Whoa… What did I just play?
Isolomus on Nintendo Switch is, well, whoa…
Hmm…
Yeah, I don’t know.
Okay, first off, I guess I should start by saying that you should probably play Isolomus. Maybe.
Before you do that, though, you need to understand a couple things. First, the game is pretty out there, so if you don’t like stuff that’s weird as heck, you might not like this. Another thing to note is that it’s easier to enjoy what this project is if you look at it less as a video game and more as an interactive horror short.
If you’re still here, cool. I’ll be glad to tell you a little bit about Isolomus from Michael Rfdshir and Sometimes You. I have to emphasize, though, that I’m really only going to tell you a little bit because this is an interactive experience that’s best enjoyed with as little knowledge about it going in as possible.
Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that I understand your money is valuable to you, so I don’t want to recommend something that you may not like and then feel guilt over it for the rest of my life. Actually, Isolomus is only $2 (and even less than that on Steam), so if you buy it and end up hating it, it’s not like you broke the bank, right?
So what is Isolomus?
To put it plainly, Isolomus is a hyper-bizarre claycore horror experience. Okay, so maybe that doesn’t explain a whole lot — but then again, neither does the game. What you get with this title is, in essence, a weird mix of very light puzzle-solving and point-and-click adventure game mechanics. Isolomus utilizes the Switch’s touchscreen entirely and requires you to tap different items, drag and drop potatoes and bread, and just… poke things to see what happens.
Everything in this dark and dreary claymation world is squishy and semi-gross. I never got the feeling that it was a commentary on any deeper subject in particular, but I always felt a bit uneasy while playing Isolomus. And maybe that’s the point of it? As a big fan of horror movies, I love the schlocky nature of Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive, the silliness of Friday the 13th Part VI, and the badassery of Green Room. But I also love how movies like Saw 2, The Devil’s Rejects, and The Green Inferno made me feel uncomfortable.
Feeling uncomfortable, uneasy, and just kind of off — that’s horror. That’s real horror. That’s Isolomus. Even when I didn’t know what the heck was happening, the dark visuals, ugly characters, goopy items, and creepy music were super unsettling. And above all else, the not knowing was even more unsettling.
There were two moments that really stayed with me after playing Isolomus. The first had me move this claymation character down a row of teeth. When it got to the edge, a toothbrush spawned onscreen. I dragged the toothbrush to the character and witnessed in wide-eyed terror as it was smashed up into the teeth.
The other moment was much quicker and consisted of a clay hand grabbing a clay face and clawing into it, deforming it into a now faceless, misshapen lump of clay.
You can do the tasks in Isolomus in any order you want. At just 15 minutes, the game is fairly short, which is fine because I can’t imagine spending more time in this nightmare clay world. Of course, I’m eager to revisit the game, but I also want everyone I know to play it. At some point, I’ll likely let friends and family grab hold of my Switch Lite and jump into the twisted claycore horror world of Isolomus. I want to be there when they play, and I hope they feel as disturbed as I did after playing.
So, yeah, what is Isolomus? I would say Isolomus is a playable claymation horror art film that’s filled with nightmarish imagery and horrifying sounds. If you like weird stuff, or just enjoy good, odd horror, you might like this. At the very least, I think it’ll definitely leave a lasting impression.
