Subject is another of those games that I downloaded a while ago, and then forgot all about it until recently. Scrolling through the Downloads folder, I decided I might as well give it a try. The results, as it happens, utterly surprised me. I’m not sure if I can call it the best, but Subject is certainly the most polished title I’ve played in a long time.

Gameplay

Subject is a visual novel, a genre that’s generally defined by its dialogue trees. However, you won’t really get the opportunities for proper conversation here. Instead, you generally get this set of options, which you can select with the mouse, or with the traditional controls:



Usually, the first three are there for atmospheric purposes, and Move is the one that opens a sub-menu and lets you do things. Sometimes, though, this isn’t a case, and other options will also lead to their own sub-menus. At other times, a certain option also gets replaced by another i.e. (“Listen” by “Taste”), which almost always signifies something important. If “Move” gets replaced, it typically means you have directly approached one of the endings, and may or may not have a choice in the matter. Nevertheless, Subject manages to be incredibly immersive with these options, and the description you get from them is never or comes off as superfluous: it always gives insight into the mind of Subject you’re controlling and can provide some truly important information about the decisions you’re about to make.

Storyline

You play as an anonymous test subject, who wakes up alone in a dark room, wrapped in bandages so heavily he cannot even see his own face. Moving around a bit soon finds a poorly boarded-up window. The boards are taken apart easily, and now, you’re in a corridor. In what I assume is a Matrix allusion, there’s a red door at the right end of corridor, and a blue door on the left end. Also, delicious smell was coming from the right end, and the scrabbling sound could be heard from the left. And so, I walked right, and soon, this led me straight to the ending 1, the simplest one that I was expected to take. From then on, you play Subject searching for the other 7 endings. In the process, this reveals ever more detail about just what has happened to the character, and lets you realise just how much, or how little, control they actually have over what happens. And by control, I mean not just the simple matter of obstacles that limit their progress and might or might not be circumvented. No, far worse are the instances when you don't even have much control over your own body, the times when you, the player, are basically the Subject's ego, arguing with its subconscious id to avoid disaster, an argument that's entirely possible to lose.



To go into further detail would be to walk directly into the realm of spoilers, so experience it for yourself. I can only re-iterate how clever it can get with all the details: figuring out just why my protagonist thought the Tupperware containers looked unappetising for instance, adds a whole other dimension to the inhumanity already on display. Same for the ways you can get all the endings: at one point, I honestly thought that endings 2 to 4 could only be gotten if you were fast enough. However, it actually depended on one other interaction, minor, yet in a way that made sense. (Having said that, I wouldn’t mind to see time become a factor, like in 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors and the like.) I'm honestly puzzled to see some of the other reviewers struggle with understanding the endings. To me, all the confusion was momentary, and easily explained once you actually consider why things would happen in that way. Once you pull back the curtain, every mystery is really a veneer over another example of cold-blooded, calculating ruthlessness that led to the events in the game in the first place. This is then followed up on in the ending reports.

Typically, they’re logs that describe the outcome from the researchers’ perspective in a completely impersonal way. They’re absolutely fine, but they only get improved through contrast, when one of the reports does break the tradition and goes unexpectedly personal, writing it all from the perspective of head researcher, and mentioning almost off-hand how he’ll have to dispose of a certain Lia because she has gotten too attached to my character and might help them escape. Even though I knew nothing of who was she was, and did not interact with anyone, it still made me feel a lot worse than the conventional game over endings I received before.

Aesthetics (art, design and sound)

The game’s strict monochrome art, all done by Marimo, is quite striking. It’s mainly black-and-white, though other colours are also occasionally present, and some key scenes are in monochrome dark green. In fact, it’s implied that rather than a pure stylistic choice, this is exactly what the subject under your control perceives, as an (unintended?) consequence of the experiments. While a bit too minimalist at times, on the whole, it still looks very good, and truly shines with the fluid transition from one screen to another. The best example by far is the "ghost" in the dark corridor, though others are good as well.



The soundtrack is provided by the Presence of Sound, and it’s good. From the haunting, yet still intriguing, electronics piece in the main menu, to the soulful piano playing as you wake up in the first room, to the tense music playing when you’re confronted in the corridor, it’s consistently very fitting, and helps a lot in creating atmosphere. Even the music played when you go to check out the credits is excellent. Sound effect use, though, is even better. Every time you use the Listen command, you’ll hear the sound described briefly break through the soundtrack while also reading the character’s thoughts about it. It’s especially well done with the sound of wind, though the “chittering noises” at one other point are also very good, especially once you know what it really means. All the sounds played when your character begins to move around and actually perform actions also fit well.

Conclusion

Subject is a game I seriously considered giving a perfect score to, as everything it sets out to do, it accomplishes perfectly. Besides the potential difficulty of finding all the endings, there’s literally nothing wrong that I can find with it. Sure, you can argue that it’s easier to do with a short game, and in a way, I would agree: I still personally prefer Illusions of Loyalty or A Hint of A Tint, while also being aware of their flaws. However, Subject is still part of the top echelon of rmk games, and a game I can easily recommend to anyone with the stomach for psychological horror. Other developers can also take a few lessons here on how the non-visual senses can be used in the storyline, and on other things as well.