The Town of Light

Another unsettling hit from LKA, this one is inspired by actual events and letting us explore a real asylum (Volterra Psychiatric Hospital). The game is slower and has a lot more talking than Martha Is Dead (you move around a lot), which I did not like because you didn't know where to go most of the time, but it's still an amazing game that shows/tells you a little bit about the horrible things that were done to people in asylums in the past.

Picked this one.....shit
CW: HEAVY themes.
Okay in all seriousness I had no idea what I was getting into when I put this into one of my lists months ago, it's an educational game which I always appreciate, and on some level it's intended as a horror game, not in the conventional "survival horror" of key finding, puzzle solving, avoiding enemies sense, if the idea of a slow slowly narrated walking sim isn't for you well, I can't significantly challenge your opinion on the genre, it's not for everybody and that's fine, but I'd gladly contribute to the discussion of this game, if that alone might interest you.
Town of light centers itself around mental institutions nearing the 2nd half of the 20th century, it's an interesting subject to research because it represents a turning point for the development of health treatment, nowadays we understand medicine as 'supplements' whereas the way ethical concerns stood back then, it used to be that misbehaving was grounds for being castaway from the rest of the world, followed by having your personal belongings taken away, all means of communication being falsified, tied for several days to bathtubs of ice, and yes, specially to being a target to acts of sexual violence as facilitated by these institutions.
It's valuable in understanding that Medicine, despite being rooted in the well intended pursuit of development and betterment of humanity, should never be excempt from condemnation, hell the history of medicine consists largely of some of the stupidest fucking ideas such as spirits and bloodletting, torture and racially motivated acts of violence, incapacitation as means to solve even the most benign of problems like, "oh my wife got sad and said something mean to me" this game looks at many of these themes, during the short window of time where causing permanent damage to your prefrontal cortex by puncturing it like a balloon was very popular.
She goes by many names, trepanation, lobectomy, doomscrolling brainrot at 3:00 am, she's the 2nd most prolific murderer on elm street after Freddy Krueger, you've known her well as far back as 7000 years ago, her name rolls right off the tongue, say hello to the one and only lobotomy baby cause she's not here to stay for very long, all it takes is a 10 minute appointment with a hammer and an ice pick and before you can say shaboioing we'll guarantee 100% satisfaction with your newly attained vegetation, or in the significantly more likely scenario that you don't come back alive, you can rest assured that our method, while not actually providing any significant evidence of improvement whatsoever, is also completely painless, or at least that's what thousands upon thousands of our satisfied customers lead us to believe, after all, it's not just a fancy slogan when we say that a lobotomite has never complained about their lobotomy, it's completely true!
So hopefully that illustrates why a lobotomy ban was placed after thousands upon thousands of reported deaths in the span of a few years, it's an actual cromagnon practice that somehow escaped the hellholes that tried to bring it back one final time and made its way into the lives of perfectly adjusted people who for all we know, could have simply needed an aspirin or some shit, instead leaving them completely ruined with no hopes of ever recovering.
Going back to this game, it's a valuable resource in how it recreates a real derelict asylum for you to explore, letting you read all about the types of abuse that were conducted here, some of the reasons as to why people were tortured, about how women especially were abused in these prisons, the repugnant living conditions your sexual preferences or a light headache could earn you in the last few hundreds of years.
That's basically what horror in this game consists of, graphic violence and simulations of mental asylum practices, there's no jumpscares no nothing, it's just soul crushing. You play from the perspective of a former resident with difficulties understanding their situation, giving you an unreliable account of the events that took place during her stay.
Excellent music and illustrations are some of the highlights for this game, surrealist sequences and branching paths give it merit beyond a single playthrough, and it doesn't particularly explore any unique gameplay concepts but a number of story sequences are a delight to go through, it's hard to think that having you do anything more complex than examine your surroundings might have been in good taste.
You can tell the studio responsible are super talented and gave it their all for this title, it's got a great sense of aesthetics in every way imaginable, it's well researched and even manages to tell a fairly emotionally compelling story, it's a solid exponent for this genre, executed with care, one asking for a higher level of maturity than a lot of other games that released in close proximity to it, hopefully it'll earn its place in your library as it did mine.

epic, excluding the aggressive flash bangs scattered throughout the game. i found myself bracing for impact, scrunching my face, and squinting my eyes every time i turned a corner in fear of the next memory flashback.
(completely unrelated, but i am absolutely torn over the fact that the original music played during the last cut scene has been replaced. not that the new music is bad, not at all, but the impact the original had on me back in 2016 could never be replaced or forgotten)

This is one of those games that really hits you emotionally because of how much melancholy it carries in its story. It’s based on real events and tells the tragic life of Renée, a 16-year-old girl who had the meaning of her life stripped away from her.
It’s a deeply emotional and psychological game, and I highly recommend playing it. The weight of everything that happens in the asylum and inside Renée’s mind honestly gave me chills more than once.
As for the achievements, you’ll unlock most of them just by progressing through the story. There are about four that require replaying a few specific chapters, but nothing too complicated.
An absolute work of art. Seriously—give this one a chance. It’s worth every minute.

very educating and emotional game. i just had to go back and unlock every other path in the game! the heavy unfortunate lore was even more saddening realizing it's inspired by real life events. makes me feel grateful about how medically advanced we are now and a lot more educated about mental illnesses and all that.

The Town of Light tells a haunting and thought-provoking story set within the walls of a real psychiatric hospital, but its minimal gameplay and slow pacing may not appeal to all players.

This is a game that has a greater focus on story rather than gameplay.