The Sexy Brutale (2017)
The Sexy Brutale stands out through its bold visual style and memorable soundtrack. This murder mystery set in a fantastical 1920s mansion swept me along, although not without some stumbling. The player character, priest Lafcadio, wakes into the same nightmare over and over again, always to the same Saturday when the Marquis has gathered his friends. It is up to him to discover what is really going on in the mansion and how the time loop could be broken. Although timing your actions precisely is essential, thoroughly exploring the mansion and spying on its guests and staff takes time. The game’s endearing visuals make the horror and dark occultism feel harmless, and its swinging soundtrack keeps the mood brisk.
The Sexy Brutale was created by the British studio Cavalier Game Studios in cooperation with the Spanish studio Tequila Works. For Cavalier Game Studios this was their first title, even if the designers themselves had previous experience working on games for other studios. Brothers Charles and James Griffiths, along with Tom Lansdale, say they have always loved murder mysteries and Japanese time-management-focused games. They also cite inspiration from immersive theatre, particularly the work of the Punchdrunk theatre company, and from films that feature time loops and masks. Their tastes point towards underground culture, yet The Sexy Brutale itself is decidedly popular in its appeal. Tequila Works handled the artistic side. When Cavalier Game Studios approached them, the game was practically complete, but without Tequila Works’ art it would never have become the phenomenon it is.
Murders in a Dollhouse
The title The Sexy Brutale is a bit like a clickbait headline, and I am still not entirely convinced by it. I first assumed it referred to the master of the house, Marquis Lucas, but it actually refers to the mansion itself. It is true that the mansion seems to have a mind of its own, or at least feels like a separate entity. It is its own contained world that encloses the people and events inside it. This fantastical, sprawling mansion — complete with casino, theatre and hidden rooms — offers a great deal to explore.
The people inhabiting the mansion are an integral part of it, both staff and guests. Someone is specifically somewhere, and something happens specifically somewhere. Right at the beginning it becomes clear that the mansion’s staff are killing the guests. No explanation is given for this — the murders simply happen in the most sadistic and varied ways. The player’s task is to work out where the murders take place and how they happen, and then prevent them. Some of the murders occur in pairs. The mansion’s secret is preserved all the way to the final killing, and I was genuinely surprised by the resolution.
The player has 12 hours of in-game time at their disposal. The day starts at noon and ends at midnight. In real-world time that cycle lasts 9 minutes. The twist is that at midnight the clock winds back, all activity stops, the inventory is reset and everything returns to the beginning. This time loop is both a challenge and a blessing. It does not matter how many attempts the player needs, but to prevent the murders your actions have to be precisely timed within those 12 hours.
Alongside Lafcadio’s always-visible pocket watch, the mansion’s grandfather clocks are also important. By synchronising his watch with a grandfather clock, Lafcadio will wake up in front of that clock on the next loop. A well-placed “respawn point” not only speeds up and facilitates movement and task completion, it also functions as a solution — or part of a solution — to a couple of specific puzzles.
The mansion is full of references to occultism, and the protagonist himself looks like a Catholic priest. I initially thought the theme might be exorcism — expelling spirits, perhaps preventing some kind of satanic ritual or the influence of malign entities in the house. In addition to the living there are ghosts as well. However, the course of the game did not support that reading, as Lafcadio mostly goes along with circumstances rather than fighting against them. Even the prevention of murders is more symbolic than concrete: once you have saved someone, they will still die again in the next loop.
All the characters in the game wear masks. Besides fitting the idea of a masked ball, the masks have a double magical function. They seem to bind the wearer to the mansion’s enchantment and to their own death. When Lafcadio prevents a murder, the rescued person removes their mask. With a couple of exceptions, Lafcadio then picks up the mask and inherits the wearer’s special ability. These abilities help him advance in his task of saving everyone. The player therefore has to learn new actions, but the abilities themselves do not evolve like skills in role-playing games.
Spying and sneaking behind people’s backs are essential in The Sexy Brutale. You are not allowed to be seen. In that sense, besides its role-playing elements, the game also has something in common with stealth titles. Lafcadio can peek through keyholes into rooms with people in them and listen to their conversations — one mask even enhances his hearing to pick up whispers. The characters reveal their intentions, and in doing so provide the player with hints towards solutions.
The mansion staff are anonymous, but the guests are named friends of the Marquis. Like a proper aristocrat, he has gathered talented people from different fields around him. Visually they look like dolls — big-headed, slightly jerky in their animation and very much caricatures. The game ends up feeling like a puppet theatre or a dollhouse.
The game is presented from an elevated isometric viewpoint. I liked the presentation a great deal. Tequila Works have done a massive amount of work, and they have done it well. The 3D graphics are built on top of 2D concept art. The music and ambient sound are also effective. There is no voice acting — all dialogue is written text.
Lost and Lagging Behind
The developers believe they have made the game as user-friendly as possible, but I struggled significantly with navigation. The mansion has more than 120 rooms! There is a map, but I did not find it particularly helpful, because while searching for a route I constantly ran into locked doors that were not marked separately. From my point of view, navigation would be easier if every room had a unique name visible during play.
Designing the script for The Sexy Brutale can hardly have been easy, given the real-time aspect. Something is always happening somewhere, and the player can theoretically be anywhere. I did feel that the game restricts the player’s movement quite heavily with locked doors. On the positive side there were no bugs left in the finished game.
The plot in The Sexy Brutale flowed smoothly in my view, but my actual play experience was frustratingly choppy. In hindsight I suspect I never really learned how to play it “properly”. I was too impatient and too lost. The uninformative map had a significant impact, but I also failed to grasp the full importance of spying and did not do enough of it. I rushed into rooms even when there were other people inside, then panicked and fled instead of staying behind to observe through the keyhole.
The murder-related puzzles are not super difficult as such, but they consist of small action sequences and call for a different type of thinking than adventure games usually do. The difference comes primarily from timing. Lafcadio has to carry out these sequences at a brisk pace, even rushing, to be on time. At the same time the game encourages you to explore the mansion thoroughly, with the result that solving each murder typically requires several loops to gather all the necessary information about actions and routes.
It took me 8 hours to see everything through. I did not finish the game in a “perfect” way, because I did not collect all the optional items — the playing cards and invitations scattered around the mansion, some out in the open and others hidden.
Verdict
The developers took inspiration from immersive theatre, and I think they have succeeded in capturing that spirit in their game. Especially at the beginning — and every time I started a new session — I felt the mansion drawing me in in a very particular way. I snapped awake, the way Lafcadio does, and the tension went straight to my head, as if I had dropped into the place myself and could feel the spatial dimension of the game on my skin.
Immersion, however, had its downside. I suspect it partly caused my underperformance. The constantly ticking clock also kept my pulse elevated. Whenever I get stressed by a game, especially if the audio is intense, my performance suffers. In some action games I deliberately mute the sound for that reason. In The Sexy Brutale, though, turning off the audio would have felt like an amputation.
It feels odd to say that I like a game I am bad at, or that I value a game whose core concept causes me trouble. Yet that is exactly the case with The Sexy Brutale. My overall rating for the experience is 83 points out of 100.
Availability
The Sexy Brutale is available for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and Windows PCs. I played the Windows version with keyboard and mouse, although I tried a gamepad as well. The screenshots here seem to be from both control schemes. Both ways of controlling are fine, although they do require learning multiple buttons or keys. Personally I would have preferred full keyboard controls instead of partial mouse control.