mortuary assistant matches

"First-twenty-four hours jitters" have never been quite this scary.

"We're caught at the front line of something larger, only I don't do this for some greater skilful. Nosotros either confront information technology, or fall to it."

— Raymond Delver

The Mortuary Assistant is a horror video game developed by indie programmer DarkStone Digital, published past DreadXP, and released on August 2nd, 2022.

Rebecca Owens gets invited to the River Fields Mortuary by Raymond Delver equally part of her internship. Nonetheless, subsequently her offset handling of the bodies, Rebecca of a sudden gets called back in the heart of the night to accept a sudden late night job at the mortuary. There's a grave reason equally to why: one of the bodies has a demon that imprinted on her with the intent to accept control, and Rebecca must go through the procedures to embalm, bind, and cremate the demon. It won't exist easy nonetheless, the entity is slowly taking concord of Rebecca throughout, and volition subjecting her to various Hallucinations of corpses, monsters, and glimpses of the past.

The Mortuary Assistant provides examples of the following tropes:

Agent Mulder: Rebecca's grandmother gets worried when she hears Rebecca establish her get-go mortician job at River Fields, implying she heard of stories of what happened to the previous people that worked in that location.
Agent Scully:
- Right in the prologue, Rebecca brushes off her grandmother's worries well-nigh the rumors surrounding the River Fields Mortuary, claiming them as stories people make upward to deal with the trauma of death. She soon discovers they aren't just stories.
- Raymond comes off as one during Rebecca's first day or the tutorial when signs of a haunting are evident, such as attributing the window slamming due to poor latches, bottles thrown beingness blamed on poorly stored chemicals interim up. Averted on the following beginning night where he shows that he is aware of the beingness of demons and immediately informs Rebecca of the danger she is facing and gives her tips and the tools needed to help her survive the night.
Broken Bird: Rebecca starts off as ane, and her traumatic backstory is expanded upon throughout the game. Her mother was a drug addict who died of an overdose. Then as a teenager, Rebecca ran abroad from home and became addicted to heroin. However, she overdosed besides one night and wound up at the bottom of a steep drop. Her father found her, just slipped and fell while trying to rescue her, causing his ain death. Rebecca has blamed herself for his death ever since. While attending her land-appointed rehab, she attempted suicide simply survived. Throughout the night, the demon repeatedly plays on Rebecca'due south belief that she deserved to die instead of her father.
Buried Alive: Ane of the Delusions has Rebecca going to a basement and finding a grave, only to be shoved in. When she looks up, she sees Raymond apologizing and burying her live... Before the Delusion clears with Rebecca exterior the mortuary.
Closed Circle: When Rebecca attempts to flee the mortuary, she is prevented by the demon who compels her to go back to work. Her car also doesn't start, presumably due to the demon and too ensuring that Rebecca stays at the mortuary.
Co-Dragons: The Mimic, Shadow Man, and Adult female in White are this for the Demon, being lesser spirits it has formed a bond with to gain more than power, as well as harassing Rebecca through her shift in more than direct ways than the Demon.
Barbarous and Unusual Death: Raymond is discipline to having his body contort into a pretzel shape courtesy of the Demon'due south telekinesis in the Possessed Ending.
Daddy'due south Girl: While Rebecca is unsaid to resent her late drug addict mother, Rebecca was in far ameliorate terms with her father, whom she was very close to. In the present day, Rebecca is tormented past guilt over her father'south expiry, whom she feels responsible over.
Cartel to Be Badass: Raymond caps off his spoken communication in the beginning good ending by encouraging Rebecca to stay on with the mortuary and acquire how to bargain with the demons.
"It'southward not a life I would want for anyone. Only choosing between a life of fear or control... You're the first person I've met to confront this hell and survive. So I'thousand offering y'all a different kind of task. Work the night shift. Learn what I know. Give yourself a chance at a life beyond fear. I don't know what you experienced, but I know it uses the worst parts of you against yourself. The more than you experience, the more you'll confront the darkest parts of your life. But through information technology, you'll go unbreakable. I'm offer the tools to take command. The choice is yours. I hope you come back."
Easter Egg: If yous check the inventory during a Delusion sequence, the screen volition instead showcase some other prototype entirely, including a demonic sigil you'll see on the notepad when Rebecca is on the edge of possession, and an mistake message of the "asking you to die" variety.
Evil Phone:
- One of the things the demon is capable of is calling on the phone. Answering it results in Rebecca'southward voice coming out of the speaker, asking why yous're nonetheless alive.
