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Previous | << 1 2 >> | Next | Show All Stopped playing after an unintuitive glitch, November 29, 2023I didn't play this game until the end because I encountered game-breaking glitches. This review will focus on the parts in the beginning that I was able to play instead.
The hunger mechanic, which is a traditional turncount-based type that nags you with variations on how hungry you are and how you need to eat, is very unfortunately timed.
(Spoiler - click to show)
[You see dozens more bodies stacked up in a neat row; with corpses piled several layers high. They are stacked higher towards the end, forming a slope. While the power had been on, you were sure that the cold had helped keep these bodies hidden and preserved. The power has apparently been off for some time now, as many of the bodies have started to melt into one another.
The stench, which had been sealed off, is now overwhelming and more repulsive than you can even imagine. Barely suppressing the urge to vomit, faint or do both, you close the freezer and back away. As you back away from the freezer, you stumble over one of the dead bodies, knocking it out of line. You really hope that someone is not going to care about that because you are too disgusted to fix it.
You can’t think about anything but eating at the moment. ]
Immediately after being horrified and repulsed by a grotesque scene of rotting human carnage, the only thing you can think of is eating. (The writing itself is quite functional, but the juxtaposition makes it emotionally silly.)
Otherwise, the hints that you've been infected are unsubtle.
(Spoiler - click to show)Or maybe you just never liked chickpeas. You feel an unusual craving for some meatloaf, but at least your hunger pains are satiated.
I stopped playing after acquiring the skillet as the walkthrough suggested, and using it to attack the random zombie that appeared. Despite text indicating that I succeeded, for some reason another piece of text suggested I failed and died.
The concepts and writing are good but the implementation is frustrating.
- Edo, August 17, 2023
- sw3dish, June 27, 2023
- Itsame64 (Mcloud, Oklahoma), December 1, 2022
- Kinetic Mouse Car, August 28, 2022
- cgasquid (west of house), February 11, 2022
3 of
3 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent zombie survival game, February 16, 2021Divis Mortis is an excellent first foray into interactive fiction, with strong writing and good puzzles.
As a zombie survival game, it draws heavily on common tropes, making the player feel comfortably at home in terms of understanding and reacting to the situation. Descriptions are properly gruesome, with human limbs and putrid flesh strewn about, but always with a certain distance; the PC finds it as repulsive as you do. The particular scenario here is well imagined and cleverly told, providing an intense sense of danger, further heightened with several urgent matters for the player's attention.
According to another reviewer, there is apparently one way of getting locked out of victory without realising it, if you do things in the wrong order. If this is the case, it was probably an oversight by the author, and nothing that I experienced myself. Apart from that, however, I would place this game as Polite on the forgiveness scale; there are many ways of dying, but a simple UNDO always let me correct my mistake and carry on. Personally, I found all the puzzles I encountered well clued, perfectly reasonable, and very much in the spirit of the situation, without being overly simple.
- Lucifalle, February 5, 2021
2 of
2 people found the following review helpful:
Fun!, May 22, 2020I had a fun time with Divis Mortis. I should probably start by saying I'm new to IF, especially parser IF. I first fell in love with video games playing old school Resident Evil (1-3) and that introduced me to the concept of solving mostly item-based puzzles while running around a zombie infested area. I was looking for an IF horror game to scratch that same itch. And for the most part, Divis Mortis does.
I enjoyed the descriptions of rooms and items. The writer gives enough description to show you the world with enough ambiguity to paint your own mental picture. I felt that the puzzles were mostly intuitive, but there is one way to get stuck and have to start over (or restore a pretty early save slot). (Spoiler - click to show) It has to do with the outside. You have the option to barricade the doors to the outside. After a time (maybe a certain number of moves) the game says basically, "the zombies are coming. better shore up your defenses." So I barricaded the door with the bench. BUT! You have to get a toolkit from your car outside before barricading the door. Once you barricade it, the noise attracts zombies and you can't go out again. If you barricade the door before you get the toolkit from your car, you have to start over. This game is about 25 rooms so its not THAT hard to play back to the point you need to, but I would still rather have gotten some kind of prompt, such as "I'd better check the outside first before I barricade myself in here." It would have saved a lot of frustration. I know I went on a bit of a rant, but that dead end completely broke my immersion in an otherwise great experience.
Like other reviewers said, I also wish this game were longer. It's a world and play style that I would love to spend more time in and explore.
And my only other complaint is the ending. Without spoiling it, it took a drastic shift in tone. It felt like the author was up against a deadline and rushed the ending.
BUT, even with those issues I still loved this game. I would encourage any IF survival horror fans to check it out!
3 of
3 people found the following review helpful:
A solid game, March 27, 2020Divis Mortis has an atmospheric setting, nice prose interspersed with gruesome descriptions, and some classic puzzles. I enjoyed playing this game in the evenings over two days. The author's description of the world is darkly colorful, and there are some unique twists to the zombie lore which was a nice touch.
There were a couple of problems however - Some grammatical and spelling mistakes, and a parser problem that made it difficult to use one of the weapons: (Spoiler - click to show)It allows you to FIRE THE GUN (which shoots into space and wastes a bullet), but does not allow you to FIRE THE GUN AT THE ZOMBIE, or even ATTACK ZOMBIE WITH THE GUN. In the end, you have to SHOOT THE ZOMBIE. There was also one puzzle that seemingly required real-world knowledge that I did not possess, and the author did not hint (that I saw) how to solve it: (Spoiler - click to show)Mixing ammonia and bleach creates toxic sulfur vapors.
A solid game for the author's first IF story. Recommended.
- GalacticToast (Earth), February 14, 2020
2 of
2 people found the following review helpful:
Do Zombies go to heaven when they, uhm...?, January 2, 2020A zombie game in a closed building where you wake up all alone with no memory of how you got there; all while the living dead could break through the door any minute. Yeah, I know...
Play this one though. It's very polished and well implemented. There's lots to explore, and examine. And you learn a lot about barricades: how to erect them properly if the creatures mustn't get through, how to get through them if you yourself must. Also: chemistry, yaay!
The game has a twist at the end, but you must be blind and deaf not to have felt it coming. Still nice though.
I particularly liked the epilogue. It gives Divis Mortis some gravitas, albeit after the fact. (Well, it is an epilogue...)
- thecanvasrose, August 10, 2019
- Cory Roush (Ohio), July 16, 2017
- sipral, July 2, 2016
- E. W. B., February 23, 2016
3 of
3 people found the following review helpful:
Good for a few hours of zombie fun. Good puzzles and story, mostly polished, February 3, 2016Divis Mortis is the best game of its genre (zombie survival) that I have played. Similar to Babel, you wake up in a medical building, not knowing who you are. Unlike Babel, there are many others in the building with you, and the building is a normal hospital. Or, it WAS a normal hospital.
This game does a good job of portraying the tense scenes associated with zombie survival movies; coming face to face with zombies, trying to find basic necessities, etc. The puzzles definitely feel like part of the game, and not just a bunch of silly exercises to run through.
The game isn't quite as well polished as the very best games on IFDB, but it is obviously well-tested and does a good job. It lasts for a few hours.I recommend it.
- Aryore, December 13, 2015
- EllaClass, November 8, 2014
- Lorxus, March 8, 2014
- E.K., January 10, 2014
- ButteredCatArray, July 6, 2013
- DJ (Olalla, Washington), May 10, 2013
- glassmice (Equatorial), August 23, 2012
- Andrew Schultz (Chicago), May 14, 2012
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