Tormentum - Dark Sorrow

Tormentum - Dark Sorrow is a Point & Click adventure with art inspired by H.R.Giger & Zdzisław Beksinski. The main selling point is the hand drawn art and many of the visual shots. The setting and atmosphere allows the mind to wonder what it would be like traveling through this hellscape. Many of the characters you meet are unique and weird. As you progress, you will be given choices that will affected many of these characters, which will contribute to a good or bad ending.

Puzzles are simple yet entertaining. The notes you find throughout often outright explain what you need to do. The game probably would have benefited more without them, but otherwise have given players a more casual experience. FPS is locked at 30 and can make the game feel slow and choppy sometimes. Tormentum - Dark Sorrow is worth a playthrough, and I found it to be a very fun experience. It's best to wait for a sale though.

Don't hold your breath for the sequel, it's probably long dead.

Great on the Steam Deck.

Video review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84NDTkDAhKM

Tormentum is pretty cool. The main draw is the art, but I thought the puzzles were pretty fun too. There are some story stumbles, but I can look past that.

what i've done

Not bad.

This was a bloody awesome point and click horror/adventure game, loaded with amazing background and character art clearly inspired by H.R. Giger and Beksinski. The plot may be a little bit hackneyed, but the beat-by-beat plot machinations are sufficiently weird and dark enough that I could easily forgive the somewhat predictable ending.

Additionally, there really are some genuine choices to be made throughout the game, and thankfully the game is compact enough that the second playthrough to make some alternate (i.e. mean/villainous) choices from my first go around didn't feel onerous/burdensome in the slightest (the artwork is that awesome and the game plotting/narrative beats are that tight and lean......there's not a lot of padding here at all!).

Oh, and thank goodness, there is almost no pixel-bitching involved thanks to some highlighting within each scene, and puzzles are absolutely intuitive and don't require galaxy-brain solutions and/or a walkthrough to solve.

I'm glad to have finally dusted this one off and given it a try!

Very much recommended!

Classic point and click game with a very dire narrative.

It's more of a story game with a hauntingly beautiful art style, it's not necessarily focused on the puzzle aspect of it, they're simple. Good game regardless, I loved it.

Just good game +++

This game's art style is the main attraction, heavily inspired by the works of H.R. Giger. Every inch of the landscape is made of living flesh, twisted in the shape of walls and machinery. It looks really good.

Sadly, gameplay is very uninteresting. The puzzles are very easy, and to add insult to injury, the game just outright tells you the solution. NPCs and notes found in the scenery just tell you what to do, you don't really have to think about what you are doing. Also, animations are terribly slow, and you can't skip dialogue. This makes a completionist run feel like a slog. Speaking of slow, this game has performance issues. It maintains a 30 fps average, but sometimes dips to 20. Plus, the resolution for the game isn't very high, so you can't admire the art on it's full potential.

Story is a mixed bag. Not going to get into spoilers, but you can guess what the twist will be miles away from completing the game. One thing that seemed interesting were the choices you are presented in the game. Many interactions and puzzles can have different solutions which decide the fate of the many characters you find. But, in the end, it all boils down to two outcomes. You either get a good or a bad ending, and that's it.

Speaking of characters, while not all of them are winners, you do have a lot of interesting characters that I wish had more going for them. They serve their purpose and never overstay their welcome, so I guess I'll give this a pass.

Overall, I can't really recommend this game. It isn't very fun to play, and puzzles are so easy and uninspired that I never felt like I had to think about it. I could recommend an art book if this game had one, but sadly it doesn't.

EDIT: It seems that this game has an artbook, it's just not available anymore. Shame.

10/10

Good game.

One of my favorite point & click games. I hope Tormentum 2 eventually comes out.

Looks great with fantastic aesthetics. Fun puzzles which are easy to follow. Great casual game

Creepy and amazing.

Good point and click game.
Puzzles aren't annoying or hard.
The art is like a fever dream.
You got some choises to make, wich have actual consequences.
Yeah I'd say, give it a go.

Fantastic artwork!

Good:
- Hauntingly Beautiful, doesn't really evoke terror in me but I feel comfort looking at the artwork

Bad:
- "I look not in horror but simply acceptance of what I have done", I don't really agree with some of the moral choices in the game
- Would've been nice if there were save points, really annoying having to go through all the puzzles just to see the alternative routes

Neutral:
- Feels more journey than puzzle game, as the puzzles are very simple
- Very hilarious that the "Bad" Ending's music sounds much more appealing to me

Short, nice puzzles, not too hard. The story.. I didn't like the ending (and i had the good one)

Point 'n' click adventures are a forgotten art. Long gone are times of Monkey Island, Dark Seed, Grim Fandango and many more legends of the genre. Replaced by basically interactive movies that favor choices instead of puzzles and mystery. Imagine my surprise when Tormentum entered my sights.

