure out what you have to do to prevent the murder, then you have to spend 4x the time tediously observing NPC travel routes, looking through keyholes, and dealing with the worst time rewind mechanic in games. You can't just hold down a button to rewind time. You have to select it, sit through a loading screen, an animation, then another loading screen before finally being dumped not at the time of your choosing, but at predetermined checkpoints. You'll most likely have to repeat more tedious following NPC patrol routes before you take another attempt at completing your task. More tedious rewind/reloads, patrol routes, and keyhole peeking await you. The controls are also terribly. Super awkward stuff like one mouse button to move, another mouse button to inspect, a different button to peek through keyholes. It sounds simple on paper, but it's super awkward in practice. The controls were so bad, I honestly thought this was a bad DS port, but it's a PC exclusive! The story gives you no reason to care. You're given zero backstory on who you are, who other characters are, and what this casino is. It might slowly be doled out with cryptic backstory notes as you go on, but I quit long before that happened. There's a good premise and serious art talent here. I hope in the future, the technical people hire better game designers and writers. It will be a huge treat when that happens. Until then, just go play Phantom Detective instead.

A clever puzzle game, in which you relive the same day over and over, slowly trying to uncover secrets and map out the daily routine of the mansion's guests and servant in an attempt to save the day. Mysterious and clever, this one had me for the few hours it lasted and left me thinking three things: (1) "That was amazing" (2) "How did I not hear of this ealier?" (3) "Why is there not more of this?" 100% one of my favorite game concepts ever. If there were ever to be a sequel, it would be an instant buy for me. Nothing like it.

#Summary (83%): Sexy Brutale has an interesting time travel puzzle mechanic and a gripping murder mystery. I found the story too predictable, though. #Review: The Sexy Brutale oozes atmosphere from its every element. It almost feels like entering the world of a classic whodunnit detective story. Heck, it even takes place in a large Victorian-style casino/mansion! The one big difference is that we already know that the staff is murdering the guests. Thus, our job is twofold. First, we must use our time travel powers to prevent these murders. And second, we must find out the truth behind the events and the mysterious masks all guests wear. Despite this setup, do not expect much investigation or detective work. The core gameplay is re-living the same few hours until we bump into the answers to the same four questions. Who is the current victim? How are they killed? What do they do before their death? What can we do to disrupt this event chain and save their life (and thus gain their mask)? The only limitation is that we cannot interact with anyone, not even the victims. The result is a hefty chunk of trial and error in perfect timing. Then again, this is the nature of all time travel puzzle games, so it is hardly a negative in this case either. Atmospheric or not, the game suffers from its limited budget. Many parts of the casino look more cute than detailed or fancy. The soundtrack is catchy, yet there are no voiceovers whatsoever. It is sad, as I would have loved to hear some cartoonish voices for the colourful cast of kooky characters. Finally, there is the story. Like most similar mysteries, it can be enjoyed only once, until we learn the truth. Said truth, however, is its big weak spot as observant players will see it coming from afar. It is another cheap Silent Hill-esque twist that rarely pays off, and Sexy Brutale is not one of those good examples.

Describing it is a little hard. The game operates on a "Groundhog Day" loop where you need to save guests of a very excentric, ultra fancy casino/mansion from dying horrible deaths at the hands of the staff. You do this by solving puzzles which require collecting information and items to use on the correct places. Information is collected mostly by eavesdropping on the right person and there are many interesting dialogues and interactions to listen to, which flesh out the characters' personalities. The puzzles are mostly easy to figure out and as long as you explore and can connect the dots, they'll be solvable. In terms of difficulty. it's nothing like old point and click games or games like Myst. However, The Sexy Brutale holds a lot of secrets from the player and will rewarding exploring "out of the box" to find them. In the pause menu, there is a codex full of information which better contextualizes the story and place. And since everything is so carefully made, with such lovable characters and locations, I found that reward to be more than enough. Writing is good, humurous and lighthearted most of the time, although the game can and will be serious when it wants to, specially towards the end, where it will resemble something closer to Silent Hill or MGS2 (!), but it never loses its class and charm. Speaking of class and charm, music and sound design also deserve a mention, although there is no voice acting. Overall, it was a great experience. I've seen people complain about the controls but I had absolutely no problems with them (played on joystick). tl, dr.: Ok so this is a mystery puzzle adventure with very easy puzzles and great writing/atmosphere. Challenge lies in optional stuff. There are tons of secrets and collectibles that will reward exploration and backtracking. Finding them rewards you with seeing new things and lore about the characters and the place. If that's your thing, you'll love it.