A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Book on Your Phone
Omen Exitio: Plague delivers a mashup between a choose-your-adventure book and an H.P. Lovecraft story—with some RPG and adventure game aspects thrown in. As Tiny Bull’s second release, the title impresses with a strong story and giving the player ownership over their version of events.
You play as John Huntington, a British doctor in the late 1800s. He joined the army to escape the pain of losing his wife, but events in Zanzibar reveal that something is very wrong. A mysterious disease is spreading, pulling Huntington into uncovering the truth of its origins.
Despite being categorized on the App Store as an adventure game, Omen Exitio plays like a visual novel. The interface primarily consists of an open book with sepia-colored pages, making reading pleasant. Tapping the screen causes the page to turn with a page-turning sound effect.
A Lovecraftian Mystery
The main draw of Omen Exitio is its story, which is almost the entirety of gameplay. You read until you get to a decision point, make a choice and then see where it goes from there. That’s in no way a flaw, however, as the game’s story is intriguing, exciting and horrifying—in a good way.
While you can return to earlier pages—so long as it’s in the same chapter—you can’t change your choices. I considered that a good thing as I’m someone who’s prone to second-guessing my decisions and it prevented me from trying to pick the “right” one instead.
And that’s just it. There aren’t “right” choices in the game, as Huntington makes it through the entire story no matter what you choose. I liked this addition, as it allowed me to progress even if I did it “wrong.” Different choices lead to different situations, filling in more information about what’s happening and why, so that the mystery unravels slowly.
Locking you into your choices isn’t an issue either as the creators intend for you to play through the story multiple times. The title provides options on your second playthrough to highlight choices you’ve already made and to fast-forward through story sections you’ve already read.
A Chilling Atmosphere
Black and white drawings ground the action by showing a portrait of the character who’s speaking or a sketch of the setting. In the Lovecraft-inspired sections, the drawings add a chilling punctuation to the story.
An atmospheric soundtrack keeps you on edge throughout the game and sound effects add further flavor to the scenes. These range from gunfire in fights to hubbub in port towns to footfalls. I recommend playing it with the sound on, as the music and sound effects add an additional dimension—and a sense of motion—to what’s happening.
A Few Flaws
As with all games of this type, the choices you make rarely have far reaching consequences: there’s a main path that the story takes no matter what you choose. Some events, such as characters living or dying, do affect later aspects of the story, mainly in terms of paths you can take. As a rule, Tiny Bull handles this admirably, not making it obvious when the story drags you back to the main path—though there are a few jarring transitions from certain choices.
Despite Tiny Bull not being from an English-speaking country, the translation is excellent, with a mysterious and suspenseful style. However, there are some noticeable typos and wrong words used—such as fain rather than feign—but it doesn’t stop you from understanding what’s happening.
Colonial aspects do crop up in the story. Most of the non-European characters have small roles and are treated as strange or other. Due to when it was set and the fact that the cast of main characters were all British, I accepted it as being from Huntington’s perspective and that that was how he thought. However, some players may struggle with this aspect. It may also be an imitation of Lovecraft’s stories, but that’s also an issue, as Lovecraft was a known racist.
Limited but Effective Gameplay
The game includes RPG elements, with the main character having five different attributes you can upgrade: Fighting, Observation, Medicine, Agility and Speechcraft. Each attribute allows Huntington to solve problems and interact with characters in different ways. It’s an interesting addition that grants ownership over your own version of Huntington.
Without the right attributes leveled up, certain choices will result in failure. Failing at a task, however, isn’t inherently bad. It does block certain story paths, but sometimes a different one opens because Huntington didn’t succeed. Your character’s attributes reset each playthrough, allowing you to set yourself up for failure if you wish.
Huntington also accrues and loses items throughout the story. Having the right item at the right time allows you to choose a different path; though it isn’t always obvious what item you’ll need at which decision point. While it’s fun to puzzle it out, once you get down to your last few choices, it can be frustrating to have to play through again because you missed an item.
An Engrossing Adventure
Omen Exitio: Plague pulls you in with a chilling mystery and diverse locations across the globe, making it one of the best iPhone games I’ve played. While character development isn’t the focus, there’s enough diversity in the cast that I felt like I knew who the characters were and I didn’t confuse them for one another. The Lovecraftian elements sent chills down my spine on several occasions and reminded me of the Lovecraft stories I’ve read, so fans of his work will feel right at home with this game.