- A variant happens with the tutorial tapes, which normally plays the recording of Raymond giving advice on the Demonic Possession process and how to bind the demon to the body, volition on rare occasions accept the demon speak to you through a distorted vox of Rebecca, with threats of a painful death.
First-Name Footing: After banishing a demon for the outset time, Raymond asks Rebecca to simply call him by his first proper noun rather than "Mr. Delver".
Foreshadowing:
- In the first good ending, Raymond remarks that he'd hardly call his actions selfless, wishing he could claim to be someone meliorate. Every bit he'south using the blood of a alive possessed human to supply the Reagent for the bounden, using them instead of putting them out of their misery, he falls into a Necessary Evil role to prevent further possessed individuals.
- One of the easier to miss details in either of the Game Overs is the coffin at the other terminate of the room as Rebecca's getting imprisoned into one. In the Basement Catastrophe, we larn/run into what's in the other coffin, likewise as the implications every bit to what the Possessed Rebecca gets bailiwick to.
- Ane of the delusions features a record histrion of Raymond request the listener to impale him on sight, followed by other demonic voices that drown him out. This same tape tin be found in the basement, this fourth dimension without the demonic vox that allows for more clarity; detailing his struggle with Demonic Possession one shift, request those that detect the record to kill him and the other possessed in the basement.
Forever War: Raymond is heavily implied to exist engaged in one against the demonic forces, and Rebecca quickly gets stuck with him.
Gameplay Randomization: Every scare and Delusion in every shift is completely randomized, practically guaranteeing that you lot will never be safe when yous work.
Hates Their Parent: Implied, at to the lowest degree with Rebecca's mother. When reliving how she found her female parent'southward torso in a Mirage, Rebecca spats "You stupid bitch!" at her mother's corpse. This makes sense when yous learn that her female parent was an addict who died of a drug overdose, and Rebecca probably feels some lingering resentment towards her for this incident.
Promise Spot: The issue of the Possessed Ending. At first, it appeared the demon had been successfully cremated, and Raymond greets y'all in the same mode as if you had achieved the success-related endings. Merely then Rebecca makes a strangely blissful annotate to indicate she isn't really at that place, which is followed by Raymond getting killed via demonic psychokinesis.
Humanoid Abomination: Despite being human in shape, the Mimic is very obviously non a person, with its white, stone-like skin, lidless eyes, exposed teeth with blackness gums, and a trend to appear out of thin air.
I Have Many Names: Similar near things in the game, the Demon has a randomly selected name from a list of 12, discovering its proper name is cardinal to defeating information technology.
Interface Spiral: When Rebecca is due for a hallucination or delusion, the edges of the camera become fuzzier and the colors in the edges of Rebecca'south vision go desaturated.
Jump Scare: Like many horror games, there are a lot of Jump Scares, and they can happen completely at random.
Mind Rape: The Demon�s modus operandi, while it can�t physically harm anyone, at least not without a vessel, information technology can create Delusions of Rebecca�s past to torment her.
Multiple Endings: Five possible endings depending on the outcome of the night and the secrets discovered:
- First Practiced Ending: Successfully blackball a demon for the get-go fourth dimension. Rebecca is then greeted by Raymond in the forenoon, who informs her that because an entity found her, they will go on coming back to find her. All Rebecca can do is make a choice: alive a life of fearfulness by running abroad, or take control and continue working the night shift.
- Standard Good Ending: Successfully banish a demon subsequently the commencement. Rebecca volition inquire Raymond if their ordeal volition ever stop, and he admits that he highly doubts it, as he'due south been doing this for years and has yet to find an out.
- Bad Ending: Either fire the incorrect body or use the incorrect sigils. At first it plays out like a Standard/Good Ending, except Rebecca is eerily calm, with her comment on "waiting for so long" cluing both you and Raymond that the Demonic Possession is successful, followed by the demon subjecting him to a psychokinetic death.
- Basement Ending: Get into the basement hatch exterior the mortuary by unlocking information technology with a stored abroad cardinal. Type the lawmaking "197044", given by several Delusion sequences (The claret bucket sequence with "____44" on the wall, the Rebecca pointing to a "1970" photo in the mirror, etc), into the keypad hidden in a chiffonier to obtain the key to the lock. In the basement you find Raymond's journals that item his experience with demons, including all the knowledge he obtained to be rid of them. One detail includes how the very next door featuring a live possessed woman named Vallery as the source for the blood. The following forenoon (after a successful banishing) has Rebecca telephone call out the one-time man for finer imprisoning a live human in the basement, who reaffirms his decision is for the sake of preventing further death, recounting his memories of seeing similar possessed getting degraded until they're dealt with.