First and foremost, the art design of the game is fantastic. If you're a fan of Giger and his legendary nightmarish worlds, you will love this game on basis of art and atmosphere alone. Every screen is a delight to explore and you never know what new surreal horror awaits you with each step. The world is bleak, lost in time and devoid of hope. Our main character is equally as mysterious as the world surrounding him. Every facet of this biomechanical landscape is rife with puzzles and mystery.

The story unravels with a steady pace, each step consisting of puzzles which are the main gameplay focus. The puzzles are not hard per se, mainly consisting of logic games turned into inworld machinery. If you are good at sliding puzzles, unblocking, pattern puzzles and the like, you will not have much issues. If the puzzle seems obtuse at first, the simplest answer is usually the correct one. There is NO pixel hunting or insane Lucasart era logic puzzles in this game which is a big plus. This game is far more comparable to the Adventure Company node based adventures (Secrets of the Lost Cavern, Voyage, etc) where instead of solving problems through complicated sets of events, you go through the story through series of basically mini games. You won't be needing a guide for this one.

The game has 2 endings and various choices that determine them. The choices operate on principles of absolute morality. Do NOT think in grey areas, the choices here are quite black and white binary of relatively obvious distinctions of objective good and evil. While you could interpret and subsequently elaborate your choices, the game is very strict about its morality. Thankfully, the ending gives you an overview of all of your choices so if you made a wrong one affecting your ending, you can rectify them in a second playthrough.

Second playthrough sadly is at the same time good yet quite underwhelming. Puzzles are always the same and choices do not affect the pacing of the story whatsoever but through different dialogue. Game however is short (as advertised) and once you know the solutions to the puzzles, you will breeze through the entire thing in about 40 minutes.

Overall, the game is quite good and a welcome little gem in a fairly forgotten genre. For how often it goes on sale, 5 euros is more than a steal for 3-4 hours of beautiful art design and somber atmosphere. Recommended.

Spoiler alert.

The art and puzzles were good enough, but the ending left me disappointed. Why? For the same reason I have a problem with the whole notion of an end judgement in religious mythology. If I had known what the results of my choices would be *before* I made them, I would have made different choices. The idea that anyone holding all knowledge and outcomes is justified in condemning another who didn't is textbook injustice. It made a real meh ending out of it for me.

Graphically interesting, but hampered by sub-par worldbuilding and dull gameplay.

In this game you will experience an alternate version of World War II but also at the end you might realize you're kind of an asshole

Sights & Sounds

Welcome to hell

• Ever wonder what hell is like? Kind of a loaded question, I know; any answer is going to be weighed down by host of cultural and religious baggage. Maybe you don't even think it's real. But for a moment, suppose that it is
  
• What's it like? Are there twisted figures scattered around you? Horrors your mind can't comprehend? Monoliths and altars to demons whose names were forgotten before life crawled from the ocean? As you bear the weight of your sins to their final judgement, do you feel the fiery vengeance of an angry god, or the impossible chill of the absence of his presence?
  
• More importantly, would it make for a good video game setting?
  
• Tormentum: Dark Sorrow seeks to answer that question. Sure, there's characters and a plot and even some puzzles, but the most interesting thing about this game is in how it depicts hell
  
• If you're going to draw influences from 20th century horror art, you could make far worse choices than the twisted, erotic, alien machinery of H.R. Giger and the monolithic, writhing, hopeless settings and characters of Zdzisław Beksiński
  
• Given the unrelentingly gloomy setting, the variety in the soundtrack was surprising. I completely expected the rest of the tracks to follow suit from the austere ambient grinding with tortured organ and strings. To be clear, there's still plenty of that, but you'll occasionally be hit with some pretty-sounding piano or folksy acoustic guitar to break the monotony
  
• I'm not opposed to having an original song with lyrics in the credits, but it feels like a lot of games have a hard time pulling it off well. Tormentum: Dark Sorrow is no exception. This is a slight spoiler, but the good and bad endings have different tracks. Cool idea, but the metal song was a little cheesy compared to the more subdued pop/rock one
  
• Kind of a shame, too. It sounded like it was going to launch into a speedy, double kick, growled vocal tech death track, but petered out into a more traditional heavy metal sound. There's no voice acting, so I'd recommend just putting on something evil, blasphemous, and orchestral like if you really wanna get in the spirit. Maybe Septicflesh?
  

