Before I dive into this Mouthwashing review, let me stop you. If you even slightly think you might play it, I would encourage you to go away and come back later, after playing. If psychological horror is your cup of tea, go play the game. I’m not going to spoil much, but I truly believe this game benefits from going in with as little information as possible.
So. Mouthwashing. What a game. It’s a truly horrific way to spend three hours, in the best possible way. Like an onion, there are so many layers which allow players to engage with the game on whatever level they want. Fancy some surface level stranded-in-space horror? Fill your boots. Want to explore the psychological torture of capitalism? Dig a little deeper. And there is more and more that you can find if you look deeper and deeper.
I think Mouthwashing is a brilliant example of a game that really embraces being a game. So much of the horror is interlinked with action or inaction, forcing the player to do things that are deeply unsavoury to put yourself through.
This really stands out right from the very start of the game. The control console blinks green, inviting you to make a small directional shift to the left. You turn to the controls, expecting to do as instructed, but the only option is to steer right. The way Mouthwashing immediately subverts game player agency sets a tone of lack-of-control and a heavy feeling of accountability regarding the bleak state of affairs through the game.
The game also does a fantastic job of ensuring that over time, as you come to understand what has happened in the lead up to and after the crash, you truly hate the player character. As I said, I don’t really want to spoil anything, but the deeper you unpeel the layers of this game, the more you will grow to despise Jimmy.
The way Mouthwashing is constructed, completely out of chronological order, really adds to the experience of going out of your mind. It’s so hard to pin down causality and trace the relationships between crew members. The ship also phases in and out of different states of repair and maintenance and while that helps cement you within a certain timeframe, it does make things feel a bit unravelled.
It would be a disservice to review Mouthwashing without mentioning the incredible low-poly PlayStation 1 era graphics. The characters are so…characterful. Incredibly distinctive with just a splash of weird vibes and uncanny valley in each face. Polle, the mascot of Pony Express, is deeply chilling. It’s boring and played out to describe a location as the other main character, but the space ship The Tulpar is such an incredible environment. The actual space you can explore and occupy is relatively small and contained, but it’s so well put together. The pipes, the screens, the atmosphere.
Some of the sequences really play with the space of the ship, with the cargo hold especially seeming to stretch out into the distance, far larger than physics should allow. You are also frequently placed into familiar hallways that distend and warp into non-Euclidian mazes that wrap around into themselves. So many of the spaces have that liminal quality that is inherently unsettling that you never get a moment of peace during the game.
The music and sound effects are also exceptional in Mouthwashing. The soundscape really contributes to the sense of unreality and unravelling that pervades the game. I use speakers to play games, but I strongly recommend using headphones to shut out the chatter of life and really allow the music and sounds of the game to close in on you and unsettle you as intended.
It isn’t a perfect game, because nothing ever is. There were a couple of instant-reset fail state segments that weren’t clearly explained and wound up being frustrating and for one of them I had to look up what exactly I was meant to be doing, because I thought I was following the directions the game had given me.
All in all, I think Mouthwashing is an incredibly traumatic, deeply nuanced, highly horrible game. I think essays are going to be written about it. There’s so much I could say about what happens and the symbolism and imagery in this game. It’s the kind of game that reaffirms my assertion that games deserve the same kind of deep dive criticism and exploration as books and films. I either had to give a fairly surface level summary, or write a 10,000 word thesis, there was no possible in-between.
If you are a fan of horror in any form, you deserve to treat yourself to the diabolical, heinous spectacle that is Mouthwashing.
Game: Mouthwashing
Developer: Wrong Organ
Publisher: Critical Reflex
Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, Xbox
Time to complete: 3 hours
Ali’s Update Corner
Whew, it has been a while. I hope you’re all still out there. The last semester of university somehow really got away from me and I probably did the least amount of gaming in a 4-month span than I ever have before.
I am actively making plans to not let this website suffer during busy periods of my life again. I’ll be spending the summer creating a backlog that I can draw from in pinch points.
Unfortunately, alongside university work I also have to have a part time job because my body demands food and shelter. If you want me to dedicate more time to keeping this blog going, please consider signing up for a paid subscription.
I know my writing is good - this year I won the Student Publication Association’s Best Culture Writer of the Year award - so it’s worth a few bucks a month, right? ;)
It was one of my favorites from last year. It's great to see it get more exposure. Nice post!
I'll always upvote Mouth washing. What a game.