Mouthwashing Review (PC) – The Flavor of Fear

When I first found out about Mouthwashing, I heard it’s one of those games where it’s best to go in knowing very little. And while that’s true for the story, the game does let you know what the general vibe is pretty early. Mouthwashing is an indie sci-fi horror game with some light gameplay and a gripping narrative. I won’t spoil the twists and turns, but I will discuss the spooky vibes you can expect from this tale of terror on the Tulpar.

Game Name: Mouthwashing
Platform: PC
Developer: Wrong Organ
Publisher: Critical Reflex
Release Date: September 26th, 2024
Price: $12.99

The story is the main powdered meat and freeze-dried potatoes of this scares-in-space title. A crew of five on a shipping vessel is stranded in outer space after an accident. We see the accident right from the get go, as Mouthwashing opens with the ship heading for a collision course with an asteroid. We only get the full context much, much later, but we do quickly learn this collision leads to said stranding, with the captain in bad shape, to say the least.

Again, I won’t reveal anything past that in terms of what happens. But I will talk about the general shape of the story. The narrative is non-linear, jumping around from pre- and post-crash. This makes the mystery all the more enticing, as we know what happened. We just don’t know why.

A Curious Crew

The non-linear narrative also lends itself to one of my favorite kinds of stories: ones where you continuously guess and reassess the motives and moralities of the characters. The five characters may not seem likable in the traditional sense, but they prove consistently of interest. There’s Swansea, the curmudgeonly engineer, Daisuke, his well-meaning but inexperienced intern, Anya, the anxious medical officer, Jimmy, the co-pilot in over his head, and Curly, the captain burnt to a crisp—yet just barely alive.

Each character will likely have a moment in which you sympathize with them. And just as likely, they’ll each have a moment in which you’ll curse them. A major motif of Mouthwashing becomes how little we actually know about the mindsets of others. It’s easy to judge someone by the results of their actions without realizing the intentions behind them.

Mouthwashing mixes this motif with themes of responsibility and capability. You can see where these collide, as someone who is responsible may not always be capable, and vice-versa. All this is to say that Mouthwashing has a lot of weighty ideas that will likely linger with players for a while. It would also make a great movie, and this is where the seams start to show.

Mouthwashing and Mouthwatching

I genuinely hope that at some point, we get a film adaptation of Mouthwashing. It feels like a great episode of Black Mirror or Doctor Who. And yet, this begs the question. Why make it a video game?

The answer is that Mouthwashing does have puzzles, stealth sections, and even combat. But the puzzles are pretty straightforward. And the stealth and combat comes rarely. When it does, it feels mechanically lightweight if thematically heavy.

Just so you know where I stand, I’m generally pretty favorable towards the much maligned “walking-sim.” Mouthwashing does benefit from having the aforementioned gameplay drip. And yet perusing the same halls of the Tulpar does become repetitive. This may be the point, making the ship feel claustrophobic.

And if Mouthwashing doesn’t have the biggest and most varied locales to explore, it does look great. PS1 visuals are making a big comeback in indie horror, and I’m here for it. While the game is presumably set in the future, it has distinctly 70s and 80s aesthetics.

The sound design is also top notch, selling the horrific moments from the squelching of imagined terrors to the gulping of the pitiable captain. While mouthwash does play a role in the narrative, Mouthwashing does have the soundscape of the act itself—natural yet somewhat off-putting.

If you’re a fan of films like Alien, Sunshine, or Event Horizon, you’ll likely appreciate Mouthwashing for drawing inspiration from them while building its own engaging story on top. Funnily enough, I recently played a tabletop game called Mothership drawing from these same inspirations. So perhaps coming from a highly interactive version of these tales made me crave more gameplay. Which is to say, other gameplay-forward folks may feel this even more strongly. But for fans of sci-fi horror narrative, Mouthwashing will go down easy.

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