Story & Vibes

A path to perdition

• With all the gloomy visuals, the dreary story is expected
  
• I'll avoid spoilers, of course, but the game opens with your hooded protagonist being airlifted via grimy dirigible to a daunting, twisted prison fortress. You don't know why or for what reason, but the initial impression is that this is going to be a bit of an inconvenience
  
• You only know that your primary goal is to escape. Thankfully, beyond the cell you're initially confined to, security at this prison seems pretty lax. You'll puzzle your way through all horrible corridors of torture until you manage to sneak out the back
  
• Your journey isn't over, however. You still need to figure out how to get home, or at least to a place of relative shelter to figure out what comes next. You'll travel the war-torn lands of hell in search of respite
  
• Eventually, you reach the end of the game and figure out what the whole journey you went on was for, including some backstory on the protagonists origins
  
• It's a fairly run-of-the-mill plot as far as narratives go, even with the backstory drop at the tail end. Not bad but also not very interesting
  
• Vibe-wise, what you see is what you get. This is a game for thinking and reflection; "joy" doesn't really enter the equation at any point, so don't go in expecting any humor or lightheartedness. Tormentum, as its name implies, is unilaterally somber
  

Playability & Replayability

Torturous puzzles

• Have you played a point-and-click title before? Good! There's nothing new for me to tell you about the Tormentum's gameplay. If you haven't delved into this genre before, I don't know that this is where I'd jump in. Try out a couple Lucas Arts games from the 90s and maybe circle back to this one later
  
• The puzzles here are very hit-or-miss. The best ones feel very "in-universe". For example, in the prison, there's one puzzle involving repairing and properly positioning a statue to open a door forward that was pretty satisfying. I enjoyed how I had to seek out the proper elements and manipulate a set piece in order to progress
  
• Most of the other puzzles are less engaging. Sliding puzzles? Pipe puzzles? Memory matching? These sorts of tasks feel very out of place and extremely generic. The timed memory matching task in particular felt egregiously lazy
  
• What's worse is that the bad puzzles far outnumber the good ones. I would have rather endured any number of the unintuitive item combining or bizarre sequence puzzles the genre is usually known for. It certainly would have been better than looking at a screen and frowning because a demon architect decide to lock a door with a sliding puzzle
  
• There is a lightweight moral choice mechanic that is surprisingly unforgiving. Being an asshole even once will lock you out of the good ending. None of the choices are morally ambiguous. This makes seeing both endings very straightforward, but I would have enjoyed an opportunity to weigh pros and cons. It's pretty easy to parse which choice is which between "behave like a reasonable human" and "be a literal murderer"
  
• Seeing both endings requires two separate playthroughs. Would have preferred a save file system to make seeing both a little easier, but oh well. I just blasted through dialogue to see everything on my way to the "bad" ending. Probably won't be back for a playthrough after getting all the achievements
  

Overall Impressions & Performance

Not quite there

• Not sure where my love of creepy art began. It may have started when I was a kid and saw a picture of Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights in a book. I couldn't take my eyes of the right panel of that triptych. No matter how long you spend peering into his imaginative little slice of hell, you keep seeing new disturbing little details
  
• Naturally, then, what followed was a youth full of hiding horror movies and metal music from my parents. I certainly became familiar with the works of both Giger and Beksiński as a teen as well. If I could afford their art, I'd buy some, but for now, I'll treasure the Paul Romano and John Dyer Baizley pieces I've assembled
  
• I won't claim objectivity in my reviews, but I will try to avoid "tilting" my rating. I love the art in this game and believe it deserves praise for it, but I can't totally ignore the fact that 75% of the puzzles are generic and the story is merely okay
  
• If anything, the game shows too much restraint. By being gloomy but not frightening or disturbing, Tormentum feels like it's missing some spice. At the end, you get the feeling that you spent the whole game looking over a cliff, but realize that you never took a dive. I wouldn't call the tone "boring", but it's looking in that direction
  
[*] Like most point-and-clicks, this one works well with the Steam Deck's trackpads, but playing at your PC with a mouse will be more comfortable

Final Verdict

Great point and click title. Puzzles on the easier side, but that's OK with me as I could enjoy the art amazing art direction all the more.

Well worth the price in my opinion.

Evocative visuals, reasonably plausible puzzles.

Once you know the puzzle solutions, you can do quick additional playthroughs to get more achievements. I got all achievements in under 6h of playtime :)

Super! Świetna grafika i nie za trudne zagadki

Amazing art, nice music, a well presented story and some good puzzles.
The game is a bit short, but it is still a very nice experience, and worth it in my eyes.

I really loved this game, the vibes are so me. I want more.

Nice puzzle game that mostly isn't very hard even for my slow brain. I love the detailed art, the music and the story (or at least the idea behind it, considering that there isn't much text that describes the lore).
At first I didn't realize that there are actual choices and accidentally committed murder on my first playthrough lmao but it was nice to do both "routes" (though I kinda wish for a third ending, either a "neutral" one or something completely different from the canon two, like a secret ending where in order to achieve you have to do a specific choice combination for example). Either way, I hope that the second game will actually get released some day!
Also there's a cute (monster) kitty :3

Worth it just for the artwork and the phenomenal soundtrack.

Some of the puzzles and rooms are bit of an interesting chore to keep track on what goes and happens where but if you get stuck you can always check community guides for a hint.