- Closure Catastrophe: Grab the Sobriety Coins and Necklace in Rebecca's apartment. Notice a Delusion that features the hanging Rebecca, and put the two coins in her hands, or find a Delusion that replaces the cadaver you lot're working on with her father'southward body and put the necklace on him. After burning the embalmed demon'south body, Rebecca meets with her dead father, who comforts her and reassures that she'south not to blame for everything that went wrong with both him and her mother.
My Greatest Failure: Rebecca is yet haunted to this day by her father's death, which she feels responsible for. It'south something the demon torments her with during the night.
Necessarily Evil: Raymond'southward been keeping a live possessed human as a source for the Reagent, in social club to demark the demons to the dead bodies. While Rebecca calls him out equally sick and inhumane for effectively keeping them alive instead of Mercy Killing them, Raymond doesn't sugarcoat how immoral or how essential his actions are, outright describing it as a necessary evil to bargain with the inevitable demons to come.
Nobody Here merely Us Statues: During the cellar Mirage, the Mimic hides among the various statues nowadays during the Delusion, moving only when Rebecca gets to close to it.
Non-Action Big Bad: Averted. The Demon nearly never makes a directly appearance and can't damage Rebecca like the Adult female in White tin, but due to its hallucinations that slowly drive Rebecca insane and then it can possess her, it'south just as unsafe.
Non Standard Game Over: Burn a trunk without properly embalming all three cadavers and Rebecca collapses. The following morning Raymond has locked up Rebecca in the basement opposite of the bury there already, while giving a look of thwarting . Similar the other standard Game Over, it's not considered a separate ending on its own.
No OSHA Compliance: You handle dangerous embalming chemicals with no protective gear, no eyewash stations, and no ventilation. This video goes into full detail on the violations.
Out-of-Character Alert: One mirage has Rebecca seeing what appears to exist her kind and supportive grandmother at the window of the embalming room, telling her to permit her in. When Rebecca, who was plagued by various other delusions, doesn't listen, the "grandmother" bangs on the drinking glass and snarls "Let me in, you petty bitch!"
Precision F-Strike: In one of the videos demonstrating on how to determine if a cadaver is possessed by a demon, the cameraman lets i out after seeing the cadaver he is observing twitches.
Raised past Grandparents: After her parents' death, Rebecca was put under the intendance of her grandmother.
Recovered Addict: Rebecca almost lost her life to a heroin addiction, which she recovered from and has been sober for the by 10 years.
Sanity Meter: The Demon volition slowly possess Rebecca throughout her shift, subjecting her to various delusions and nightmarish sequences to speed up that process. While not direct measured, Rebecca is brash to bank check how far the possession has gone by scribbling in her notepad; different scribbles for each sanity level.
Screw This, I'm Outta Hither: Rebecca'south immediate reaction to the showtime unquestionably demonic event. She doesn't get far before the demonic vocalization in her caput forced her to stay.
"Nope! Nope. New job... I'one thousand getting out of here."
Sir Swears-a-Lot:
- The demon entities threaten their victims with gruesome ways to kill them, along with many curse words.
- Rebecca has her moments, just considering the situation she finds herself in, no one tin blame her for her use of bad language.
Spanner in the Works: Since every shift in The Mortuary Assistant is timed, the faster you get at embalming, the more time you have for demon hunting. An update to the game helpfully randomizes the location of your embalming tools after you complete your offset shift, forcing you lot to learn their locations all over again every shift thereafter. The in-game caption is that Zoey, the resident Ditzy Secretary, has become an Unwitting Instigator of Doom because she tin't understand Raymond's instructions for restocking things, and he keeps mispronouncing her name.
Stealth Hullo/Bye: The Mimic frequently appears out of nowhere and disappears when looked at with alarming frequency.
Surprise Santa Run across: In the Holiday update, 1 of the bodies Rebecca tin can embalm is onetime St. Nick himself.
Timed Mission: Every shift is a race against the clock earlier the Demon possesses Rebecca, who must find the possessed body and become through the steps of embalming to set up it for cremation. Run out the hidden timer, and Rebecca suffers Demonic Possession.
Workplace Horror: You must do your job of preparing corpses for their funerals while discovering which ane is possessed past a demon, and then uncovering which 1 information technology may exist and how to subdue it. If y'all manage to survive the night, your boss tells y'all that he regrets forcing you into this form of life, just it'southward not something you tin just walk away from.