Martha Is Dead

After presenting us with its first game with the psychological horror experience “The Town of Light”, the Italian development team LKA returns to us with another psychological horror game entitled “Martha is Dead”, available now is available on PC, Xbox and PlayStation and generations past, and it’s time we share our review with you.

The Story of Martha is Dead

The story is set in World War II Italy and revolves around a family who loses their daughter “Martha,” who was found drowned in the lake near the house. You experience the events from the perspective of Martha’s twin sister “Julia”. “, who intermittently remembers some details of the incident while completely forgetting others. Which leads her to investigate the incident to find out the truth behind her sister’s death in a house full of tension and family problems stemming from this tragic incident that occurs amidst the developments in the war.

The Narrative and Gameplay

Unlike many games that focus primarily on story, Martha is Dead doesn’t start slowly, but quickly grabs your attention with lots of questions and events that quickly and continuously reveal the details of the story. The narration in the game is excellent and uses many methods to explain the events and hint at some of their details. We were surprised by the excellent interweaving of details, which makes it difficult for you to predict events and even makes you expect a certain outcome, only to surprise you with a different outcome in a story that simultaneously focuses on problems, family relationships and mental health. It is important to note that the game presents a number of violent and confusing scenes, but it is not a game that uses these scenes for the purpose of drawing attention. Not only do they make excellent use of it to highlight some concepts.

Visuals and Audio

On a visual level, the game’s graphics are excellent and we have reached a stage where independent developers can deliver games with beautiful graphics and accurate details, and Martha is Dead is proof of this. The game takes care of a lot of details in the environment, which looks very nice, but providing excellent graphics does not mean performance. Excellent too, since one of the game’s biggest problems is performance issues, as the frames suddenly and repeatedly drop out and the camera and character movement suffers from a kind of pause or freeze that becomes confusing as the hours go by. At the audio level, the game stands out for the depiction of scenes that accompany your discovery of some details with a series of exciting effects and melodies, as well as excellent quality depiction of violent scenes create a suspenseful atmosphere.

The events take place in the family home and in the small environment and the tasks that you will carry out will mainly revolve around taking photos with the camera, which has different tools and accessories that you can use depending on the time and the time can take a picture at the right location, paying attention to and focusing on details such as the proximity or distance to the object to be photographed. Choosing the appropriate angle and other details that go into the process of photographing evidence, followed by the process of developing the images and printing them in the darkroom, and the game simplifies this process while informing you of the details that are actually present in the real thing process take place.

Gameplay Experience and Conclusion

Although the game attempts to diversify the tools used in the photography process, it remains an iterative process. Most missions require you to search a specific location in the house or its surroundings, then develop the image and then search for the next clue that will allow you to find out the truth. One of the missions requires you to decrypt the encryption and send a message using Morse code, as well as provide instructions on how to use the code. Unfortunately, the development team didn’t provide any other similar puzzles that would have added more variety to the experience.

Most of the game’s missions are necessary to complete the story, with there being a number of side missions that do not clarify many details of the story, but despite their absence add more content, and some of them are interesting in their details of the Main story separate, but relate to the period in which the events take place.

We completed 80% of the game in 4.5 hours with most of the side quests completed, and fully completing the game will still require an additional hour or two to complete all quests. Martha is Dead suffers from repetition in the gameplay experience, like many similar games, and it also suffers from annoying performance issues, but it delivers. An exciting and innovative story in the narrative that you want to get out of these experiences at the end. The violence and scenes that the game depicts are not for the faint of heart and are not at all suitable for young people.