The game is broken down into three “acts,” and each act is self-contained. Tormentum is very aware of its subject matter and toes the revulsion line, but never crosses it. Worried that the visuals may just be “too much?” Put those fears to rest. There aren’t really many games that take on this sort of subject matter, with I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream a notable peer.

There are depictions of torture, mutilation and demonic imagery, and while the actual content being shown may make you want to look away, the beauty with which it is depicted will make you want to keep your eyes glued to the screen.

Tormentum uses backgrounds and animations that feel almost like a watercolor painting brought to life, but the setting is dark and disturbing. The shining element of Tormentum, and the thing that will most likely draw new players to the title, is its art. Without heavy hand-holding, Tormentum is able to expertly guide you through the non-linear areas, minimizing frustration. The various areas are also small enough that, when you pick up an item, you almost always have a good feeling of where it should go. The game has a great pacing you aren’t repeatedly solving the same types of problems, and the constant flipping between environmental challenges and logic puzzles keeps things feeling fresh. The puzzles consist of basic logic problems that involve things like sliding puzzles, rotating images into place and pressing buttons that flip lights on and off. The gameplay of Tormentum focuses on exploring richly detailed hand-drawn environments, clicking on items and using those items in various places to unlock puzzles. The game feels a bit too easy and ends a bit too soon, but the fact that I wanted to keep playing more after the credits rolled only serves to signify the fun I had throughout the short and memorable journey. The style drew me in immediately, and the puzzles held my interest throughout the entire experience. If this sounds like an absolutely insane combination, that’s because it is, but it works so well. Tormentum: Dark Sorrow is the game you get when you mix the aesthetics of Dark Souls, the puzzle-solving gameplay of Professor Layton and some basic moral-decision-based branching paths, wrapping it in a point-and-click adventure.

Tormentum dark sorrow slipping away