I Don’t Know if I Want This.

Guilt is a thunderous emotion.  The motley of actions wished undone weigh heavy on the necks of those who sin greater than others, and no one knows that weight better than recipients who bear it.  The few who are lucky to be absolved from these sins may walk free amongst the weightless, upon a truly fruitful existence.  But you.  You know what you did.

You’re stuck here.  Forever to remember.

I Make Saints is a horror-soaked walking simulator from Somewhat Software.  A quick title splash sends you into a grainy, pixelated room mysteriously dark and scattered with near-empty papers slathered upon the walls, messily guiding your direction towards locked doors and trails of blood.  Each paper can be examined with one sentence scribbled on each sheet, placing proverbial puzzle pieces on a table where you know neither what the puzzle creates, nor how many pieces it’ll take to finish it.

These papers are scattered throughout areas that will take you deeper into the psyche of who “you” are and why these papers are here.  The breadcrumbs left behind: the blinding flash of a camera, walls decorated with religious caricature, your own self-depreciated recollections, they read out like a pen stroke upon a blind contour drawing, recreating the despicable and disturbing natures of your past but not seeing clearly the final product of what you’ve done until you’ve finished.  Walking through the crevices and alleyways of its darkened city basked only in colored light, I Make Saints’ quiet yet unnerving soundtrack permeates the feeling of something slowly creeping around corners as your fear of the unknown keeps you on your toes.

For around 30 minutes of game time, I Make Saints efficiently crams your senses with perturbed “what-ifs” that sent you here: How was this object used?  Why was this area specifically shown?  What did you try to fix yourself?  What did you do to make sure you weren’t needing to fix?  The answers are never laid out cut and dry, but in the mind of the truly disturbed, when are the answers ever easy?

When you finally make your way to your final destination, the clues start to unravel like used police tape on a decrepit crime scene.  When the guilty are to reap what has been sown or to be freed from the constrictive constraints of consequence the raking, lacerating itch in the back of your mind will always be there to cement your feet to the floor.  Never to be free from what you have done.

Is it Guilt?  Remorse?  Pride?  They may never know.  But you:

Reviewed the Steam Edition via Steam.