Continuing our theme of unsettlingly recent subjects, we’re going to talk about a point-and-click horror adventure game released in March 2025 after spending well over a decade in development limbo. The playing character arrives at a mental hospital 1 which he thought abandoned but which was recently taken into use again. He is looking for clues regarding a hole in his memory from the time he spent there.
Perhaps halfway through the game — depending on how fast you do what parts — you meet a patient with a chessboard right next to his bed. The intrigue thickens! Why could a chess player possibly be in mental asylum? Did he play the Bird opening?
No, it’s not quite that bad. But it’s pretty bad nonetheless: the board is rotated over /2, some pieces are knocked over and, they seem to be using checker stones for missing pieces. And the position is illegal: 2
I’m guessing that pawn on f8 is actually why this guy is here, but the position of the kings is definitely not helping his case. Nor does the fact that white has buried his bishop on f1.
And the weirdest bit is that this position is on the board in the diegetic present but also during a flashback.3 Surely he didn’t end up in this outlandish position twice just by accident, so there must be some purpose to this. Is he trying to compose some sort of chess problem? Was this some traumatic experience from his childhood he feels compelled to repeat? The game doesn’t even pose these questions, instead focusing on reading notes.
A disappointment all around, particularly after last week’s good showing.
Realism: 0/5 This is illegal. The asylum, too, probably, but mostly the pawn on f8.
Probable winner: That depends greatly on whose turn it is and on whether those black checker stones are indeed black pieces.
1. [To be fair to the hospital, its inhabitants would turn anyone mental.] ↩
2. [Do you see that!? Not only can you change the squares’ colours with this diagram editor, but you can also markers!] ↩
3. [Runaway game ever coming back, wrong side and a wrong back rank.] ↩