The Sexy Brutale

It’s so short that you can finish it in one go, but I enjoyed all 4/5 hours. It’s an investigative puzzle game where you can go back in time and prevent delicts from happening. Sometimes you have to get into the developers’ minds to find the right clues, but most dynamics were pretty straightforward. I also enjoyed finding all collectibles as they were quite easy to find even without a guide.

The plot is nothing groundbreaking but plays out more interestingly than I would have thought, and both the graphic style and music are perfect for this kind of game. The length is alright for a console game, but

Sexy Brutale is a Puzzle game with time-loop mechanics. You are in a mansion where a masquerade party is happening. The several guests will be murdered at particular times in a different way. In each “day”, you are tasked to prevent one of the murders from happening.

You will walk from room to room, looking for items to pick up or interact with. Sometimes you need to eavesdrop to hear key information e.g. to find out a person's plans, or to get a door code. This can be done by peeking through keyholes or hiding in a wardrobe.

You aren't supposed to let the guests see you, but there's not much punishment for doing so; you are basically forced to leave the room before the guest will get back to their routine. You don't need to tediously peek through every door though; your mask glows as you approach a door to tell you not to proceed.

At the end of each day, time will rewind to the beginning and you will lose standard items that you have picked up. Key items and knowledge are kept for the new timeline. The player will also be familiar with the mansion layout, where the murderer/victim will be at particular times, and will understand the events that play out until the victim is murdered at a particular time and location. Therefore, you should be more likely to achieve your objective in the next day. As you uncover rooms, they are added to your map, in addition to guest's locations at a given time.

There's no penalty for not preventing that murder; time will always rewind. You don't have to wait for time to elapse either, there is an option to rewind early.

When you prevent the murder, you will gain the person's masquerade mask which has magical properties. This then allows you to reach new areas of the mansion where the next victim will be. This means in a given chapter, you will mainly be visiting previously unexplored areas, although there is some crossover.

In the new timeline, the previous solved murders still happen, and you even hear the sound effects of their murder e.g. gun shot, glass shattering etc.

There are 52 playing cards hidden around the mansion, some of which you will come across naturally. Others you may have to backtrack with your new abilities to find.

The gameplay is generally good, and the concept is brilliant. The final sections were a bit dull gameplay wise, but the story wrapped up nicely, with all the craziness of a time paradox you would expect.

The Sexy Brutale is a really cool point and click adventure with a Groundhog Day theme. The objective is to save the guests of a mansion from being murdered by the staff, by essencially disarming their traps without anyone noticing your presence. While the puzzles themselves tend to be simple, the concept and level design is excellent, and the way the story wraps up is masterful. I can see this game gaining a sort of cult following if more people learn about it. It might also be one of the hardest game to recommend with fear of spoiling it.