Review: A Mortician's Tale (2017)

Original post: https://misthold.dreamwidth.org/6419.html

A Mortician's Tale (2017) is a mortuary simulator/visual novel where you play as a mortician, embalming bodies, reading emails, attending funerals. It's inspired by Caitlin Doughty and the Order of the Good Death, people I very much admire. It's supposed to be an informative look at the Western death industry, and encourages players to think more deeply about what happens after we die.

And it is! It get super detailed about embalming (in particular), and though everything is illustrated it's still kinda creepy to be simulating gluing someone's eyes shut. The actual gameplay actually reminds me of those weird iOS kids games where you own a hair salon, and it just walks you through cutting/washing/styling step by step. Same thing here, but with a dead body (or checking emails, or attending funerals, etc.).

I played through two bodies and then quit. It's supposed to only take an hour to complete, but I couldn't even make it more than 20 minutes or so. I like the design but I just really wasn't into the storyline or the gameplay. I'm also not sure if the audio was working for me, or if there was no audio at all? idk.

Like I said: cute art! And lots of people like this game. I just couldn't get into it.

Price: $8.99

Available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and iOS. I played the Mac OS version.