The Town of Light

This isn't a game. It's a Walking Sim, and just a Walking Sim. There are no puzzles, no QTE's, no fast-clicking, and no jump-scares. This is to help you better focus on the story being told. You will have decisions to make throughout your experience, and parts of the game will change based on your decisions.
The location is a psychiatric hospital in Italy. The time period is today, but with plenty of memories and flashbacks of the late 1930's to mid 1940's. You are Renee. (At least you're supposed to be her. By the end of the story, however, you'll be questioning that, as a couple of things about the ending makes it near impossible for you to be her).
In 1938 you were committed to this horrible place by your mother, with help from the local police. You were 16 then. Now in present day (2016), you have come back to the hospital, which is long abandoned and much dilapidated, and are walking through trying to piece together your past. (Of course, this would make you around age 94, which adds to the impossibility of this scenario actually happening).
Renee has a diary (at least she will after you find the 8 pages), plus her memories. However, since Renee IS actually mentally unstable, you can't always trust the diary or the memories. You will also find medical records and reports. However, as the hospital often had to cover up "unfortunate incidents", you can't always trust those either. Who, or what, do you trust? These are the decisions you'll have to make, which I mentioned earlier.
The psychiatric hospital in this story really existed. It has been painstakingly recreated here, which I think is absolutely phenomenal. When walking around outside, especially the courtyard, it's amazing how beauty can be found in such desolation. The graphics are great (or at least were for 2016). The story is very compelling. It ranges from mildly disturbing to outright disgusting. Towards the end is a medical procedure which I wish I hadn't seen.
The voice acting is top notch. The woman who voices Renee sounds vulnerable most of the time, adding to the realism and story immersion. Many antique items in the game can be picked up and inspected. Old photos, posters, and newspaper headlines are also included. I really love the historical aspect being shown here. The background music also really adds to the ambiance.
I only have 2 gripes. First is that you only have walking speed. This makes things take a lot longer than they should, as you will be doing a lot of going back and forth between 2 floors, with 2 wings on each floor and several rooms in each wing. (Tip: The elevator is a pain in the butt. Taking the stairs is a lot faster).
Second is that the hints aren't always so obvious. I spent way more time than should have been necessary aimlessly walking around trying to figure out what to do next. Pushing 'H' is supposed to give you a hint, but it doesn't work 100% of the time. Plus, I didn't even know "H = hint" until I was in Chapter 7. From reading the forums, I found multiple people had this problem, thus the hint system should have been more publicly and obviously declared.
Social Commentary
This is a horror story, but not supernaturally. The horror here is in the truth. It's in the things that humans willingly do to each other. Psychiatric hospitals were where society put many of it's "undesirables", even though some of them weren't actually crazy or mentally unstable in any way. Patients were tortured in the names of medicine and science. Patients, especially females, were repeatedly raped by orderlies.
Ironically, and hypocritically, nothing has changed in almost a century. Our society still puts away it's "undesirables" in psychiatric hospitals, only we now call them mental institutions. The new name sounds nicer and more polite; a more palatable way of assuaging our own guilt for the blind eye we turn towards them. It helps us to believe we're more civilized now.
Yet patients are still abused, and still raped. Cover ups are still routine. Once in a great while you'll see a news article where an institution, or one of it's employees, gets caught. But we pay no attention as long as it doesn't involve us or any of our loved ones. As long as it's happening to somebody else, then it's not important. And that makes me wonder who the crazy ones really are.

Story driven walking sim where you get to explore cool long abandoned insane asylum. Story itself is probably the saddest i've ever come across in any game.

Another extremely uncomfortable game personally for me, and even more than McGee's Alices. Fears of the past of events than (most likely) never happened but *could* have happened and which I was afraid of.
I guess slogan of (surprisingly fitting name) Lobotomy Corporation "Face The Fear, Build The Future" works the best here.
Or I am just a masochist.

I want to applaud the sorrowful atmosphere of this game - keep in mind that you can end up feeling quite sad by the end of it. The developers seemed passionate about the theme they chose for their debut, and I always appreciate passion.
It's a little bit clunky and not all that interesting from a gameplay standpoint, overall it's definitely not my favorite "walking sim". But if you like this subgenre, you might want to give The Town of Light a try.

A painful, moving and unforgettable psychological exploration. You are Renee, exploring an abandoned sanitarium in post-war Italy. You were committed when you were 16 and are now trying to recover your past. This is a very strong game.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about The Town of Light, especially with its portrayal of certain things. The ending in particular is especially bleak and left me with a very uncomfortable feeling. If you're familiar with the devs other game, Martha is Dead, then you may have some idea of what you're in for if you do play this game. I do appreciate the spotlight on mental asylums in 1930s and 1940s Italy at least, since this will raise awareness of an under-discussed topic. It's a good walking sim, just with very divisive subject matter. I later saw an analysis of the game by a youtuber, MertKayKay, and she does a much better job of analyzing this game than I can.

The Town of Light warns in the beginning of disturbing scenes, and coming from someone who struggles with mental health, I recommend to take this warning into consideration. I'm very self-aware and had no issues throughout the game, but I know that isn't the case for everyone.

There are ZERO jumpscares, yet I was on-edge during the whole game. There's an overwhelming sense of eeriness and as the story progresses, your discomfort will only feed into that. With that being said, I recommend this game 100% to anyone who's comfortable enough to try and is curious about the mental health 'systems' in the past. Wow. Very eye-opening for sure.

The only 'issue' that I had with the game was having to adjust brightness/gamma a few times because of the combination of (very) bright transition 'scenes' and my unwillingness to play it in the dark :') Other than that, I love everything.