Immortal Mantis

Immortal Mantis is a pleasant tiny game which could be placed among purveyors of post-Faith: The Unholy Trinity wave of top-down retro horrors. It's sports a slight Hotline Miami's acidy surrealism with a distinct presence to the titular serial killer. [strike]obviously, not wanting to be confused with a cereal - that's why it's acidy[/strike]. Right away the art direction is immaculate. It also manages to fuse psychological horror with slasher seamlessly. The puzzles are not particularly intuitive (at one point you will be forced to grab a sledge hummer which could have been confused for a background item), but, nevertheless, not unreasonable. The 2nd ending will require some pixel-hunting if the attention is too dissuaded, because that Faith-like endless screen loop corn filed is much less important than it seems. Faith has also inspired the rotoscopic cutscenes and some of the line delivery, but aesthetically it's a bulwark of it's own kin. Pretty skillful for what it is, but, as, usual, my issues stand with it being another demo-feeling indie horror with longentivity so snappy, that you could finish it by blinking, but it doesn't end on a highly intriguing sequel bait for Immor…

Like a bite-sized 'FAITH', and that's pretty cool.

I played for 22 minutes. Supposedly a third of the game's runtime. What the ♥♥♥♥ am I supposed to do? I figured out the clue of the letter for the paintings. The game got impatient and told me the answer that was the same solution I had come up with. Every time I tried to implement the solution, NOTHING HAPPENS. A waste of time and $2

It was worth every second, very interesting! I really liked it. I was confused at the saving system at first as im more used to saving files but it wasnt an issue considering the game is pretty short

An interesting experience. While I enjoyed my time with this, I don't expect it to truly rock anyone's world. Rotoscoping is always cool tho.

Neat little game. You'll have a fun little 20 - 30 minute experience with this one. Decent little story and equally decent puzzles. Wish it leaned into its own identity more, but I recognise that would already be hard due to overlapping aesthetic choices with another popular indie this takes inspiration from. I still recommend giving this game a shot. You'll highly likely enjoy it and the various gameplay/aesthetic styles involved.