A Mortician's Tale

A Mortician's Tale

Website - World - Title card.

Developer Laundry Bear Games Publisher Laundry Bear Games Published 2017-10-18 Platforms iOS, Macintosh, Windows Genres Graphic adventure, Interactive fiction, Simulation Themes Death Distribution Commercial

A Mortician's Tale is an interactive fiction video game developed and published by Laundry Bear Games for Macintosh and Windows on 2017-10-18, and later ported to iOS.

In the game, you play as a mortician who prepares corpses at a funeral home. The game educates the player on the various tasks a mortician performs including embalming, cremation, meeting the family's wishes, and how corporations profiting on grief.

Personal

Own?	Yes. On itch.io.
Won?	Yes. Including Tales from the Crypts minigame.
Finished	2024-11-10.

I had heard about this game being both enjoyable and death-positive. It was included in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality package on itch.io, and, after having it in my to-play list for a few years, I finally got to it.

Review

5	5	4	4	3

Best Version: Windows

Good

• The game covers a lot of the death industry:
  • You see the behind-the-scenes processes of corpse-embalming, cremation, and a description of the various alternative forms of burial.
  • The game shows how friends, family members, and other loved ones react in a variety of different ways at funerals. Including the legal conflicts that can arise between the desires of the dead and the desires of their surviving family members.
  • You learn about how different cultures have different customs regarding death.
  • You also learn about how small businesses, even in this field, are bought up by large companies who have no qualms about using people's grief to turn a profit.
• It's interesting how, when I started playing, the idea of stuffing a corpse mouth full of cotton and gluing their eyes shut felt gross, but, by the end of the game, just felt routine.
• The secondary browser tab on the computer is a nice way to see changes in the game world as the game progresses.
• The Tales from the Crypts minigame was a nice distraction and a fun variant of Minesweeper.
• I like how the game gives you a trigger warning for a suicide victim and provides an alternate task for those who don't want to do it.
• I like how the story ends with Charlie making a positive change in the industry.

Bad

• The art is a bit amateur and Charlie's walking animation is off.
• The music, while fitting is monotonous.
• The game is really short. Even if you take the time to read all the emails, it only takes about an hour, if you ignore the optional dialogue, it's over in just a few minutes. I also would have liked to see more information about death and funerals. There are so many other options and cultures that could have been explored.
• The game is a bit repetitive. I would have like to see more game mechanics introduced, more character development for Charlie, or additional story arcs. There aren't any meaningful decisions in the game, you're just going along for the ride.

Ugly

• Nothing.

Media

Title Cards

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  Website - Title card.

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  Steam - Title card.

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  iOS - Icon.

Videos

Longplay.

Representation

Strong female character?	Pass	Charlie, the heroine, is a strong woman.
Bechdel test?	Pass	Although Charlie is silent, her emails with her first boss and friend included more than enough dialogue.
Strong person of color character?	Pass	Matthew appears to be black and is a caring man who is defiant against Hillside Heritage.
Queer character?	Pass	Jen Love is a bisexual, and the game discusses LGBT funerals.

Links