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Simulator titles can take on many different forms and styles these days. From the walking sim, to a farming fantasy, and things as downright mundane as mowing the lawn or making a cup of coffee, the options are pretty much limitless.
One thing I hadn’t seen to this point, however, was a mental asylum simulator, and that’s exactly what Sanatorium is, the forthcoming game from Swiss studio Zeitglas, which launches next month on November 6th.
I realize this brand of simulator might sound a bit strange on the surface, but the subject matter present here in Sanatorium is handled in a very interesting way which touches upon several themes such as human nature, mental health treatment of the past, and the lengths someone might go to in order to solve a mystery.
I recently got to go hands-on with Sanatorium early to see what it was truly all about, so start practicing your best doctor’s signature and come learn more about it.
A Roaring Good Style
Sanatorium is a 2D experience that functions most similarly to a point-and-click-like adventure game. The most obvious thing you’ll notice first is the game’s 1920s style, which is portrayed extremely well in the art and sound design categories.
The main menu of the game greets you with an era-appropriate tune backed by an upright bass, harpsichord, and some subdued cymbal work on a drumset to help set the scene. From here, the music was a big standout for me in future moments as well, as it would get jazzier or more mysterious depending on what made most sense at the time.
There’s also an old-timey filter effect on the entire game to help your brain travel 100 years back in history, as well as muted yet perfectly retro-feeling teals, oranges, and greens that serve the style of the game pretty perfectly as well.
Though the BioShock games are riffing more on the 1950s and 1960s (and while Sanatorium is clearly not similar to BioShock in any other ways), the font and menus here in Sanatorium piqued my nostalgia immediately with their similar style and design. From a vibe and mood-setting perspective, Sanatorium is effective, and the designs of character models and rooms of the asylum look stylish and great.
Чувствуете себя авантюристом?
Sanatorium sets the scene by informing you that you’re a down-on-your-luck journalist from the Roaring Twenties that’s on the verge of eviction as the bills keep stacking higher and higher. One day, however, you receive a letter from your Aunt Patty, which informs you that she’s currently being held in Castle Woods, the nearby mental asylum.
After reminiscing about your life growing up by the seaside at Aunt Patty’s house and realizing you hadn’t felt true happiness since these days, you decide to figure out why Patty is being held at Castle Woods seemingly against her will. It’s not like you have anything to lose anyway, and it’ll make a good story at the very least.
From here, your character forges documents and a diploma in order to get hired as a doctor at the asylum, and the adventure unfolds from here as you diagnose and treat patients by day, and scour the asylum grounds at night in order to figure out what’s actually going on here.
In my time with the game, I didn’t have a тонна to explore yet, but it was still interesting to look around basements, boiler rooms, greenhouses, and more areas of the sprawling property searching for any type of clues along the way. And clues you will find, some of which point towards your new mentor, Dr. Berthan, possibly not being the most trustworthy guy, others becoming items in your inventory that you can use to solve environmental puzzles in the future, or to act as a way to start some new encounters in the game.
It starts to become very interesting as the staff begins to catch on to your late-night wanderings and makes a point to try to stop you from your investigation. Orderlies will confront you in your office or the hallways to not-so-subtly threaten you and try to persuade you to keep to your own quarters overnight, lest you find yourself back out on the streets… или хуже.
I will say that I didn’t feel like I got to scratch too much of the adventure game surface in my preview, but the vibe of the mystery was strong. Clearly, there’s something going on beneath the surface of Castle Woods, and it seems like it’ll be interesting to piece it all together.
Diagnose, Treat, And Profit
During your actual, fake work shifts as a doctor at the asylum, Sanatorium employs a super unique-feeling card-based system in order to actually treat your patients. Each inmate person you’ll work with has a case file that you get to peruse, which includes some of their symptoms on cards that you’ll need to categorize properly in order to then learn how to properly treat.
This will involve some trial and error, but also highly educated guesses as you read their symptoms, cross-check them with the parts of the brain that could benefit from treatment, learn their correct syndrome/affliction from there, and then come up with the treatment plan of your choosing. I found myself taking real-life notes just to keep all my options straight. And since it’s the 1920s, these options aren’t always the most humane.
You’ll earn money from «proper» care, which you can then spend to purchase more cards used for diagnoses, treatments, as well as upgrades that unlock more advanced treatment techniques, such as music therapy and actual, proper medication. Of course, just throwing someone into a straitjacket or hooking them on opiates is easier (and cheaper), so you can always go those routes too, though they can also lead to side effects in your patients that you’ll then have to manage and deal with as well.
This becomes a balancing act, as your roster of patients will grow daily until you heal them up enough to be sent home. Conversely, you can also continue to hold them in the asylum even after they’re better, just to continue squeezing more and more money out of them.
It’s a system that feels a bit deep and overwhelming at first, but I mean, your character is also out of their depths here too as a licensed doctor impersonator. Nobody said this was going to be an easy job. Still, you’ll find a groove as you learn how to treat certain symptoms best, what treatments are least likely to cause nasty side effects, and how to best manage your patient list in general.
It all becomes an interesting sort of thought experiment for yourself along the way, too. I had a moment where I found myself thinking, «Okay, how do I get this person out of here as quickly as possible to open this room for someone else that has more money to pay me?» After realizing I was kind of a monster for feeling this way, the hook of Sanatorium immediately made much more sense.
You’ll also be able to speak with the patients along the way, and they’ll sometimes try to bargain with you, point to more nefarious things going on around the asylum grounds, or even score you a new adventure item to use to progress your late-night exploration. It’ll be fun to see just how deep this all ultimately goes upon the game’s full release.
Sanatorium seems to be geared towards high replayability as well, because you’re likely not going to figure out how to balance all of this successfully the first time around. In my maiden attempt, my mentor wasn’t happy with my performance, nor the fact I was snooping around so much. I quickly found the police had been called on me, was slapped with a bogus narcissistic personality disorder diagnosis, and got locked in a treatment room of my own before being greeted by a game over screen.
Подведение итогов
If Sanatorium — A Mental Asylum simulator sounds like something you’d like to check out for yourself, the team dropped the release date for the game today. Thankfully, we won’t have to wait long.
Sanatorium launches on November 6th for Steam and macOS, and will also be playable on Steam Deck. Head over to the game’s Steam page if you’d like to wishlist this title and keep up with any more news and updates that roll out between now and launch.
There’s also a brand-new trailer for the game, which you can view below:
