Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube Twitch
    Game on Aus
    • News
      Tears Of The Kingdom Gameplay Trailer Releases!

      Tears Of The Kingdom Gameplay Trailer Releases!

      March 28, 2023

      Only months away from its release, Nintendo have dropped a Tears Of The Kingdom gameplay trailer for us to fawn over.

      D&D Direct scheduled for March 29 – Australian time

      D&D Direct scheduled for March 29 – Australian time

      March 23, 2023

      [This announcement has been provided by Wizards Of The Coast’s PR people and is presented by GOA for your information]…

      Ghostwire Tokyo and more come to Xbox Gamepass

      Ghostwire Tokyo and more come to Xbox Gamepass

      March 22, 2023

      As we approach the end of March, Xbox shows no sign of stopping. With their consistent release of amazing titles…

      PlayStation Plus Deluxe And Extras Drops for March 2023

      PlayStation Plus Deluxe And Extras Drops for March 2023

      March 17, 2023

      PlayStation Australia is happy to reveal the PlayStation Plus Game Catalogue additions for March. The Game Catalogue lineup will be…

      The Game Expo 2023 Wrap-Up

      The Game Expo 2023 Wrap-Up

      March 17, 2023

      THE Game Expo (TGX) inaugural event wrapped up in Melbourne last weekend, signalling the addition of a new gaming event…

      View All
    • Reviews
      Dredge Review – We’re going to need a bigger boat

      Dredge Review – We’re going to need a bigger boat

      March 30, 2023

      Dredge, the latest fishing adventure game from developer Black Salt Games, is a harrowing and immersive experience that taps into…

      Terra Nil Review – Ecelogically enjoyable

      Terra Nil Review – Ecelogically enjoyable

      March 28, 2023

      Terra Nil is an incredibly unique city-building ‘puzzle’ game developed by Free Lives and published by Devolver Digital. The game’s…

      Bayonetta Origins Key Art

      Bayonetta Origins Cereza And The Lost Demon Review: The Duality Of Bayonetta

      March 28, 2023

      Bayonetta fans expect certain things. That’s why it was a surprise to see the launch trailer for Bayonetta Origins depart from those norms.

      Phantom Brigade Review – Mechs are always cool

      Phantom Brigade Review – Mechs are always cool

      March 27, 2023

      I’VE had the opportunity to play a variety of tactical RPGs over the years, but few have left an impression…

      Barotrauma review – thalassophobia with friends

      Barotrauma review – thalassophobia with friends

      March 27, 2023

      Barotrauma is a fascinating and immersive survival game that takes place in the depths of an alien ocean, that’s sure…

      View All
    • Podcasts
      Nuts & Bolts Ep 78 Hero Card

      Nuts & Bolts Ep 78: Mr LCO Goes To PCS

      March 25, 2023

      Bliss & Chiefs claim the top two spots as the LCO heads to PCS to see who will qualify for…

      Weekly Show Ep 275 Hero Card

      The Weekly Show Ep 275: AI Wrote This Episode Title

      March 24, 2023

      Doomcutie joins Stormie and Jim as they talk through mods, leaks and so much more! Plus our Bloody Good Game Of The Week thanks to Aussie Broadband.

      Nuts & Bolts Ep 77 Hero Card

      Nuts & Bolts Ep 77: A Wild Mercury Appears!

      March 11, 2023

      Jim is joined by Mercury live in the GOA studio! Jim gets excited over the World Of Tanks ANZPL draft…

      Weekly Show Ep 274 Hero Card

      The Weekly Show Ep 274: Shame Nintendo, Shame!

      March 10, 2023

      Doomcutie joins Stormie and Jim as they talk through mods, leaks and so much more! Plus our Bloody Good Game Of The Week thanks to Aussie Broadband.

      Nuts & Bolts Ep 76 Hero Card

      Nuts & Bolts Ep 76: LCO Drama-Rama

      March 4, 2023

      Peace finally get what’s coming to them as the LCO starts the group stage while a team suffers a tech…

      View All
    • Categories
      • BY PLATFORM
        • Playstation
        • Xbox
        • Nintendo
        • PC
        • Mobile
        • VR
        • Retro
      • BY GENRE
        • Action
        • Action-Adventure
        • Battle Royale
        • Fighting
        • FPS
        • Horror Games
        • RPG
        • Simulation
        • Sports
        • MMORPG
        • MOBA
        • Platformer
        • Strategy
        • Survival
        • Indie
      • GOA ESSENTIALS
        • Esports
        • Conventions
        • Tabletop
        • Hardware
        • Funny
        • Streaming
        • Win
        • Podcast
        • Video
    • More
      • About Us
      • Contact Us
    Game on Aus
    Home » Sanity of Morris Steam Review
    Sanity of Morris Steam Review
    GAMING REVIEWS

    Sanity of Morris Steam Review

    Chris InglisBy Chris InglisMarch 25, 2021
    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

    Sanity of Morris is a first-person psychological horror adventure game by Alterego Games and Stickylock Studios. Released on March 23, 2021, this is the second game from this pairing, with their first being 2019’s cute woolen puzzle game Woven which I really enjoyed. They have now gone to the opposite end of the gaming spectrum with a horror game and, while there are some minor faults, the casual approach to the horror genre and shorter but well-written story suited me well as a gaming dad. Creative Director, Dominic de Graaf sums the up the change between the games.

    “We wanted to create something new and exciting, but also keep doing what we’re good at; storytelling. So for Sanity of Morris we took from Woven the adventure genre, having collectibles and working with a strong narrative. But then we added a whole layer of psychological horror in the music, in the visuals, and it’s really unnerving! In this game, you will start to question John’s reality. It makes for an engaging experience, like an interactive movie, perfect for escaping daily life. And we can all use that right about now.”

    Sanity of Morris Steam Review

    In Sanity of Morris, you play as Johnathan Morris as he approaches the isolated town of Greenlake to check up on his father, Hank. After years of next to no contact, Johnathon receives a cryptic letter from Hank which, as I read it, made me think not is all as it seemed. There appeared to be cryptic sentences alluring to something sinister going on with his research. While driving into town, a van forces Johnathon off the road, crashing into a ditch.

    It is nighttime with an eerie mist and you only have a flashlight to light your way. The occupants of the van are strange men in hazmat suits with batons, searching for you with their green flashlights. You use the shadows and foliage to hide from them whilst working your way to your father’s house. Once there, you rush inside and then start to search and piece together your father’s footsteps to ascertain his whereabouts and follow the breadcrumb clues he left behind.

    Sanity of Morris Steam Review

    Through searching the house, you’ll find notes, tape recordings and photos that get recorded in your journal timeline. You also discover a plant-like alien form and top secret red folders from the RI&CS facility Hank was working for. Initially you are just following Hank’s timeline of evidence and later you’ll find items that detail an alien timeline as well as top secret information from the facility. At the same time, you are listening to Johnathon’s inner monologue as he wonders why Hank is dragging him into this mess, but it also makes him question why his parents separated when he was young, and who could have been more at fault. This invests Johnathon more in finding his father.

    Sanity of Morris Steam Review

    As I do with most adventure games that involve puzzles, I started taking notes of numbers I come across as usually they are tied to a coded lock of some sort. Sure enough there was a keycode to work out, however after finding the fourth number, it made a note of the whole code in my journal. When I went to type in the numbers on the lock’s keypad, the lock just opened automatically using the key from the journal. I would have liked to have tried to enter the number combinations myself. Whilst this could be seen as too simplified for avid puzzle gamers, Narrative designer Matthijs Kramer explains this more casual approach to Sanity of Morris.

    “We aim to deliver experiences for the busy gamer who wants to wind down for the evening or weekend. For those with less time on their hands, games need to be shorter, more compact, yet still offer powerful experiences. And that’s our focus with Sanity of Morris.”

    The storytelling and writing over just short of four hours for me was really well done and is backed up by believable voice acting for Hank. However, Johnathon talking to himself so often got a bit grating after a while, though I do see he was trying to understand and rationalise the things he was encountering. I enjoyed collecting all the items I came across and pausing to listen to the tape recordings in their entirety as it helped invest me into the story. It was also good to read notes as it gave you a break from the sometimes stressful and seemingly endless searching in the dark, and the new bits of information gave you more clues and a drive to find answers and complete the story.

    Sanity of Morris Steam Review

    Given your flashlight beam is all you can see in the dark environments, stealth comes into play, particularly when you come across aliens. There’s no combat in Sanity of Morris, so avoiding the enemy is the only way to get past them. Once you get deep into the alien structure, there were scenes and interactions with the aliens that gave me flashbacks of hiding from the xenomorph in Alien: Isolation. These aliens don’t move as fast though, and if you have enough time and space, you can run away from them if there’s a hiding spot secure enough to block them. Otherwise, they do catch up and kill you. You’ll restart from a close by checkpoint but I found this could be used as a way to effectively cheat via deaths.

    Sanity of Morris Steam Review

    As an example in one section, there are four switches you need to press to activate a central device, and each is guarded by a patrolling alien. I found that if I managed to get to the switch and activate it, then get killed by the alien, the game would reload either on the spot I died, or a short distance from this location. However I didn’t have to reactivate that switch, so I could just move onto the next one. It essentially took away the risk element of trying to successfully sneak past the alien and make an escape.

