Tormentum II: reviewing the appeal of grotesque, surreal, and nightmarish design
Imagine this premise for a game: in the dark future of 2088, wary of leaving his apartment to expose himself to the pollution outside, David dedicates himself to creating a world of his own. A simulation inspired by his dreams, filled with characters as intelligent as humans. Struggling to procure computer components for his resource-hungry AI and due to the unreliability of delivery drones, he resorts to accepting a mysterious coprocessor from a masked stranger, leading to the AI taking over his reality.
Considering development on this title began in 2018, it seems that dystopian writers these days have a tough job outpacing reality.
Tormentum II is a dark fantasy point-and-click game developed by OhNoo Studio, using hand-drawn artwork inspired by the surreal paintings of H.R. Giger and Zdzisław Beksiński. A sequel to 2015’s Tormentum: Dark Sorrow, this new entry is a standalone story, requiring no prior knowledge of the previous game. I played and enjoyed the first entry when it came out, yet my memory of it has become quite patchy in the intervening 11 years, and so I can confirm that this title works well as a singular experience.
The main draw for the game is its artwork. Giger and Beksiński’s works are often conflated due to their focus on surrealism, decay, and twisted human forms, lost in brutal industrial landscapes. In practice, however, Giger favoured airbrushing monochrome figures, blending the distinction between figure and machinery in his signature biomechanical style, whereas Beksiński utilised earthy yellows and striking blues to bring his otherworldly dreamscapes to life.
Tormentum 2 sits comfortably between these two styles. It’s in full colour and favours Beksiński for its striking organic world, while details, statues and characters often lean towards Giger’s intricate gothic designs. For fans of these artists, it’s a delight to look at throughout. Each screen is filled with grotesque and beautiful detail, with the ability to zoom in at any point and focus up close.
There are several references to other surreal artists such as René Magritte and Salvador Dalí that keep the visual variety fresh throughout. A large part of the game’s momentum relies on the player wanting to see what comes next, while leaving enough mystery to engage the imagination.
Created using almost 500 individual backgrounds, the experience is closer to playing through a painting than a traditional video game. Dark subterranean passages of suspiciously organic stone give way to lonely vistas and ruined islands of alien anatomy, fallen to ruin and entropy. In conjunction with the imagery, the sound design adds to the oppressive atmosphere of Tormentum’s decaying world. Electronic drones and orchestral melancholy (with an occasional jolt of industrial metal) are used to emphasise the loneliness and otherness of this world. Plus, each sound effect contains a satisfying crunch or unnerving squelch.
The game follows David, a tormented artist who’s working on creating his own world inside a simulation, the world of Tormentum. After installing a mysterious new component into his computer, he is pulled into the virtual world against his will, unable to escape.
From there, David must navigate Tormentum by interacting with its denizens and solving environmental puzzles. Said puzzles follow a pretty standard point-and-click structure; there’s a lot of ‘use item to open door’ and ‘arrange pieces in the correct order/match a pattern’ common in other titles. I rarely felt challenged or lost. Most items needed for progress appear either in the same room or a few rooms from where they need to be used.
The puzzles could have benefitted from a bit more challenge, but the swift solves lend themselves very well to the overall pace of the game. There aren’t any Monkey Island style abstractions, requiring hours of trying every item in the inventory on every conceivable pixel. The only issues I had arose from necessary items occasionally blending into the busier backgrounds. It gave me a taste of the pixel-hunting days of old.
The game is split into islands, accessible from the world map. I initially worried this scale might make the game too unfocused. The idea of potentially searching for an item that could be on one of multiple islands filled me with dread – a different kind than the game intends. However, each island is self-contained, essentially acting as a ‘chapter’ of the story. That way, the game created a greater sense of scope and environmental variety while retaining focus and pacing.
The inhabitants of Tormentum are as strange and unsettling as the locations the player finds them in. A central theme of the plot is a creator meeting his creations, with a mix of revulsion and unwilling guilt. Most of these wretches are half-finished or abandoned, lost and unknowing of their place in the world. David has to face these failures viscerally and up close, and consider his responsibility as their creator. Their stories drive the plot forward and introduce many of the choices in the game’s morality system.
At certain points, the player will have to make a decision as to how David acts, altering the outcome of the story and leading to one of the game’s multiple endings. Much of the character motivations are cryptic and vague, making it hard to guess the outcome of these decisions. Whilst this could be frustrating to some, I think the strangeness of the world lends itself to these more ambiguous choices. I tended to go with whichever option seemed the most interesting, which led to some truly horrific acts for which I hope the game didn’t judge me. I do look forward to another playthrough to see if I can get a slightly happier ending than the one I ended up with.
Every design decision in Tormentum 2 serves the atmosphere and artistic direction of its grotesque and unique world. The ambiguous story, difficult-to-read characters, dread-inducing music, and the pace of the gameplay are able to take the player on a sightseeing tour of its hellish dreamscapes. Just like the artwork that inspired it, it’s probably not for everybody.
But, for those who enjoy the grotesque, surreal, and strangely beautiful worlds of Giger and Beksiński, the world of Tormentum II has many sights to show you.
Tormentum II was released on July 23rd, available on Windows, macOS, SteamOS + Linux.
