Atrium Mortis

In Hectic’s previous game, Moral Dilemma, I was frequently confronted with two doors and forced to decide which to walk through. Sometimes I’d idle in front of them for hours wondering, which was the correct decision, then spend months afterwards debating whether I’d made the right choice. Atrium Mortis massively build on this by making one of the doors objectively correct. You walk through the heart door if the room was normal, and the club door if something is different. The core gameplay loop presents you with a corridor filled with stuff. Then you have to work out if something’s different. Like the carpet changing colour, the banjo in the corner looking slightly different, some guy appearing to play ominous music and ask you riddles, or eight guys spawning with machetes and chasing you down the corridor. There’s really four modes, not just the one you immediately spot. The standard anomaly spotting game, puzzlely minigame anomalies, and two different types of level you’ll unlock later on. My only critique (other than the Banjo) is that it’s tagged as a roguelike and there’s limited upgrades in the shop. Would be cool to add things like random items at the start of your run, extra blessings in the blessing room, and new rooms to your pool.

I had the pleasure of playing Atrium Mortis while it was still in beta and I'm glad to see the solo developer deliver on this competent Anomaly Hunt game. Depending on your attention to detail and/or paranoia, Atrium Mortis is relatively short. The game retains its freshness after repeated deaths by scratching your brain with the morbid curiosity of wondering what's going to kill you next, as well as some of the more unhinged anomaly rooms which are less anomaly hunt and more exercise in Unity parkour. I found them infrequent and varied enough to keep me going while I learned the layout of the Atrium. Adding on to the varied anomaly rooms and ways to die, I appreciated the switch up of the gameplay after the 10th room, as well as the final hall. I think the Trials are a good concept provided that there's enough rooms for players to run through so as to not need to "learn" their respective anomalies. The size of the Trial rooms are just right, making them feel difficult, but not impossible, to get on the first attempt. I reckon what whether the Final Hall is harder depends on how the player's brain is wired, but my experience was that it was actually easier than the main Atrium. Bugs are minimal, even on Linux with my default Proton running (Proton 10.0-4). What few I did encounter were not to the detriment of the game (e.g. mouse cursor persisting ingame until you left click). All in all, a solid solo-indie game which delivers on its intended Anomaly Hunt game and more. Repeated runs give way to the dev's more interesting ideas like applying roguelite powerups to the genre, the switchups of the primary gameplay loop after the main Atrium rooms and the weird and wonderful anomalies/ways to die. 8/10, would rather pick this up along with other indie games since it actually bothers to experiment with the primary gameplay loop.

Fun game, the trial at the end and epilogue were my favourite parts, definitely worth playing through the hallway for. It was a nice introduction to anomaly style games for me and not too difficult.

When I was a kid, I played this game called 'Where's Wally' where I needed to spot where Wally and his gang members were. It was one of my favourite books (and I guess game) when I was a kid. Atrium Mortis brings back those good old days and is an anomaly spotting game, where you need to spot irregularities and complete different trials. There is a good mix of trials that are challenging, and trials that are on the easier side, giving variable levels of difficulty that depend on RNG. My favourite bit is the weird/random stuff that happens as well as the dialogue options. I think it would be cool to have different areas (like with Where's Wally) with different corridors with different themes of different civilisations and different cultures. Kinda like travelling through time and space. Otherwise no complaints - game is a certified 10/10 and another excellent addition to my Steam collection.

I haven't played an anomaly game before but this was a very fun introduction to the genre. I enjoyed the puzzles, spotting the anomalies. Love the design of the game and different rooms. Completed the trials and made it to the Final Hall and completed the game, now I just have to unlock all the achievements, and collect the diamonds. I did thoroughly enjoy the game and would recommend this!

Really fun game, heavily built on the hallway from hectics previous game, moral dilemma, but bigger and better. Final hallway adds a really fun twist on the game.

Fun concept, actually shows you what you've missed unlike most anomaly games with a little stats board you can buy with gems.

This is an excellent anomaly game though not perfect. Some anomalies are even mini games within the game. I didn't get it in my video but 1 room was the floor is lava game. 8.5/10 https://youtu.be/mknAetgQzIQ?si=XUPjCdvtWJti6Tmn

喜欢天马行空的想象力，在你以为就能顺利达到重点的时候就会出现全新的挑战，然后又回到最初的起点，需要你脑洞大开找到通关策略。玩游戏的过程中发现有时候我的记忆会自己篡改，自动给游戏更上一层难度。最后一关相对来说顺利很多，记忆有锚点支撑。特别有意思的游戏，举双手推荐！

I have thoroughly enjoyed this game. I like to revisit this every so often to see how far I can get