    Another gripe I had were the occasional times where the limited vision of the flashlight meant things in the background lost focus. Your sanity certainly affects the effectiveness of your actions, and if you’ve been chased by an alien and managed to hide behind something, Johnathon’s panicked state will blur his vision. However if I managed to sneak into an area and hide behind a desk, the camera sometimes blurred things in the distance so I couldn’t see where the alien or henchman was patrolling. I’d have to pop out of cover, let the camera re-focus and then hide again. Thankfully it didn’t give away my position each time but there were times I had to wait for guards to pass back again while I dealt with blurred vision. It meant I skipped a few searchable areas in the last chapter and therefore missed earning the collectible achievement but I was happy to get to the end and complete the game.

    I finished the game in just under four hours, and right at the end you are given a choice of options as to how you want to interpret everything you’ve learned. It’s an interesting way to handle the end of the story leaving you thinking long after playing. The next day I wanted to see if I could reload the game so I could choose the other option, however there is no option to continue my game, only start a new one. It would have been great if we could have a save point at the start of each chapter so that we could replay them to complete the collectible achievements, and a save near the end to make the alternate choice without having to play the whole game again.

    Overall, Sanity of Morris is a decent horror puzzle adventure game with a terrific story, though it is aimed more at casual fans of the horror genre. There are items to collect which helped to immerse me more into the story, and there were some great stealth sections and decent puzzles to solve. It is a short game which suited me perfectly as a gaming dad, but may feel lacking to other hardcore horror game fans.

    This review utilised a Steam code provided by the publisher. Sanity of Morris is available now Steam, Xbox and PlayStation.

    #gameonAUS


    Written by: @ChrisJInglis

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
    Previous ArticleSony PlayStation 5 DualSense Charging Station
    Next Article Season 6 Of NBA 2K21 Announced

    Related Posts

    Dredge Review – We’re going to need a bigger boat
    GAMING REVIEWS March 30, 2023

    Dredge Review – We’re going to need a bigger boat

    Dredge, the latest fishing adventure game from developer Black Salt Games, is a harrowing and immersive experience that taps into…

    Terra Nil Review – Ecelogically enjoyable
    GAMING REVIEWS March 28, 2023

    Terra Nil Review – Ecelogically enjoyable

    Terra Nil is an incredibly unique city-building ‘puzzle’ game developed by Free Lives and published by Devolver Digital. The game’s…

    Subscribe

    Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

    Ads

    Categories
    • ACTION
    • ACTION-ADVENTURE
    • APPLE
    • BATTLE ROYALE
    • CLOUD GAMING
    • CONVENTIONS
    • DLC
    • ESPORTS
    • Events
    • FEATURE
    • FIGHTING
    • FPS
    • FUNNY
    • GAMING HARDWARE
    • GAMING NEWS
    • GAMING REVIEWS
    • GIFT GUIDE
    • GOA
    • GOA PODCAST
    • HORROR GAMES
    • INDIE GAMING
    • Industry
    • MMORPG
    • MOBA
    • MOBILE
    • NINTENDO
    • Open-World
    • OPINION
    • PC
    • PLATFORMER
    • PLAYSTATION
    • Press Release
    • PREVIEW
    • RACING
    • RETRO
    • RPG
    • SIMULATION
    • SPORTS
    • STRATEGY
    • STREAMING
    • SUBSCRIPTION GAMES SERVICE UPDATES
    • SURVIVAL
    • TABLETOP GAMING
    • TECH
    • VIDEO
    • VR
    • XBOX
    Related Article
    ANZPL Split 2 2023 Header
    ESPORTS

    World Of Tanks Returns with ANZPL Split 1 2023

    March 30, 2023Darren 'Str8JaktJim' MacneallBy Darren 'Str8JaktJim' Macneall

    There’s be a few changes to the league and teams to make ANZPL Split 1 2023 the most exciting season yet! I’m excited!

    Dredge Review – We’re going to need a bigger boat
    GAMING REVIEWS

    Dredge Review – We’re going to need a bigger boat

    March 30, 2023ArlentricBy Arlentric

    Dredge, the latest fishing adventure game from developer Black Salt Games, is a harrowing and immersive experience that taps into our primal fear of…

    Tears Of The Kingdom Gameplay Trailer Releases!
    ACTION-ADVENTURE

    Tears Of The Kingdom Gameplay Trailer Releases!

    March 28, 2023Darren 'Str8JaktJim' MacneallBy Darren 'Str8JaktJim' Macneall

    Only months away from its release, Nintendo have dropped a Tears Of The Kingdom gameplay trailer for us to fawn over.

    Game on Australia Logo

    Game On Aus is an Australian games publication working across written, video and podcast, and supported by an ever-growing community of content creators and fans!

    Copyright GameOnAus 2023. Privacy Policy. Website by Digital Hitmen

    CONTENT
    • News
    • Gaming Reviews
    • Podcast
    • Tech
    • Indie
    ABOUT GOA
    • About Us
    • Contact

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.