A story with some depth and intrigue right off the bat. Its characters, visuals and message are all so well-crafted that I couldn’t help but play it all in one sitting. A shorter experience, the game doesn’t overstay its welcome, though some of the gameplay choices are a bit strange.

You play as James and Curly. The pilot and copilot of a delivery ship. You’re transporting an unknown cargo to its destination and the trip is supposed to take a little over a year. Your crew also consists of a nurse (Anya) and a maintenance guy (Swansea) and his protégé (Daisuke). Suddenly the ship crashes into an asteroid and you’re all stranded in space. Being a small group with limited resources, tensions run high. The story follows this group as they explore their struggles. It’s told nonlinearly, which serves to confuse the player, but by paying attention, you can piece together what’s going on for the most part. It’s so purposeful in its design in most ways, other than a few sequences.

This is a minor spoiler, but there’s a part where you’re chased by an unseen force. It’s blind, so it’ll only catch you if you’re moving when it’s near. It’s a tedious segment of starting and stopping and the frequency with which I had to not move was way too high. There’s another segment similar to this, but with a visible entity and it’s way less drawn out. Otherwise you’re chopping away sealant foam, making food or giving a crewmate their pills. Gameplay wise there’s not a lot to it, but it leaves a lot of room to ruminate on the dialogue.

Characters are the focus of this game. Anya is a nervous nurse, for more than one reason, and some people get fed up with her inability to do her job. Swansea is a man hardened by years of the job and comes off as brash most times. Daisuke, his trainee, is a young man spoiled by his family that wants to decide what he wants to do of his own accord. Curly and Jimmy are friends that always help each other out, but their relationship seems to have some skeletons in the closet. It’s a group of people that have a job to do, and when they lose that, they lose a bit of their purpose. The way this is told really spoke to me and I won’t go into much detail as this game is an experience best had without much context.

While this review is short, it’s purposeful, much like the game. It’s something best experienced without any prior information and I hope my words inspire you to give it a shot yourself. It’s not super scary, but rather unnerving in some of its visuals. The subject matter is pretty dark, but I promise you’ll come away with more than just the heebie-jeebies. It’s a story about humanity, told through a small group of people stuck in a dire situation. The nonlinearity of their pasts coming to light will pull you from one sequence to another in a way that had me all-in. It’s smart and inspiring in a way that made me sit there and just think for a little while after playing. Mouthwashing is a true piece of art, and you’d be remiss to not engage with it.