When I first visited the absurdly minimalistic web site of The Charnel House Trilogy, I was perplexed by its choice of four polaroid pictures, each linking to a soundtrack, a trailer, and two enlarged images with minimal captions. Somehow this instilled in me a desire to know more. Who is this girl? Why is this guy marked out? Why can’t I find any information I want? (Spoiler, you play the game to find out, so I did.)
Split into three chapters, The Charnel House Trilogy comprises of Inhale, Sepulchre, and Exhale. Represented as books, each are independently accessible at the opening screen. A strange, deliberate decision, as most point-and-click games only allow chapter skipping after one playthrough. The chapters appear both separate yet cohesive with their own individual merits, so I have decided to discuss them individually.
Inhale exposes a cold, rainy night in Alex Davenport’s life. Exploring her apartment reveals a recent breakup with Gavin and her anxiousness to receive a package. The most lighthearted of the three, considering the heavy gothic horror atmosphere that permeates the game, Inhale contains the most inside jokes and easter eggs for video game fans. While some might find them endearing, I thought they took away from the foreboding presence building in Alex’s apartment.
Sepulchre follows Dr. Harold Lang on his train ride to Augur Peak. Waking up in his cabin, Harold seems disoriented and needs to remind himself of who he is and what he is doing. He decides to get a drink of water to reinvigorate himself and ends up chatting with the conductor, Don. As time passes, strange occupants and occurrences arise and Harold finds himself increasingly unnerved. What lies at the end of Sepulchre is no surprise, but I found the plodding inevitability that slowly dawned on me extremely well crafted.
Exhale returns to Alex Davenport, who is also on the train to Augur Peak. This time around, the expected warping of reality — already primed by Sepulchre — enables the player to shake off the confusion of “what is real” early on and move into analyzing the information presented. While certainly the most involved and revealing of all three chapters, Exhale still left me with numerous questions at the end.
Taking the trilogy as a whole, Sepulchre seems separate from Inhale and Exhale, yet I am convinced that it needs to be there. Harold does have some crossovers to Alex’s story that bubbles up in the other chapters, but more importantly, I think it sets up the story for Exhale perfectly.
The Charnel House Trilogy holds tight to its namesake – it’s much like a book transposed into a visual offering, full of hidden secrets that words and images can unlock when carefully scrutinized. Even though I felt some details were hazy when I was done, I strongly sensed that repeat playthroughs would uncover hints I missed, implications I glossed over, and connections I blazed through. As the game is just a short two-hour trip to traipse through, I went back for more and found some of what I was looking for. Perhaps more trips are needed to uncover all its secrets – there’s an extensive forum thread on Steam filled with comprehensive speculation. The only downside to the trilogy is its “video game-ness;” I couldn’t back up at any point to dissect a key scene or compare notes side by side like I would a book without extensive save points, and I think this flaw plays heavily into its mystery.
For a point-and-click, puzzles and gameplay are extremely light in the trilogy. Left mouse click to select, right mouse click to elicit descriptions or, in one particularly baffling case, open things in your inventory. This is a recurring issue I’ve seen in recent point-and-click games: the player is introduced to the left mouse click but never the right mouse click, yet, further down the line the right mouse click is required to solve a puzzle. Perhaps for seasoned veterans of the genre, such nitpicking is unwarranted. However, I’m sure the experience could be aggravating for newcomers, so why assume? Furthermore, puzzles are mostly straightforward in the game, with the path to proceed frequently spelled out, so my frustration arose from knowing full well I had an item that would work, but for some reason it did not – until, of course, I right clicked on it. Like a book, there are no illusions of personal choice in the game and players are forced to assume the role of a bystander as the story unravels itself. Still, the intentional loss of control complements the inevitability of Alex’s and Harold’s tales that they themselves find helpless to change.
Simple, unsettling tunes accompany the gothic overtones of The Charnel House Trilogy. A solo piano melody, the pitter-patter of rain, a lengthy monologue by Alex Davenport by her apartment window… everything falls into place aurally. The voice actors for Alex and Harold do a good job emoting the increasing awareness, dread, and reluctant acceptance the characters go through. The rest of the voice acting team are meritable, but Don’s voice threw me off the most. Though he had a heavy Irish/Scottish accent, it lacked emotion at every point and seemed quite stilted and uninvested. It’s hard to pin down if this was a directorial decision, because I could buy into the interpretation that Don’s unnatural lines heightened the atmosphere of isolation – he wasn’t “one of them.” Yet, considering the performance of the others, I can’t help but wonder if it is just a fluke.
Graphically, the trilogy draws mostly on pixel art that’s pleasing with just a smidge of blur and head portraits portray appropriate emotional range. Effective shading and art direction bring out the spookiness and disjointed reality permeating various scenes. Still, some may find the lack of visual pow-wows disappointing and The Charnel House Trilogy doesn’t quite push any boundaries. I did find a particular scene in Inhale exceptionally done, which shows a reflection of Alex staring out a window onto the street, with rain trailing down the window pane.
For all its depth, The Charnel House Trilogy remains a short but highly repeatable excursion for those who endeavor to puzzle out its many truths. Could a shiny new game detract one from repeat explorations? Certainly, but I am more than happy to let the trilogy sit on my shelf with the comfort of knowing that should the desire to exhume more arise, it will always be there for me to flip through.
