Centum Preview

I’ve literally just come off of playing Centum for over an hour and…I’m not entirely sure what I just saw. I’m not one for point and click games usually, but it’s bizarre style, fourth wall breaking moments, and down right creepy atmosphere won me over – I think. 

We start off with a faux computer desktop, with several files to open and read. _100.BAT is the one we need, and we then find ourselves in a conversation with some kind of overbearing Judge-like figure. After being verbally abused for a minute we then find ourselves in a prison cell, and it’s here the point and clicking begins.

Don’t think Monkey Island, think more escape room. We are the protagonist, and so we only get to see a static screen in which we can click on a few things. Some of these zoom in to get a closer look, and can be interacted with further. One of the first things we find is a rat trap; we can set it and wait, or being slightly more curious, put our hand in it. It’s here the game shows it’s hand – well, rather, it maims our hand as we lose a finger to the device. 

In true adventure game style, this then leads us onto a solution elsewhere in the room. This is an early, grim example, but it’s not long before we’re interacting with a sentient rat (with some of the creepiest looking human teeth since Sonic the Hedgehog), a bizarre shadowy figure, and all other manner of weird objects. 

As we progress, the desktop (accessed as a pause menu) adds files and notes from unseen people, filling in lore and offering hints where needed – though we get the sense that much like the rest of the game, not all is what it seems. Can we trust these notes? Will they actually help? It says much that I kinda want to find out despite the genre of game not being my thing.

 It’s also possible to die early on; a bottle of Rat Poison is placed on the table in our cell. We could give it to the rat, chuck it away, or drink it. We expected to be met with a game over, but rather it all fed back into the story and we were (again) scolded in the conversations after the fact. 

I went in half expecting to not be bothered by Centum, but I can’t deny that my interest is piqued. WIthout wanting to spoil too much from this early look at the game, there’s elements of not just creepy visuals and themes, but the aforementioned fourth wall breaking texts and gameplay moments, and the conversation scenes seemed designed to have us be abused but I can’t help but feel there’s more to it than meets the eye.

This game was previewed on PC (via Steam). All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by the publisher.