If you want a good point-and-click game with great artwork, an engaging story, and won’t take you long to get your head around, I would definitely say to give Tormentum – Dark Sorrows a go

Tormentum Dark Sorrow Review – PC

Tormentum – Dark Sorrow is a horror-adventure point-and-click game by OhNoo! Studios. You play as a prisoner in a nightmarish castle, who has no memories bar one of a strange statue on a hill, which you believe will grant you your memories back. Throughout the game you meet strange characters who, much like the game itself, are not always what they seem. Don’t be fooled by its point-and-click nature, Tormentum is ruthless.

The gameplay is simple to get your head around; it says it all in the genre: you point at things and click them. The important story items or puzzles that you need to click on have a pulsing yellow glow around them (you can see the glow in the picture above around the little plaque on the bars). Often, however, those story events can’t be completed, or just won’t work, if you don’t have something else you picked up that didn’t have the glow. Unlike what we expect from years of old cartoons where things that were going to be animated were a slightly different shade to everything else, everything in this game blends seamlessly; it’s worth clicking on everything in sight.

Typical of a point-and-click game,much of the exposition is handed to you in big blocks of text right at the very beginning of the game. It’s all necessary information that makes the world you find yourself in make sense, and having a story is always nice, but you might find that you skim read most of it. The first two or so minutes of the game is mostly information dumping; you could argue that the exposition could have been better distributed throughout the game, or even that some of it isn’t needed as most of what it given to you you can work out simply from being in the world and playing the game, but it does serve a purpose.

Horror games tend to play on a lot of over-used narrative troupes, and unfortunately Tormentum is no exception. Not only does it play on the idea of amnesia, which is a good way of avoiding having to tell a character’s backstory, but it also uses the ‘redeem yourself’ troupe. This second one isn’t so bad, as it gives you an aim other than to merely escape.

All that said, Tormentum is different to most point-and-clicks I’ve played. You are told in the exposition that you must ‘reform your corrupt soul’, and where in many games you are lead through the story of your character’s change, here you are presented with the moral choice. This adds a whole new level to the game that many point-and-clicks don’t have. Each one of these decisions impacts how you can play the game, and which ending you get. This is why this game is ruthless. A single bad/immoral decision and you will not get the good ending, no matter how just you think it is.



I could put forward the argument that Tormentum is a hybrid point-and-click /puzzle. Although point-and-clicks often do have puzzles based on items you trigger or collect; in this game there are recognisable puzzles that can have you utterly stumped on for ages (I was stuck on the first puzzle for over an hour. Sometimes it does feel like they’re too difficult, especially the cages in the first area, but for the most part they aren’t terribly hard.

If you want a good point-and-click game with great artwork, an engaging story, and won’t take you long to get your head around, I would definitely say to give Tormentum – Dark Sorrow a go. Released on Steam on the 4th of March, you can currently get it for £7.19 (it’s 20% off at the moment, usually it’s £8.99). You can also get a free demo if you just want to try it out.

7/10