Mouthwashing
Released: September 26th, 2024
Developer: Wrong Organ
Publisher: Critical Reflex
Systems: PC
“I hope this hurts.”
So reads the opening message of Wrong Organ’s Mouthwashing. It’s bold as far as mission statements go, though the exact meaning and context of it has been furiously debated since the release of this arresting psychological horror game. Then again, every aspect of Mouthwashing has been debated, dissected, discussed, and dug around in.
Many horror games these days inspire obsessive fandoms. Some of them cynically cultivate such obsession, contriving vague “lore” so kids watch videos with “EXPLAINED” in the title before they’re sold an inevitable slew of creepy (and crappy) plush toys. Mouthwashing is a fitting name for a game that cleans the taste of such cynicism out from my face hole.
Mouthwashing doesn’t need to cultivate anything. It’s only natural that a fandom would gather to speculate itself silly. This is a game that can burrow into your head so much you need to analyze and ponder, simply to give the scratching thoughts somewhere to go.
And it hurts.
A courier spaceship is stranded in the void after an asteroid collision that left its captain alive but physically devastated. The survivors - a skeleton crew on a miserable job - have no realistic hope of rescue, dwindling supplies, and fraying mental health.
This is the fate of the Tulpar, a vessel in the fleet of The Pony Express.
Dilapidated and lacking resources even before the crash, this ship is reflective of the inhuman mentality driving corporate interests - the human crew have just enough nutrition to live on and are expected to work through awful conditions with financial penalties inflicted across the team if just one person steps out of line. It’s a dangerous job with employee safety considered an unnecessary cost. A bit grim, really.
Grimmer still is the literal reality of the job - it’s not one relegated to science fiction, or indeed any type of fiction at all.
Growing up, I thought Weyland-Yutani and Omnicorp were exaggerations of corporate evil, but such futuristic fiefdoms offer a downplayed reflection. Many of you will have at least heard the name of the historical Pony Express - not only did it exist, it was exactly as monstrous as its fictional counterpart. The Pony Express killed a lot of young people through avarice and negligence, never facing a consequence for it.
Mouthwashing is a sci-fi story but its horror draws very much from the real and the contemporary. While it’s a game that may be interpreted a number of ways, to me it’s ultimately an expression of feeling trapped and alone, its characters having been isolated in situations that are terrifyingly grounded.
The presence of the Pony Express represents the most universally recognizable trap - that of the grind, the relentless march of capitalism that has seized the lion’s share of peoples’ lives entirely for the enrichment of a few. After all, few monsters are as familiar to many of us as the American healthcare system, an economy of violent coercion that movies couldn’t make up.
This is only one way in which traps are represented. Another obvious example is Curly, the ostensible captain of the Tulpar who we first meet as a living monument to suffering - hands and feet amputated, skin burned in totality, one eye, no lips, dirty bandages, capable only of blood curdling, agonized moans.
Immobile, helpless, at the mercy of people who increasingly can’t cope, Curly’s hell is the one that scares me the most. From the moment I first saw him, he brought the fears I have as a disabled chronic pain sufferer to the forefront of my mind and kept them there.
Anya, meanwhile, is suffering in an altogether different way, though a no less grounded one. I won’t delve too deeply because her part of the story is best witnessed firsthand, though it takes some work to appreciate the full scope of it. What Anya goes through is such a crucial part of the plot, yet Mouthwashing is incredibly guarded about it. Other games would be grossly unsubtle where this one distinctly isn’t.
Jimmy is the co-pilot and acting captain after the collision. Players will spend a lot of time in his shoes, and will feel sympathies shift as they start to realize that just because he’s playable, that doesn’t mean he’s likable. Jimmy would be quick to say he’s trapped as well - trapped by responsibility as the one who takes care of everything, who “fixes” things, who has to step up.
That’s what he’d say. Mouthwashing’s most repeated mantra of “take responsibility” may offer a counterpoint to that.
Rounding out the crew is embittered maintenance man Swansea and his optimistic intern Daisuke, both of whom play smaller roles in the story but are important nonetheless. Swansea is a fascinating case study in his own right, a surly man with no patience for other people, at times quite menacing, but hiding a depth and humanity older players may find quite piercing.
Daisuke is… well, we love Daisuke, right?
Just because the themes are realistic, that doesn’t mean there’s not some warped freaky shit to deal with. As players experience the unraveling minds of perspective characters, they’ll be dragged into surreal nightmare scenes where the imagery gets more grotesque and haunting as time goes on. These moments contain content that’s as sickening as it is impressive.
