In Sound Mind Review Summary

Engaging puzzles and a wonderful story with a great soundtrack are let down by repetitive combat, poor optimization, and weak horror.

Engaging puzzles requiring thinking: Puzzles are described as interesting, enjoyable, fantastic, and wonderful. They require thinking but are not too hard, providing a satisfying challenge.

Great overall soundtrack: Beyond the Living Tombstone, the game's soundtrack is universally praised as fantastic, cool, amazing, and the greatest. It blends well with the theme and is considered insanely good, with vinyls being a nice touch.

Wonderfully told story: The story is superb, well-told, beautiful, and amazing. It is drip-fed in a way that keeps players engaged, with great storytelling.

Excellent horror atmosphere: The atmosphere is genuinely scary, eerie, spooky, and creepy in the right measures. It creates an excellent horror experience with genuinely scary moments.

Well-balanced puzzle difficulty: Puzzles are not too difficult or too easy; they are fun, intuitive, and solvable. The balance is well-maintained, making them enjoyable without frustration.

Repetitive and shallow combat: Combat is described as lackluster, repetitive, and lacking depth, with poor hit feedback and scarce enemy variety. Players find the combat system uninteresting and stiff.

Poor optimization and performance: Frequent frame rate drops, especially during combat and action sequences, make the game feel unoptimized. Some players report drops from 120 to 30-60 FPS, which can hinder gameplay and aiming.

Weak horror elements: Players consistently report that the game is not scary enough, relying only on occasional jump scares rather than sustained horror. Many expected a more frightening experience and were disappointed.

Low enemy variety: The game features very few enemy types (only 2-4), making combat feel repetitive and encounters predictable. Players note a lack of diversity in enemy design and behavior.

Frustrating ending: The ending is described as frustrating, hasty, and anti-climactic. The story fails to come together, leaving many players dissatisfied.

Puzzle-oriented psychological horror: The game is primarily a psychological horror experience heavily focused on puzzle-solving, with elements of exploration, combat, and a deep story. It blends survival horror mechanics with puzzles and a lighthearted yet unsettling tone.

Pill-based upgrade system: The game has an upgrade system using collectible pills to increase stats like Stamina, HP, and Speed, allowing players to customize their survival capabilities.

First-person shooter elements: The game incorporates first-person shooting with pistols and shotguns, blending survival horror combat with exploration and puzzle solving. It is often described as a first-person survival horror with shooter elements.

Exploration and puzzle gameplay: The core gameplay loop involves exploring environments and solving puzzles, with additional elements like enemies and light combat. It is considered a puzzle-platformer or adventure with strong exploration focus.

Story-driven narrative focus: The game is heavily story-driven with a character-driven narrative, told through collectible notes, cassette tapes, and deep lore. Players uncover the story through exploration and collectibles.

Poor optimization and general performance: Many reviews highlight terrible or absent optimization, with vague but repeated complaints about low FPS and instability. This indicates a widespread problem affecting various system configurations.

Extreme stuttering on high-end hardware: Multiple users with high-end GPUs like RTX 5080, RTX 5070, 9070 XT, and RTX 3080 report consistent stuttering and frame drops. This suggests a core optimization issue rather than hardware inadequacy.

Low FPS on modern systems: Users with modern, capable machines still experience low frame rates. This suggests the game is poorly optimized for current hardware standards.

Crashes and freezes: Multiple users mention constant freezes, crashes, and micro-freezes, sometimes triggered by specific effects or areas. This disrupts gameplay and indicates stability bugs.

Frame drops during combat and action: Several reports note that performance degrades significantly during combat, with FPS dropping to 30-40. This hampers gameplay experience in crucial moments.

Strongly recommended overall: Many players give a strong overall recommendation, calling the game highly recommended, worth buying, and a must-play experience.

Great for horror fans: The game is highly recommended for fans of psychological horror, survival horror, and atmospheric horror titles like Resident Evil, SOMA, and Amnesia.

Recommended on sale: Several players recommend waiting for a sale or buying at a discounted price to get good value.

Worth experiencing: The game is described as worth playing and finishing even with flaws, and an experience worth having.

Unique horror experience: Players recommend this game to those tired of cliche horror games or looking for something unusual with psychological depth and narrative focus.

Community fair range: $20.00 - $30.00.

Game completion: 15.0h.

Story completion: 10.0h.

Session length: 2.5h.

The game initially feels sluggish and tedious for many players, but becomes more engaging after the tutorial and first area when mechanics and story open up; however, combat repetitiveness and limited enemy variety can cause fun to fade after several hours.

Friction: repetitive combat with limited enemy variety; tedious combat sequences; slow start or sloggish pacing; poor inventory system; enemy types become boring.

Unlock drivers: progression system that introduces new mechanics gradually; interesting story and psychological themes; varied puzzles and environmental challenges; atmospheric and immersive design.

Narrative-Seeking Story Enthusiast: Focuses on story progression, explores dialogue and backstories, plays at a relaxed pace to absorb narrative. Motivation: Emotional storytelling, character depth, and psychological themes. Stance: buy.

Survival Horror Completionist: Systematic exploration, revisiting stages for missables, using guides for 100%, adjusting difficulty for challenge. Motivation: Achievement completion, collectible hunting, and mastering game mechanics. Stance: sale.

Casual Horror Explorer: Explores environments, solves puzzles, appreciates story and music, not seeking high difficulty or terror. Motivation: Atmospheric puzzles and moderate horror without intense scares. Stance: buy.

The game performs best on Windows systems with 8-11GB VRAM, where players report smooth gameplay with minor frame drops. Systems with less than 8GB VRAM still manage playable performance on low settings but with occasional stuttering. Higher VRAM systems (12-15GB) suffer from severe stuttering and control issues, making the game unplayable for that user.

Windows <8GB VRAM: positive. Most players report playable performance on low settings, though some experience significant stuttering.

Windows 12-15GB VRAM: negative. Severe stuttering and control issues reported, making the game unplayable for this user.

Windows 8-11GB VRAM: positive. Generally smooth performance with some frame drops, no crashes reported.

External guides: The primary barrier for users is the need for a walkthrough to locate all hidden collectibles (pills), with additional minor issues regarding unclear progression. The game's overall design is praised for natural navigation, but collectible hunting creates a significant external data dependency.

Cat Tony is best: A review praises Cat Tony as the best character in the game, highlighting positive player sentiment toward this specific character.

Developer The Living Tombstone noted: A review references the developer The Living Tombstone, indicating recognition of the developer's involvement in the game.