The Sexy Brutale is not the title of a porn movie, as you might have expected. It’s a video game. I recently played it, and here’s what I thought.
Plot
The ‘Sexy Brutale’ is, in fact, a mansion. Each year, the owner, Lucas Bondes, throws a masked ball there with a select group of invitees. Lafcadio Boone is one of the guests.
Lafcadio wakes up and finds himself facing a girl covered in blood telling him that he’s stuck in a time loop. She gives him a watch, which he can use to reset part of the loop. She also tells him the mansion staff is murdering the guests.
His mission: save the guests one by one. Each gives power back to the bloody girl so she can fight ‘the enemy’ assaulting the mansion.
Gameplay
As you might have guessed, The Sexy Brutale isn’t your regular FPS or roleplaying game. It’s a puzzle game based on an inverted detective story. You know who committed a murder, but you have to figure out how the murder was committed, and prevent it.
Most of the events in the world do not change during each time loop. However, you can change the course of events during a loop. For example, you can put a dud bullet in a gun to prevent somebody from being shot.
The caveat in all this is that you cannot be in the same room as any of the other characters in the game. The masks they wear rise up to magically attack you, the player. This limits your freedom and is part of the puzzles you need to solve.
Other barriers are locks on doors that you need to pick, secret passageways you initially don’t know about, and ghosts whom you cannot see.
Each time you prevent a murder, you gain new powers, which allow you to reach different parts of the mansion.
There is a handy map that shows you which character is where at certain times so you can plan your murder-prevention accordingly.
The verdict
All in all, the Sexy Brutale is a really fun game. It’s a who-dun-it mixed with a puzzle game. The music score is catchy and the graphics are stylish.
I liked it a lot, but if you’re into first person shooters or open world roleplaying games, you’re probably not going to like it as much.
