Memoriam

Hello.
Welcome to another dark game with peculiar graphics: Memoriam is in fact an atmospheric adventure game made this year by Lost_Carcosa with totally custom graphics using Maker MV.

But I've few time left, so let's start immediately with the plot: we play as a young lone drifter named Luca that is walking all alone on the streets when it starts to rain! Clearly, being homeless he decides to look for some kind of shelter, and he finds this large abandoned building.
A church? A temple? A shrine? Well there are a lot of statues! (come on, I guess you will undertand whyere this is going... isn't it?)
Who knows, the problem is that as soon as he enters... the door disappears! Yeah, when this happens this is probably time to leave the problem is that, obviously, you cannot! So the only way left is to go deeper and explore the place and meet its inhabitants, hoping to survive until the end!


I guess it is an insult, since he's not even looking at you. It's body language, Luca!

Despite this being a dark/horror game it has a real colorful comic-book style. Characters are a bit "cute" but not really chibi, and they have big detailed portraits. I loved them despite being few, because they have a real unique appearance. I also liked that it's divided in three sections and each one has a simple puzzle and its own music theme (that I do not recognize). For the rest the sounds seems to be classical Rtps, nothing else to note.

Ok so in this little dark adventure our lone protagonist Luca will have to solve some simple puzzles, but if you want to get the best ending you will have to work more and help other unfortunate fellows that find themselves lost inside the strange building too. The puzzles are all pretty easy (but there is a catch, see that later) and there is totally no reason to save the game, but you can do that anywhere. If you make particular choices you may also find yourself involved in a brief chase scene that was extremely easy. Oh yeah the pursuer did not even seem to be trying to catch Luca, stopping just before he could grab him. Weird. Anyway I guess you can fail in some way since I got Ending 2 and Ending 3 (that was the best one), but not the first... maybe is that the Bad Ending?


Uuuuhm, I am pretty sure we should NOT stand here!

Now some problems I found: the lack of descriptions on some items. For some reason you can get interactions and/or descriptions for example only on some crates, notes or statues. It's not a great problem, but if you place similar or nearly identical items and a player does interact with a couple of these getting no reactions, it's probably he will miss some of them because they seems to be randomly distribuited.

Another problem I had was the behaviour of the Npcs: first issue is that during most cutscenes they wander around instead of standing still (unlike what happens in most game I played, anyway that's not a problem except for the following problem), and they also can walk outside the rooms, inside the walls (happened with two of them)! The only way to restore the position is exiting and re-entering the room.
Unfortunately there are also many other passability errors that affect the character, that can enter in some walls, walk over some crates, tables and benches, and so on. Ok, nothing game breaking, but something that can be easily fixed.

At least there were no typos that I remember, but there is a particular puzzle that once solved in a particular way it can lock out of a particular achievement needed to unlock the ending 3 (that I guess is the best final scene), so pay attention when saving because unlike the other two requirements that can be completed at any time after solving the puzzle (one can even be completed before), that's a final choice. Anyway you need just 30 minutes to complete the game so it's not a great problem, but you've been warned!


Oh come on! I'm solving puzzles and riddles and you're playing poker? Without the fourth player, that is also me?? Shame on you!

Final Verdict
Memoriam is a short dark mystery game (but don't worry, no gore or jumpscares) of the "escape room" kind: find yourself in a cursed room/villa/temple/spaceship/website and you've to go away because the inhabitant(s) is(are) not exactly friendly. That's it, anyway this is also an excuse to dig into the past of the protagonist, and of some other secondary characters (if you want). In the end it's a simple but nice tale of life, friendship, loneliness and occult rituals. I especially liked the very good graphics and suggestive ending slides (different for each ending). The minor problems and flaws did not mar the experience too much. And its puzzles and tasks are extremely easy and logical, consider also that there aren't lots of maps, so getting lost is practically impossible. Fun in a small package. Not bad, not bad at all, considered the little time (one week) in which this was made.

Ok good luck escaping that cursed place, I already did, so now I take my leave. Bye for now!