Very much a narrative driven game, Mouthwashing takes place between two periods of time with their chronology playing out in a non-linear arrangement. Not only do we experience events from the weeks and months after the incident, we also play our part in acting out what occurred beforehand. Both periods paint a story that only gets darker and more cruel as the blanks fill and the consequences of character actions are seen up close.
Those looking for more conventional horror gaming won’t get their fill here. Much of Mouthwashing is spent talking to characters and experiencing the story as it unfolds. There will be objectives to complete, a few puzzles to boot, though all of it is in service to pushing forward an interactive story. This is certainly no bad thing, as you might be able to tell from my flowery waffling thus far.
In fact, the moments where Mouthwashing indulges in standardized horror gameplay are by far the weakest points. There are two stealth sections, both of which are fairly laborious. They outstay their welcome, figuring them out isn’t fun at all, and they bugger up the story’s otherwise tight pacing by disrupting its flow. Neither one is conceptually bad, and the imagery they evoke serves a purpose, but they didn’t need to be so obtrusive.
Towards the end of the game, there’s also a sequence that stops short of qualifying as combat since that would imply it’s anything like a proper fight. Also it’s shit.
Mouthwashing’s very much like SOMA in the sense that it’s a far better game when the “gameplay” is way out of focus. None of the criticized segments harm things to a significant degree, but I absolutely wouldn’t miss them if they were cut entirely and the narrative purposes they serve were performed another way.
I must stress, these moments are overshadowed to a drowning degree by the rest of it.
The occasional puzzles are more welcome, especially since they’re relatively straightforward, with goals generally well communicated. Using a scanner to find hidden details, figuring out numerical codes, performing a simple series of tasks to make a cake, these objectives break up the pace in a more positive way. These mundane jobs are starkly contrasted by the far darker puzzles, none of which I’ll spoil but all of which are fucking macabre.
I love a videogame that uses the unique elements of its medium to inform a story, and Mouthwashing does just that. The graphics, UI, and other interactive elements provide interesting plot clues or simply contribute to the overall mindfuck - subtle details in your inventory, gags involving objective updates, good ol’ fashioned scripted glitches, this is a game that plays with being a game.
Of course, the main thing is how deeply you as a player become immersed in a morbid situation, strapped tightly into the driver’s seat for the undertaking of some real ghastly shit. Your sense of agency is just another of Mouthwashing’s traps.
Visually, things lean heavily into the PSX aesthetic that’s quite trendy nowadays. A cast of polygonal character models with textures for faces are rendered behind an overlay giving everything a notable pixelated effect. Graphics may carry a retro flavor, but that doesn’t mean they’re low on detail, the interior of the Tulpar in particular offering nice little touches to look at.
Color and lighting are used to great effect, creating distinct moods within the changing environment. The brighter and more colorful look of things pre-crash are contrasted starkly with what it’s like afterwards - the common room especially becomes a harsh, oppressive red once Swansea smashes a large screen that serves as a “window” to a digitized outdoor scene - the loss of which only further makes the point that nobody’s getting free.
Audio similarly maintains an effective tone. The soundtrack features some ethereally beautiful tunes, offset by more sinister tracks reminiscent of films like The Thing. I don’t often bring up sound effects, but I’d be wrong not to mention them here - they are utterly disturbing at points, especially during more surreal horror scenes or pretty much anything involving Curly. The sound of Jimmy forcing painkillers down the captain’s mouth are… hard to forget.
No real voice acting is present, save for one beautiful moment of chilling laughter, one-liners from the Pony Express mascot, and some television clips. I’m not sure a full vocal cast would benefit this game, much as I’m usually on board with such things. There’s a coldness to much of the atmosphere that comes across better when you’re simply reading the dialog.
So much of this game has been perfectly used to maximize its horror. Whatever else may be theorized about the introductory sentiment, and I ascribe more than one meaning to it, one thing is absolutely certain - this story, along with all the unsettling elements around it, hopes to hurt.
Mouthwashing is a psychological horror game that, without a doubt, earns the “psychological” part of its designation. Within a futuristic setting is a contemporary story containing multiple themes of ghastly relatability. I cannot think of another game that upset me to this degree. It spoke so intimately to my personal trauma that playing it felt awful - and I mean that as a compliment, I truly do.
It hurts. And it’s beautiful.
10/10
