YOU ARE THE SPARK EMANATED BY MY LIGHT. THE EMISSARY OF MY WILL IN THE HIDDEN SPHERES. THE PLANES UNDER MY RULE HAVE BEEN INFECTED BY PERVERSE FORCES FROM THE DEPTHS. MACABRE FORCES THAT HAVE POSSESSED MY CHAMBERS, AND SEEK TO CORRUPT MY CREATION. I FEEL THAT THE DARK ENERGY'S SOURCE IS HIDDEN IN MY CORRUPTED TEMPLE. I WILL SEND YOU THERE. I ORDER YOU TO LOCATE THE SOURCE AND RETURN TO ME.
—The Patriarch
Tamashii is a surreal indie horror puzzle platformer game inspired by 80s and 90s Japanese horror games. You play as the Unnamed Soul, created by the Patriarch, the god who rules over the planes. His sacred temple has been corrupted by a sinister force, the witch Feucirl, and he sends you to enter the temple so as to fight the corruption and restore the temple to what it once was.
The main gimmick of the gameplay is the ability of the soul to create three 'clones' (really just skulls to serve as motionless stand-ins) which must be placed in switches to open the exit doors in each level. But you will also need to place them in other switches that can cause certain blocks to become transparent, and each world brings something new to the concept.
This game contains examples of:
- Big Bad: Feucirl the witch is the source of The Corruption targeting the Patriarch's sacred temple, or so it seems until it turns out she is trying to save the temple's inhabitants from the Patriarch, Augustus Michael Yahweh, who is keeping them in eternal agony to lord his superiority over them.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Though most of the game has the fourth wall intact, in the finale, the Patriarch crashes the game to prevent the Unnamed Soul from rebelling against him.
- Brutal Bonus Level: The Impossible section of the Corrupted Temple, an area which can be accessed after unlocking the Chamber of Kether. It is a hallway filled with every trap in the game that you must navigate in one run, and the star at the beginning outright tells you it is impossible.
- Hub Level: The Corrupted Temple, from which the other levels can be accessed. It is a fairly big level with some extra stuff to find.
- Jump Scare: At random points inside the Hub Level, a red face will appear on-screen with a loud noise, and the level will turn into a Womb Level.
- Number of the Beast: The Master of Kether achievement requires you to get a score of at least 666 on the Chamber of Kether's Time Trial.
- Ominous Visual Glitch: Two areas with this exist in the game.
- In the finale, after the game reopens, the Corrupted Temple is empty save for glitchy boxes blocking your path.
- The Brutal Bonus Level has you glitch into a section of the wall that leads to the entire game “crashing”, with a whole glitched area.
- Pyramid Power: The Patriarch, the local god of the setting, has a pyramid for a head.
- Unexpected Shmup Level: The Kether battle has you take to the skies and shoot down giant crosses and Kether himself.
- Sequel Hook: At the end of the game, you are approached by figures in robes who appear to work with Feucirl and give you the mission of putting an end to the Patriarch and his tyranny — you are then reincarnated and sent to finish the job.
- Surreal Horror: The game is inspired by Japanese horror games, and takes after them with bizarre Satanic imagery. The levels are filled with fleshy, J-horror-esque monsters, the bosses are fleshy monsters with their brains visible, much of the dialogue is cryptic, and there are many creepy secrets and Easter Eggs with no explanation (for example, in the Hub Level, a Jump Scare will sometimes randomly play and turn the whole area into a Womb Level for a brief time), and Ominous Visual Glitches appear as well to break the fourth wall and make everything even more surreal.
- Time Trial: After beating each of the five Chambers once, you can re-enter them for a challenge where you must finish the levels in time. Finishing each puzzle in one go and before a mini-timer runs out are sub goals that increase the overall timer. The game has five achievements for getting a specific high score.
- Womb Level:
- The Corrupted Temple will randomly turn into this sometimes following a Jump Scare, with the walls replaced with pink flesh and innards, because of Feucirl's corruption. Except as revealed by Feucirl, this is the temple's true form — a horrid prison of suffering made by the Patriarch.
- Assiah, Yetzirah, Beri'ah, and Kether's boss arenas all have the same look as the aforementioned temple, with pink flesh and innards.
