Cerebral (Narrative Crisis Existential Horror)
I simply adore short horror games like this. Or, rather, short horror games that break with tradition instead of riding the popular theme train. Indie dev horror tends to follow the seek-and-find format, most usually with derivative jumpscares and attempts at trauma bonding the player to the story, ineffectively forcing an identity crisis through mental health tropes that have been around since the 19th century. Cerebral, however, presents a much different picture. It came out of nowhere and the dev literally tracked me down and sent a nice email with a quick, yet thorough, overview of what he made and digging some of the screenshots (like one he supplied me with above), I was interested. I’ve played me a number of “the brain is scary” psychological horror games, but this one is different, quite different, and hopefully gets the attention it certainly deserves.
You play the role of Sophie (or do you?), who wakes up in what appears to be a shared apartment/flat with a mysterious, red-faced, digital entity that speaks to you through a flat-screen on a wall. Through this irritating face you begin to learn that something about your mind is amiss, and are tasked with navigating a variety of puzzles and tense action sequences to slowly piece together what remains of your mental health. This in itself is typical for these types of games, but what Cerebral does better is two-fold. Firstly, the player receives no hand-holding whatsoever. Puzzles are not just situational, they’re environmental, meaning that various details in the single room that makes up the bulk of the play provide clues to solve the puzzles the entity puts in front of you (referred to in the game as “cycles”). A singular detail in a drawer could be the detail that makes the difference of going further or dying. If you make any mistakes in the cycles, your mental health slowly deteriorates until you find yourself dead. In-between each series of cycles are events that connect to the story, involving disturbing creatures that relentlessly pursue you (such as “Mara” in the header above), and character twists that will leave even the experienced gamer questioning their assumptions. Most importantly, however, is the lore. Unfortunately speaking too much of it will destroy the conceit, which needs to be fully experienced on its own. It should be enough to say that Cerebral cleverly cosplays a standard descent into insanity before pulling sabotaging its own story to leave the player in completely uncharted, and genuinely existential, territory.
Written by Stanley, Devourer of Souls
Cerebral
Youviverse (developer and publisher)
4.6 / 5
