As soon as I saw this game, I got excited and really wanted to have it.
The graphics look beautiful and I had very high expectations.

This emotional yet so beautiful game gives you the insight of what it's like to be a mortician.
Death is a touchy subject, But it has always interested me.
The music was fitting and stunning.
The characters in the game treated the dead with respect, and everything was perfectly explained.

I was excited to play this, but the beginning of the game felt like a repetitive tutorial.
You read your emails, prepare the bodies for cremation or embalming, Show respect to their loved ones and move on to the next.
The game won't let you make mistakes, won't let you prepare the bodies on your own, You have to follow each step the game tells you too.

Suddenly I entered a different room, I thought by myself “finally, This is where the game is really going to start”.
Sadly, That was the end of the game! I was super disappointed.
You got to be kidding me... I'm flabbergasted.

They could have done so much more with this game.
I wish I was able to do the make up too, The clothing, The music, preparing on my own, decorate the room, react to the loved ones etc.

This game is not even an hour long, neither is it worth €14,99

This is such a beautiful game. It shows you what happens when you die, not in the metaphysical sense, but in the sense fo what becomes of your body till you get to your funeral. The procedures are reduced to the simplest possible form for a layman to understand, and the game has such a positive attitude throughout the game! The entirety of it, from the gameplay to the music to the graphics, is very calming, and brings to mind early '10s dress up games. If you're trying to beat your fear of death and reach acceptance, this is certainly the game I recommend.

Trigger Warnings:
Death of a family member; grief; death of LGBTQ people; LGBTQ-phobia; suicide; cancer; dying alone

This is an interesting and gentle look into the mortuary and funeral industry. However, its gentleness also holds a bit of a drawback in that it remains somewhat superficial because it feels like a tutorial instead of a full game.

The families of the deceased in the game give you instructions on what to do with the body, and the game allows you only to do that. Although some moral choices are presented, you only really get to make the choice in your own mind; the game doesn't let you do anything different. For instance, one family instructs you to do a traditional burial even though the deceased wanted cremation. You have no choice but to prepare the body for traditional burial.

Even once you know what to do for each case, the game continues to pause every action screen to tell you what to do, whether you want it to or not. This cannot be turned off.

From the hype this game was receiving, I was under the impression that it was a longer, choose-your-own-adventure style game with consequences for your actions; I would have liked to see the outcomes of different paths. To my greater disappointment, about a third of the game is spent reading emails - one thread of which is factoids about death customs, one of which is a co-worker complaining and telling stories about work or asking if you want food, one of which is a sister (?) whose dialogue is gratingly annoying, and one is requests from the funeral home owner. You cannot reply to any of these, except for an "auto-reply" of "ok, I'll do it!" or "sure thing!" to the home director.

From a technical standpoint, this game is well-made and clean, with a nice colour and design scheme and a good soundtrack. However, its downfalls are very little storyline/action flexibility, and a very short play time (I finished in just over an hour). I do feel like $17.49 was very steep for what is essentially a minigame/tutorial with a single playthrough. With no variation in storyline or endings, I won't play again.

I bought this game as a soft coping mechanism shortly after the passing of a loved one. Please understand this is also my first review. It didn't take long to finish the game and I guess some people might be miffed about that, but it was beautiful. It helped me understand the processes after death, and in a small way deal with the whole thing. I love this game and its developers for that simple fact. To the devs, thank you.

Wow.

As someone who works at a funeral home, I was really interested to see what Laundry Bear had up their sleeves. The answer: barely anything.

To play through the game, it took me all of 40 minutes from start to finish. FORTY MINUTES. And in those 40 minutes, I did literally EVERYTHING you could do. I read all the emails. I talked to every family member. I prepped every body whether it be for a traditional service or a cremation. All of this while having my hand held like a rambuctious 2 year walking through a parking lot with his overprotective helicopter parent.

You can't make any mistakes during prep. The game literally has a giant bar at the top telling you what to do EVERY SINGLE TIME. And if you try to go off book? Nothing happens. You literally can't fail.

Oh, and the entire message of the "story"? Corporations are EVIL! Like that hasn't been rehashed in about 1,000 new games every year.

All in all, you play a very tiny part in each of these funeral services. You don't take a hearse and go pick up any of these bodies. You don't help guide these digital families through the arrangement process. You don't work with cemeteries or churches or local florists or anything. You just do a quick embalm/cremation and wander around at the visitation, listening to people vaguely talk about their loved one before moving on to the next one.

I can't recommend this game even a little bit, even if it's free. It has no gameplay value, much less replayability value. And I'm sorry if this review seems a bit longer than the game itself. I had quite a bit of extra time to kill...

I got this in the Conquer COVID-19 Humble Bundle so I am happy to have bought this bundle regardless of the quality of the games. This is one of the few games that I didn't already own. Sadly, it feels more like a prototype for a game, than an actual game. There isn't even enough here to call it a Virtual Novel.

I finished the game in a little less than 50 minutes. I was going very slow as well, reading everything possible. Somehow I missed how to play graveyard sweeper for 100% achievement.

The main problem with this game is that the actions are very repetitive and, not only that, but they are always guided. You're not even allowed to mess up or have to remember how to do them. That would be fine if the gameplay somehow expanded, but it really doesn't. You repeat the same few types of actions until the very end.

