Exorcist Tipline

In this game, you are an exorcist, shunned by normal people. After a compelling intro, you enter a small town with a grid-like map and spend 49 days exploring the map, hearing about ghost cases and solving problems.

This is one of the last two games not to get ratings. Once I started it, it became crystal clear why that was so. Further play only strengthened my initial impression.

This is a fantastic game that seems deadset on making it very hard for the player to experience it. It has achingly slow text; double clicking can speed it up, but even when sped up, it was still deeply slow (I’d click 5-10 times per paragraph). In a short game, that can be a moderate annoyance, but this is one of the longest games in the competition.

You have 49 days to investigate different cases. Each day you have a possibility of receiving messages on your answering machine, telling you where to go on a map. You have the option to investigate a square, do divination at a square, go to the library, ward yourself, or rest.

Cases have timers; people can just die if you’re too slow. But cases also overlap, so you’ll get urgent messages each day. But, and I can’t stress this enough, picking the wrong option wastes an entire day with no way to undo or save. Compounding this is the fact that every few nights ghosts get closer and closer to your bed and will kill you if you don’t Ward yourself. So if you pick the wrong option on a case, you waste a day, someone may die in a case you didn’t pursue, you yourself have to ward again so that you don’t die, and a huge chunk of the game has passed.

Dying puts you back to a checkpoint. There was a strange coin button on my screen that I thought picked where my checkpoints were if I clicked on it, but I later realized it was a stray sprite left over from the divination.

All told, this makes this an very player-unfriendly game. I suspect that the time never played through the full game without using cheats of some kind; this kind of thing can usually be picked up on by people playing their own games repeatedly (if it’s not fun for you without cheats, it won’t be fun for players). And I’ve seen these kinds of design patterns before; there’s a fear that players will just skim your text and lawnmower your game, so one approach is to slow down text, remove saves, add harsh consequences, obscure choices (for instance, if you pick a wrong conversation path in the game, you can die or lose a case with no undo), etc. All of this makes it impossible to speed-read or lawnmower. But there are other ways to get engagement; the game already has multiple interesting goals and engaging puzzles. Just taking away the slow text and the night time deaths would make the game way more fun.

Behind all of these barriers mentioned above, the game itself is fantastic. Great hand-made art, really good writing with distinct characters and unique plotlines, and fun coin and map-based mechanics.

Getting to the end was excruciating. I’m not sure how many people will be willing to finish this game as-is. But if there were ever a new version that at least removed the slow text timer and added at least one more player friendly feature (like saves or a limited undo feature, or a guide or walkthrough, or taking away the random deaths), then I would be able to heartily recommend the excellent parts of this game.

Note: Don’t be turned off by my rating. I found it tough to rate because it feels like it should be higher, and yet, I needed to be realistic. I hope this review clarifies things.

The supernatural carries a stigma that leaves its victims scrabbling for support. But when it’s taboo to even discuss such matters, support is hard to find. That’s where you come in.

This is my calling. I investigate this kind of stuff. The dangers that play out just at the edge of society. The threats from things that… aren’t human.

You are a traveling exorcist who goes from city to city offering your services to those who contact you. Of course, this means you live with this stigma everywhere you go.

But being a professional, it’s all part of the job.

A submission to Ectocomp 2025 in the Le Grand Guignol category.

Gameplay
Exorcist Tipline makes a strong first impression with its fast-paced, suspenseful opening scene. It provides both a glimpse of the work the protagonist does and the stigma around anything supernatural. I was excited!

The main gameplay begins with the protagonist moving to a new city. The plan is to stay at a hotel for seven weeks. After that, it’s time to move on and the game ends. At the start of each day, the player checks their answering machine for any new cases. Next, they choose from a list of possible actions.

-Go to map location
-Research in the library
-Spend the day warding
-Prepare the coinboard for divination
-Go over notes

Aside from checking your notes, each action takes up one day. Being 48 days long, the gameplay will run on the longer side. During this time, seven cases will be made available.

Implementation
The implementation is the game’s fatal flaw.

When I say, “difficult to play,” I mean that it can feel borderline impossible to make any progress towards solving the cases. The problem is that the player has little way of knowing what to do after they first meet with a client. On top of this, the gameplay’s rigidness makes it difficult to experiment and fully appreciate the city setting.

The notes only list your active cases. Rarely are they updated with new information, leaving it up to the player to remember everything. Characters may drop snippets of info when you first meet them and that’s it. If you miss a key detail, your mistake. For example, (Spoiler - click to show)Randall only mentions his local church- which you can visit- once. The notes can’t even be accessed at the library while you’re doing research.

The biggest issue is how the player’s progress can go unrecognized. Consider (Spoiler - click to show)Randall again. His dead mom is supposedly sending people tapes of him doing awkward things. At one point, we receive one. I figured the practical thing to do would be to go talk to him about it. But when I did, the game acted like I had nothing relevant to share.

My main takeaway is this: If there was a hint guide to nudge the player in the right direction, it would be enough to help them navigate around the implementation issues and at least enjoy the story. Being able to save the game would be nice, though I was relieved to see that the game (Spoiler - click to show)sends you to a checkpoint if you die.

Story
I love the overall premise: an exorcist provides a discrete support system for those who are otherwise shunned, dismissed, or ignored. Rather than having a “main” story, Exorcist Tipline is more akin to a collection of stories that coexist at once. I’ll use this section to reflect on my experience with the cases.

The game makes it easy to care about the characters, especially when a client’s loved ones are involved. Exorcist Tipline is ultimately a game about helping people. But without any direction, it quickly becomes a game about letting everyone down.

Redbridges, population circa 800,000.

That said, I enjoyed the city setting and its subtle urban fantasy vibe.

Visuals
The visuals are a strength. Exorcist Tipline is made with both Ink and Godot. In the center of the screen is a black column with white text. Behind it is a backdrop that depicts the setting. An innovative feature is pop-up imagery used for maps and the divination board. To use the board, the player drags coin icons and flips them onto the board in search of meaning. This was a fantastic way of making the game more interactive.

I liked the character portraits. Disarming but not too cartoonish. Not every character has one, but I enjoyed the ones that were featured. Now, if you’re not careful, (Spoiler - click to show)the supernatural will come searching for you… at night. This is illustrated as a shadowy figure appearing on the screen, followed by a face. Not quite a jumpscare, but creepy enough to be unnerving.

Unfortunately, there is slow timed text. Inconvenient, but manageable. However, when a major event occurs, the text will sometimes speed through it before you have a chance to fully process it! That was worse.

Final thoughts
If it weren’t for the implementation, Exorcist Tipline would shine. I was impressed by its complexity. The parts I liked I really liked. But that’s not enough to fully make up for the implementation issues. I hope the author continues to develop this game. Or at least publish a hint guide. That would make a big difference for players.

If you enjoy supernatural investigation games or anything that combines mystery with the occult, such as Grimnoir, then Exorcist Tipline may interest you. Frustrating, yes, but there are components that make it highly likable. Otherwise, it may not be worth your time considering that it’s a longer game.