It’s the summer of 2021. I had just moved past the worst few months of my life. After a long and hard journey with school transfers and mental health hospitals, my life looked like it was headed in an upward trajectory. Although I had long moved past the pitch black darkness of suicidal and depressive thoughts, I found myself enamored by them and the beauty of its chaos. Coincidentally, it was at this time of fascination with the abstract where I first discovered Omori: an indie psychological horror RPG.
Generally speaking, what’s most interesting about the horror genre is the foundation it’s built upon: suspense. The thrill of horror comes from not knowing when the next scare is going to be. You know it’s coming, but have no idea when or where it’s going to happen. It’s that state of anticipation and fear that drives them and makes them a truly thrilling experience.
But few horror mediums have actually utilized that state of suspense in order to tell a story with a genuine message. Oftentimes you see so many bad horror movies that attempt to take the audience on a thrill ride, and while they do succeed sometimes, you see that they also are unable to convey a point to the audience, whether they have it or not. It’s quite a shame too, because the level of potential that the messaging can hold is nothing short of ginormous .
Omori is a lightning bolt reminder of how effective the horror genre can be. The game itself is pretty simplistic, and the story, dare I say, somewhat predictable, and yet still carries so much emotion to it that it’s impossible not to fall in love with it.
Today, we’ll be taking a look at how Omori utilizes the basics of suspenseful storytelling in order to create such a critically acclaimed game that is positively reviewed by almost every person who has played or experienced it. This is how Omocat built the unhateable game.
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PART 1: unnatural braking
Omori opens on the sound of cassette tapes, then white, then sounds of 4 notes continuously repeating itself over and over again. There’s an uneasy feeling as you check the area surrounding you: a 4 by 4 floor decorated with tissues, a laptop, your cat, and a door. Your character is completely black and white, and other than the ominous hands patrolling the area deemed “white space” everything is black and white, that is, unless you’ve made it into the second room. Especially for a game deemed as a psychological horror, you’re unwilling to trust the game, and because of that are on your toes throughout.
But that security slowly starts to falter as OMORI starts to immerse you into the worldbuilding of the colorful world you find yourself in after the second room. You do quests for people, you play hide and seek with a bossy dinosaur looking guy, it’s childish, but the thoughts of the game’s opening sequence and its psychological horror tag keep you engaged. You’re in a state of full immersion, but are also aware in the back of your mind that this is a horror game and a jumpscare is inevitable.
How is this possible? Because there has to be a reason why people are still fully engaged in doing completely mundane and childish tasks, but at the same time, the expected jumpscare still manages to surprise almost everyone who plays the game.
The answer lies in OMORI’s ability to retain a state of balance between immersion and skepticism. It’s that skepticism but also curiosity that keeps you engaged in the hide and seek game, but it’s the immersion that also scared me out of my pants when I saw the first jumpscare.
OMORI is able to build suspense through moments like these. It’s after that first scare that everything changes, while the gameplay remains the same for the majority, there’s always a sense of fear and anxiety mixed in with its immersion. It could be colorful and upbeat music in one area and as soon as you enter another it’s all just ambient sound, the letter L sitting in an ominous position. And although people can adapt easily to rhythms and ruin the suspense by figuring out the beat with which the periodic suspense occurs, the OMORI team purposely spreads them out unevenly in order to have that extra bonus of uncertainty.
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The Truth
So what does all that suspense build up to? Well, in OMORI’s case, the suspense climaxes at the masterpiece dubbed the “Truth Sequence”. After defeating several incarnations of your worst fears, in a shocking turn of events, it is revealed that the person who killed Mari was you, Sunny. The person you’ve been emphasizing with was the person who killed his own sister, and alongside your friend Basil hung her up to make it look like a suicide. And so that suspense shifts, the main engagement of all the fear and anxiety shifts from learning the truth about the abstract and terrifying imagery in headspace, to asking whether you have the strength to tell your dearest friends, and whether you have the strength to forgive yourself. Maybe you figured it out at the very beginning, and maybe you could have figured it out, but OMORI through its textbook world and suspense building is able to get you to care and feel as if you are in the world itself.
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Pay — off
The culmination of all 30 hours you’ve been through this game comes to a battle against the face of the game, OMORI.0 It’s a battle of fight against flight, and a battle between you the player and the terrible truth that you’ve learned about the very character you play as. It’s the cathartic battle against a meaningless existence, one where you’ve committed a terrible act, but still push forward. All that suspense, pain, frustration, and sadness culminate into one final duet, an ending that rivals Nier Automata’s ending E.
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So, how is OMORI “unhateable”? As far as I’m concerned OMORI isn’t the most well written story, with many plot holes and unresolved points, but also is able to expertly utilize that horror element in order to create the most compelling story of all: one that people can relate to. The potential with that suspense to create meaning out of something that probably meaningless is something that is truly special, and will be remembered and retold for years to come.