The only interesting thing is reading some of the tidbits from the e-mails. Unfortunately, they are too short. There are some moral issues presented, but that is all that is done here. They are presented. You never actually have to deal with them in any meaningful way. The only choice you ever have is whether to do a particular job or do a different one if you feel uncomfortable with that one. You're presented with a moral dilemma, but you're not presented with a choice on dealing with that dilemma, it's either do the job one way or do something else entirely.

Still, I did enjoy reading about some of these issues. It really makes you think. Unfortunately, you'd have to do your own research to find out more about them. There just isn't enough here other than presenting issues that you may not have thought of before. Then the whole thing ends rather abruptly, where your character made a choice ... but you certainly didn't.

Rate 5/10. Just buy the Conquer COVID 19 Bundle. It's for a good cause.

A cute game, more a reflection about death than an actual game. I liked it but i wish it lasted a bit more and it had a bit more variety. It's so short i've finished it without all the cards popping up..

I'm so torn. The topic of this game is really dear to me, but this game just doesn't cut it.
If you don't follow Caitlin Doughty and Ask A Mortician on YouTube, I recommend it - This game could be an interactive biography for her career.

That being said, I really wish this game was better. It plays out more like a student game design project, just getting the feel of how to put something together, and maybe that's what it is, an experiment... but if that's the case it should not even be $9 on sale.

First, the good:
The story is the soul of the game, and it is endearing and the art style is cute.
I really like how it does walk you through some of the more sensative and potentially unpleasant ideas about death-care that most of us don't even know or think about. In part, this is an educational game that covers some of the more basic points of how bodies are embalmed and alternative options that are emerging in the death-care industry.

It also touches on a problem that is happening where huge corporations are pretty much just screwing over grieving families. Education is important and this is a clever way of helping people find out more about their options.

But then, there's the disappointing side:
As people have said, this "game" is atrociously monotonous and repeditive. Maybe that's the way life is in a funeral home. I'm sure it's not all games, but this was sold to me as a video game, and I really hoped for some sort of game involved.

The biggest problem with the monotony is that each body you care for, is exactly the same. The story surrounding their death is a little different each time, but there is literally no escalation in skill or challenge or even learning in the "game" portion of this game. You just do the same thing every time.

The story plays out through reading your emails everyday. Which is also monotonous. The story itself is compelling but it is rushed (Really, you went from everything's fine to being swallowed by a huge corporate shark in 2 days.)

I think there's about 7 funerals. Each time, you find yourself reading emails, then you prepare the body then you go do some arbitrary and pointless clicking in the funeral parlour. You just click on people and objects to hear what they say and trigger the end of the funeral. There's no options to respond to grief, maintain the funeral, or anything. I'd at least like to be able to comfort greiving family members with multiple choice options, of which are of varying degrees of effectiveness, as a learning moment. Then you repeat everything 7 times when suddenly bam! The end of the game!

I played this game for 78 minutes according to Steam, and at least 18 of those minutes was me putzing around doing other things on the internet while the game was just sitting there. The full price of this game is $14.99... which is just barely more expensive than a movie ticket to a movie that is twice as long.


In the end, I do appreciate this game and what it tries to do. Maybe it is monotonous but the people who produced it are on a mission to educate people about their options, and how things in the funeral industry work. I am a big supporter of this mission, and I suppose of only a few people play this game and come away knowing more about their afterdeath care, then mission accomlished. I just hope that it's not going to leave most people worrying more about how they feel ripped off than the lesson intended.

From start to end the game lasted 43 minutes total before the end. This game is way over priced, even with the 20% off sale. It's hardly even a game considering you can't make any mistakes and there is nothing that you are doing aside from reading the emails and doing exactly what it tells you to do. There could have been so much done with this like some of the older operation style games but this definitely wasn't worth it.

I give A Mortician's Tale a positive review under the condition that the person playing it is using it as a tool or experience, not as a fun game to knock out. I first bought this game a few years ago when things looked more dire regarding a close family member's cancer diagnosis. As a coping method, I learned about the death positivity community. I realized there was so much awe and mystery surrounding the death process that left me consumed with fear. Now, a few years out, my family member is doing better but all of us must come to the realization that everyone comes to - if they're fortunate enough to live that long - that everyone dies and death is an inescapable byproduct of living. I think this game is written in that spirit of education and normalization. It's a tool to explore your worst fears - not a horror game with ghosts and jumpscares, but a dead body silent and ready to be prepped for embalming.

The juxtaposition of the body preparation process with interacting with family members at the funeral (though I wish there were more to this aspect, more dialogue or interaction) to your character's best friend chit-chatting about her new job overseas and the trials of modern dating really make it feel grounded in a mundane reality. This will happen to us all so it's best we find our own ways to deal with it sooner rather than later. The art style is not incredibly realistic and censors the gritty truth quite a bit, yet the blunt instructions for preparing the deceased leave little to your imagination.

The game even lets you opt out of one case and let your character's coworker take it on and therefore you would take on another body instead: it's a case that deals with suicide. Nothing graphic is presented visually yet this is the first funeral where the brief dialogue from the NPCs gets rather heavy. This case is the most obvious one in which the game leaves you some heavy topics with which to think. There are more, however, such as LGBT rights of the deceased, environmental impact, and corporate monopolization of markets that used to be family-owned and friendly.

Luckily, you are not pat on the back for quickly placing the bone fragments above the crematory urn; for the game to do so would be inappropriate, because the causes of death are necessary to be mentioned. Yet the lack of a goal or motivation method leaves this game feeling more like a tool than a fun gaming experience. Yet I'm glad games like this exist.

Also, try looking into Caitlyn Doughty if you're interested in more death positivity resources.