Sanitarium

About Sanitarium

Sanitarium (1998) is DreamForge's psychological horror adventure in which an amnesiac with a bandaged face wakes in a decaying asylum and drifts through nightmarish worlds, tying with Grim Fandango for Computer Gaming World's best adventure.

Sanitarium in Depth

After a car crash, a man wakes from a coma, his face completely bandaged, in a dilapidated sanitarium, unable to remember who he is or how he got there; gradually he recalls his first name, Max. Searching the asylum, he is transported to strange worlds: a town of malformed children ruled by an alien entity called "Mother", a demented circus on an endless ocean, an alien hive of cyborg insects, and an Aztec village ravaged by the return of Quetzalcoatl. In some he becomes someone else, such as his sister Sarah, who died of a disease in childhood, or Grimwall, the four-armed hero of a favourite comic. Between episodes he returns to the asylum, edging closer to the truth about its head, Dr. Morgan, and his own guilt over Sarah.

It uses an isometric view and a non-tiled 2D navigation system, with each chapter having its own style, and it is often unclear whether a world is real or imagined, which underlines the horror. Players find clues, solve puzzles and talk to characters before a final challenge of reaching the end of a path past obstacles. Death simply returns the player to the start of the path without lost progress, so there is no game over.

Making Sanitarium

DreamForge Intertainment developed Sanitarium for Windows and ASC Games published it in 1998. It received favourable reviews, Next Generation calling it "vastly different and thoroughly entertaining" and wishing more companies would take gaming in such different directions. It was a commercial success, selling around 300,000 copies according to DreamForge's Mike Nicholson, and PC Accelerator said it raised the studio's profile. It tied with Grim Fandango for Best Adventure at Computer Gaming World's 1999 Premier Awards, the staff writing that it "came from out of nowhere to provide the creepiest, most compelling, and best-told story of the year", and was nominated for best adventure by Computer Games Strategy Plus, PC Gamer, GameSpot, IGNPC and the AIAS, losing each to Grim Fandango. PC Gamer praised its graphics, characters and puzzles. Adventure Gamers ranked it the 36th best adventure in 2011. Dotemu ported it to iOS and Android in 2015, and the independent game Stasis has been compared to it.