The Sexy Brutale
The Sexy Brutale is an adventure puzzle video game developed by Cavalier Game Studios and Tequila Works. The game was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in April 2017. A Nintendo Switch version was released in December 2017. A cloud-based version was released for Amazon Luna in October 2020.
Gameplay
The Sexy Brutale is an adventure puzzle video game. The player is tasked with exploring a mansion that is stuck in a time loop and saving its guests before they are killed off.Plot
Lafcadio Boone, a preacher, wakes up during the yearly party that Lucas Bondes hosts in his casino mansion. A mysterious woman, called the Bloody Girl, has given Boone a mask that has ripped him out of an ongoing time loop that the rest of the other party members are stuck in over a 12-hour period, reliving their deaths over and over again. She has also given Boone a broken watch, that when the timer reaches the hour of 5, the day resets. Boone's task is to save the other party goers from their gruesome deaths before they happen by learning different ways over the 12 hour period by discovering clues, recipes, or items. The first man he saves, Sixpence, takes the watch and fixes it so that the full 12 hours of the day become available. Boone then sets out to prevent the other deaths. Upon saving these other party goers, they remove their masks, talk to Boone to show they know him in some way. Boone then takes each mask, absorbing the powers they hold and giving him the means to save the other members and advance in the mansion.After several party-goers have been saved, The Gold Skull, a man in a golden skull mask seemingly content on letting the actions play out, reveals himself as the instigator of the time loop. He reveals that the deaths that Boone has been preventing over the course of the 12 hour time loop, were created by himself as a means to punish Bondes. It turns out that Lucas was not making enough money from the mansion due to the large upkeep costs it required. Because of this, Lucas turned to insurance scheme to raise the money so he could live a normal life with his pregnant wife, Eleanor. To do so, he devised a plan to use timed firebombs placed in the mansion's connected fire pits, where they would explode at 12 a.m. the day after the party, when all the guests would be safely outside. This would make it seem like the mansion was destroyed by fire, thus obtaining the insurance money. However, the bombs exploded at 12 pm on the day of the party, killing all the guests, including Lucas's wife. Golden Skull gives Lafcadio the chance to save Lucas, and he does so by cutting the wires of the last bomb that Lucas was handling in his study. It is the revealed that both Gold Skull, Lafcadio and even the staff are revealed to be aspects of Lucas Bondes at different stages of his life after the incident. Having been the only survivor of the tragedy at the mansion, after jumping out of a window to escape the fire, he was taken to the hospital and later imprisoned for his crimes, but even after 40 years, he has not stopped blaming himself for what happened. The player can choose to either relive their punishment, resulting in replaying the final scenes again, or for Lucas to forgive himself and move on, still remembering his friend, but living without that unnecessary pain, thus ending the game.
A secret ending can be acquired by collecting a deck of 52 cards scattered through the game and giving them to a demon at a hidden 'Old Habits' room of the casino. Doing so results in the casino going back to normal with the members alive. The player then approaches a decorated window and shatters it, bringing the party to a halt.
Development and release
The Sexy Brutale was developed collaboratively by UK-based studio Cavalier Game Studios and Spain-based studio Tequila Works. Cavalier Game Studios was founded in 2013 by several former members of video game developers Lionhead Studios and Mediatonic. They began work on The Sexy Brutale which was inspired by the film Groundhog Day and games such as Moon: Remix RPG Adventure, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, and Gregory Horror Show, which featured time loops. After working on the game for around 2 years, Cavalier enlisted Tequila Works to assist them on the game's art and graphics. Despite its title, The Sexy Brutale has no significant sexual content.The Sexy Brutale launched for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on 12 April 2017. The game was released for Nintendo Switch on 7 December 2017, and for Amazon Luna on 20 October 2020.