The Mortuary Assistant Review – All the Dead Things

Let’s get started on this The Mortuary Assistant review.

What is The Mortuary Assistant?

The Mortuary Assistant is a horror adventure simulation game. You play as Rebecca Owens, a new Mortuary Assistant at a funeral home in River Fields. You will guide Rebecca through all parts of embalming a corpse, all while supernatural spooky experiences are happening to and around you.

Who Makes The Mortuary Assistant?

The Mortuary Assistant is made by  DarkStone Digital. They are a solo developer located in Connecticut, United States. This extremely talented game developer created the Mortuary Assistant as a one-man team! He has created several other horror-themed games.

Which Platforms is The Mortuary Assistant On?

The Mortuary Assistant is available on Itch.io, Steam, Gog, and Epic.

Is the Mortuary Assistant Scary?

Is the Mortuary Assistant Scary? The Mortuary Assistant is one of those games that really gets under your skin in a creepy way. You are dealing with some pretty spooky topics like dead bodies, death, and ghosts, and you know this going in but it is something quite else to have to embalm a dead body.

Yes, the Mortuary Assistant is Scary.

The Mortuary Assistant Gameplay Review

After the short intro story plays out, you have will have to go through all the steps of getting a creepy-looking dead body ready for the ‘ever after’. This includes needles, cuts, stitches, and lots of fluids that make absolutely disgusting noises. The first time you do this it can be a pretty horrifying experience. No matter who you are, putting mouth staples to close a dead body’s mouth is something else.

There are many steps required to embalm a body. You have a handy checklist to walk you through all the various steps that you need to do and the order you need to do them in. This certainly doesn’t make the game any easier.

Each part of the game is randomized. This includes the evil demon you come across, where all the items needed for the embalming are located(the scalpel that was on the shelf last time is now located in a drawer for example), and the various supernatural events that happen to you. It can make for many levels of replay value because each experience is unique.

Once you have successfully completed a body embalming with your handy checklist, you will then have to do it many more times. So many times in fact that this part becomes a lot less cringy and a lot more repetitive. Although the developer has done his best here to create a unique randomized experience, it is just basically doing the same thing over and over again.

What really keeps you on your toes though are the randomized Supernatural events that keep happening around you. These events can be quite detailed and sophisticated, sometimes with multiple scares tied into one larger scare. They are quite well done.

How to Catch the Demon in Mourtary Assistant

Then comes the getting rid of the demon part of the game.

After you complete the first embaling you will be introduced to the real ‘point’ of the game which is, figuring out which of the 3 dead bodies you are working on is in fact the possessed one, and with what kind of entity it is possessed with. It is at this point that the game gets similar elements to Phasmophobia.

On top of embaling the bodies and following the checklist, you will now need to add in burning some smudge-type sticks as you walk around the mortuary to the mix. As you get close to a randomly generated symbol location, the stick will start to smoke, crackle, and eventually burst into flames.

You’ll be able to locate a symbol with a lot of searching and effort, somewhere close to where this flame burst occurs. You need to find 3 of these. Sometimes these symbols are REALLY hard to find, like inside a nearby draw or in the middle of a painting. Sometimes no matter how much I looked I never could find the symbol.

Once you find the symbol, try and remember it, and then you can look it up on the office computer. This will allow you to start figuring out which demon you are dealing with.

You then need to figure out which body is the possessed one. You may need to take the bodies in and out of the freezer several times to see which one has been “attacked”.

Finally, you will need to place a symbol on the body with the correct demon type in it and then wheel that body into the furnace.

If this all sounds like a lot, it’s because quite frankly it is. You are presented with a lot of information after the detailed embaling tutorial walkthrough, and it’s really a lot to take in. Especially with extra creepy jumps and scares happening all around you. I just worked on embaling the bodies and eventually, these additional steps fell into place. They really did feel strapped on as an afterthought. It would be nice to see a full detailed tutorial go over these steps as well.

There are 6 different endings available so you will be repeating the above experience quite a few times. There is a decent story going on through the embalming body experience if you are willing to play it several times and figure out exactly what is going on.

The Mortuary Assistant Graphics and Sound

The graphics in the Mortuary Assistant are not the most advanced, but they certainly are spooky enough to make you cringe while doing some embalming.

The sounds made while embalming is also something else. There are some squishy noises and some cracks that will send shutters up even the most strong stomached individual.

The Mortuary Assistant Bugs

There are some bugs that I came across, usually involving not being able to pick something up that I was supposed to pick up. This required a restart of the game, which CAN be pretty frustrating when you are in the middle of almost solving a round. The solo developer is very active to this day, and still working on getting these bugs fixed and that is a positive sign.

The Mortuary Assistant Really Cool Stuff

This game really gets under your skin. Having to do these various steps to a dead body is scary enough, but adding in supernatural horror elements all around it brings the spooky to a whole new level.

Who Will Enjoy Playing The Mortuary Assistant?

The Mortuary Assistant is rated M for Mature. There is disturbing imagery, drug references, moments of self-harm, and strong language as well as some pretty spooky themes. If you like indie games, horror, and simulation games then you will like The Mortuary Assistant.

What Games are similar to The Mortuary Assistant?

There are definitely horror themes and some pretty scary supernatural moments. The Mortuary Assistant reminded me of Phasmophobia (but with more emphasis on simulation) and Song Of Horror.

How long is The Mortuary Assistant?

The entire game took me about seven hours to get all the endings. You could easily mess up a few times and get quite a lot more playtime out of this.

Final Thoughts On The Mortuary Assistant Review