Backloggd Review[bckl.gg]
★★★★

"If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?"

This quote introduces Centum, a gloomy and thought-provoking point-and-click slash visual novel that explores the horrors of simulated consciousness managed by a rogue AI program. Fans of Everhood and the profoundly poignant animated series World of Tomorrow by Don Hertzfeldt will feel right at home, as they understand that this flavor of existential dread surpasses any monster or eldritch evil on the scary scale.

Its Lynchian narrative is marked by intense obfuscation and ambiguity. The entire plot is conveyed through a diegetic computer screen in which you interact with the Centum simulation itself - in a way, you are simultaneously the player and a character. But even though there's no clearly defined protagonist, the reality-bending antics serve as an unreliable narrator, presenting you with narrative puzzle pieces while leaving the task of assembling them to you.

Centum's presentation is undoubtedly the cornerstone of the experience. The game showcases stunning pixel art that encompasses a variety of styles, an omniscient soundtrack and some of the finest prose I have encountered in a game since Disco Elysium. It swings between the esoteric and the mundane in a incoherent-by-design blend of literary references and poetry. At first it may seem excessively highbrow and even intellectually pretentious, but the more you digest its message the more you'll start realizing everything conveyed serves a purpose, albeit unclear at first.

This isn't the kind of experience you'll remember for its gameplay. It seldom has what we would typically classify as "puzzles" and, while there are a few minigames, they're basically filler. It's basically a choose-your-own-adventure book whose systems exist purely as a user interface to convey the narrative. 

I'll just say that my score is solely based on the emotions that Centum instilled on me. At times, I felt inexplicably miserable and overwhelmed by a sense of nihilistic hopelessness even though I couldn't pinpoint the exact cause of these feelings. This misery eventually turned into horror, which then became distress and culminated in... gratitude. The ending is something I won't soon forget, and it brought forth a stream of unexpected tears. While it may not be a game for everyone, when it hits, it hits hard.

"Gods are merciful. Who are you?"

Disclaimer: I've played Centum on my Xbox. You can check my playthrough time and achievements on my profile. I felt I owed the developers (and Serenity Forge) and bought a copy on Steam just so I could write this review. This game deserves the attention.