In WildArts Games’ Caput Mortum, we play as a traveller in 16th Century France who comes across an abandoned village once plagued by bad crops and disappearances. At the top of this ill-fated village is an edifice built by alchemists which is rumored to have been the source of the village’s misfortunes. Unable to resist investigating, we enter the building to uncover exactly what happened to the village and its people.
Caput Mortum is a first-person puzzle survival horror game, inspired by retro 3D dungeon crawlers such as King’s Field and survival horror games such as Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It’s recommended by the developers to play Caput Mortum with its unique default controller scheme, which has you control your camera and movement with the triggers, and use the joystick to maneuver your right hand which you will do so to pick up and interact with certain items, and for combat. This clunky controller system is designed to make the player feel more claustrophobic, as it makes it more difficult to look around. That being said, I really don’t think that Caput Mortum needed this, as it’s already really well designed to generate tension without using clunky controls to do so. Thankfully, controller users can also switch to a more modern scheme for comfort, or the King’s Field scheme which uses similar controls to the 1994 game for those looking for a nostalgia boost. Alternatively, there is a keyboard only or a keyboard and mouse option for those without a controller, which I used as my controller’s joystick drift gave the player character’s right hand a mind of its own.
While Caput Mortum only took me just over three hours to complete, it used its time well and I found its story and gameplay really impactful. There is a steady unveiling of what happened in the tower through the use of scattered notes and journals, some of which had some really creepy reveals. The plot delves into a clever analogy for the use of AI in creative works, reflecting on the invention of a tool which makes its creator and their skills redundant while also resembling a lifeless husk, able to copy but without an understanding of what it’s creating.
In its short span, Caput Mortum challenges the player with a number of well designed puzzle, which reminded me a lot of Amnesia: The Dark Descent. While I got stuck a few times, there was nothing that I couldn’t solve by taking a moment away from the game to think, or retracing my steps to ensure that I had covered everything.
Combat in Caput Mortum is fairly basic, but the variety of enemies keeps it interesting. We have three different weapons to use throughout the game, and need to control our right hand to ensure we hit our target. The game also utilizes the fact that we can only hold one thing in our hand, creating plenty of tense moments where we need to switch from our weapon to a key or another tool while an enemy pursues us.
My one complaint about the gameplay is its lack of autosaves. Caput Mortum saves very minimally, which may not seem like a problem for a three hour game, but I couldn’t help but feel that the lack of saves padded it out quite a bit, as I had to repeat an entire level a few times which didn’t feel needed.
As mentioned earlier, Caput Mortum generates horror really well without having to rely on clunky controls. There was one enemy design in particular that made me shout in fear which, as an avid horror player, I rarely do anymore. On top of this, the audio and visuals are well put together, with plenty of variety in the sound effects and some really stunning level designs.
Caput Mortum is the perfect example of a short game that uses its time well. While it does use some unnecessary padding, the content available is really well put together, and is surprisingly well-paced considering it only takes around two to three hours to complete. It offers challenging puzzles and combat, and a really interesting story which kept me intrigued right until the very end.
Jess reviewed Caput Mortum on PC with a provided review copy.
