Lamentum is an independent pixel art horror video game by a Spanish developer Obscure Tales, to be published in 2021. The game is said to be inspired both by games like Alone in the Dark, Resident Evil and Silent Hill series but also by works of H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe. Its gameplay focuses on evading or fighting monsters, solving puzzles, and managing your limited inventory, while you navigate a labyrinthine mansion. The game launched a successful Kickstarter in 2018 and was planned to release in late 2020 on PC and Nintendo Switch, but was pushed to 2021. In meantime, two demo versions of the game have been released.
The first demo for the game has been released in 2019. A XIX Century nobleman Victor Hartwell goes to check on his sick wife, Alissa, only to find her screaming something is in her bed before a tentacled monstrosity devours her and attacks him. Victor wakes up in a building that looks like a deteriorated and twisted copy of his mansion, with visions of a little girl bleeding from her eyes saying he is her only hope. He finds the mansion overrun with grotesque monsters and his wife locked in a cellar.
The second demo, released in 2020, paints a similar, but different scenario, the one also used in the full version of the game. This time Victor, facing Alissa's inevitable death from her illness, decides to take her to Gray Hill Manor, home of mysterious Count Edmond Steinrot, who is rumored to possess knowledge beyond human comprehension. Soon after the arrival strange things start happening and soon he wakes up wounded and separated from Alissa, in a twisted, nightmarish version of the manor, overrun with monsters.
Lamentum contains examples of
- Action Survivor: Victor is squishy and even if he finds weapons, most of them require getting close enough to risk getting ht and guns are quickly running out of ammo. As such, it is more efficient to evade or hide from the monsters.
- Apocalyptic Log: not only are they scattered all over the place but also Victor's way of saving the game is to write down his memories about recent events, trying to sort out what is happening.
- Body Horror: All around the place with strong implications being monsters you encounter are either transformed humans or things merely adopting human-like shape.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Lament - A god-like being supposedly trapped between two nightmarish other realities and the source of the horrors infesting Gray Hill. It appears as a crow-winged creature whose upper body terminates in bloody entrails, also sporting blood-covered hands and a featureless head from which root-like red tendrils burst.
- Humanoid Abomination: A lot but not all the monsters in the mansions, it varies from things that look like humans with something monstrous replacing their heads to armless giants with bloated bellies that vomit on you.
- Limited Loadout: Victor can carry only a few items, but thankfully he has a number of Resident Evil-style footlockers in which he can store what he doesn't need at the moment.
- Multiple Endings: The 2019 demo contains three possible endings
- No escape: If Victor enters Alissa's cell with no weapon equipped she transforms into a monster and devours Victor
- Cursed: If Victor Enters Alissa's cell with a weapon, she turns into a monster and he is forced to kill her, then breaks down over realization what he has done and hears the voice of Mary repeating the message from the beginning of the game.
- Hope: unlock secret combinations in the cellar, making Mary appear, then follow her clues. She will tell you you can see beyond lie and that the pact has begun and the game will end.
- Save-Game Limits: In order to save the game you need to get into a room with a desk and have ink on you so that Victor will write down his memories.
