GAME REVIEW - WITHERING ROOMS: A Dark Souls-Shaped Rabbit Hole

Image: Moonless Formless

Released in April, Withering Rooms is an intriguing and ambitious side-scrolling Souls-like from the new developer Moonless Formless.

You play as Nightingale Williams, a young patient in the Victorian asylum, Mostyn House. Trapped in a perpetual dream world version of the asylum, you must navigate around the various denizens of undead, witches and fellow dreamers. Encountering quirky characters to negotiate with and the aesthetic of a Victorian gothic dreamland, Withering Rooms feels darkly representative of Alice in Wonderland. Which the creators must have intended since one of the armour sets is called an ‘Alice Dress’ (which is a blue dress with a white apron).

Image: Moonless Formless

After a standard supposed-to-lose intro, you wake in a bedroom, still in the mansion. A witch explains the dream world you are trapped in. As per the Souls-like style, every time you die the patrolling undead are reanimated, but on top of that the rooms on each floor are randomly re-arranged. Furthermore, you will also lose all of your items, save those marked as ‘permanent’. From there you must untangle the mansion’s mysteries and escape the surreal prison.

The characters you meet and their gradually unfolding stories are intriguing and reasonably well-written. It is all through text boxes, as they may not have had the budget for the voice actors, but each character’s conversational styles are distinct without being too exaggerated.

Image: Moonless Formless

There is a ‘rogue-lite’ element in the form of altars, which allow you to select items to be ‘permanent’ and thus be brought through to the next run. With the right crafting items to sacrifice the character gains an additional slot to ‘remember’ each time they unlock a new altar. These slots can be changed at any altar, allowing versatility with your play style during the game.

The combat has the Souls-like dodge-rolling and leap-back dodging, which works quite well once you get the timing down. A wide selection of weapons, armour, rings, and magic spells allows players to experiment and find a play style that suits them. Unfortunately, attacks can feel a little floaty and don’t have a strong sense of impact in either animation or sound design. The movement animation is awkward in a subtle, uncanny-valley way. Even the character’s connection with the floor seems a little inconsistent. It results in a faint weightlessness to how everyone moves and is made more apparent with the larger, lumbering monsters that are meant to have even heavier footsteps and strikes.

Image: Moonless Formless

There is a crafting system, which provides all of the magic for the game. The magic scrolls and potions mostly offer a range of protection and secondary effects to assist with combat (like traps and distractions). With the right combination and planning they can be extremely effective and quickly help you clear out entire floors.

Lastly, there is also a ‘Narrative Mode’, which significantly reduces the monster’s health and damage. This gives a great accessibility option, especially if you want to focus on the story more. I found it especially helpful so that I could practice the combat and get confident with it before restoring the difficulty.

Image: Moonless Formless

Overall this is a great indie survival horror with interesting visuals and monster design. The setting and writing are immersive and the mechanics are easy to get the hang of and it can be a lot of fun testing out different strategies. Though it could use a bit more polish in the animation and sound design, it isn’t bad enough to detract from the story or the tension as you peek through doors and hide under furniture hoping you aren’t found until you’re ready to pounce on the enemy.

Withering Rooms is available on Steam, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S

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