Due to the abundance of story exploration games or “kinda adventure games but not really”, it’s very rare I bother playing any of them unless their story or presentation or anything else really grab me. When I first saw the store page for Mouthwashing, I dismissed it immediately and wouldn’t have considered playing it if not for catching a few streams of other people going through the game. Which has shown that this game has very strong writing and presentation that might be worth checking out for myself, even though I have, essentially, spoiled the story for myself with those streams. And you know what – it was still worth it. Even if, the more this game tries to be an adventure game, the worse it gets. And it’s published by russians.
Mouthwashing is a story driven adventure game with non-linear storytelling and abrupt editing of the story itself, somewhat reminiscent of the attempts made by Blendo Games with games like Thirty Flights of Loving. This title decides to sacrifice some of the tight cinematic editing and storytelling in favor of more interactivity, often times in a smart way. But sometimes in very bad ways. The main draw here is the genuinely unsettling story, that makes you feel more uneasy the further you go. Which deals in some seriously dark themes, without feeling too exploitative. The premise is quite simple – a small crew of a space ship get stranded and as time goes on, their mental state deteriorates. It’s all written well and presented well, with chilling twists and turns in the story delivered in a very effective way. This isn’t the type of a horror themed story where you will get startled by some scares. It’s a slow burn that makes you feel more and more disgusted with what people can do.
For how good the storytelling and presentation are, the adventure part of the gameplay is often quite weak. It starts harmless enough, with a few simple but well made “find item, use item” types of puzzles that also help tell the story. But closer to the very end, the game starts relying on very extended and very poorly designed action-ish sequences, that are not good. The last one of which being just bad, frustrating and utterly pointless. I get how a lot of developers are very afraid of being just story exploration games (aka “walking simulators”), but they really shouldn’t be, especially if, as in this case, it would’ve made the experience better.
Another sad choice, as I’ve hinted above, is that the developers have made was to work with Critical Reflex – a publisher that desperately tries to hide the fact that it’s based in russia and that money they make may go (as taxes) to fund the numerous war crimes their country is doing. Without that Mouthwashing could be worth experiencing. But only if you’re in the mood for a psychological horror story that will make you feel dirty and hate all characters in it. What’s here is well told and presented, while most of its gameplay is decent enough. So if the developers ever decide to change the publisher, this could be worth checking.