The Kindeman Remedy Review: A Rough Cut (PS5)

Many management sims out there usually go off the similar themes of building something from the ground up. Some go beyond their themes with an interesting gimmick, The Kindeman Remedy‘s is murder but for science. Developed by Troglobyte Games, The Kindeman Remedy is a twisted dark tale disguised as a management sim. I was intrigued by their sinister sim since I’ve played a similar game called Ravenous Devils. Both games share similar themes and gameplay and I’m always a fan of dark themes. I would advise that this game isn’t intended for young audiences so stream appropriately. 

The Kindeman Remedy is available for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, and Xbox Series X/S for $7.99.

Story – Mad Science 

The general plot of The Kindeman Remedy focuses on the sinister medical dealings of Dr Kindeman. Shunned by the medical community and exiled to a secluded prison, he continues his research to create a remedy for pain. He is joined by Sister Anna, a religious zealot who helps the doctor with preparing his experiments. They are both playable and perform different tasks during the day and night levels. 

The overall story has a few twists and turns, introducing other characters that either affect the story or can be used in gameplay. Outside of gameplay, there are small distractions given to you by characters. You’ll be performing illegal surgery for the warden or faking the death of an inmate for a mysterious client. However, these distractions aren’t quite clear when they occur in the story. For example, I was told to fake a specific inmate’s death who was scheduled for execution. However, you never do anything that corresponds with the request in-game. It’s all in cutscenes and they’re not clear if you’ve completed them or not. This was the case with every request that appeared in cutscenes. 

Meet characters like The Warden that will force you to perform other duties outside your research

Compared with Ravenous Devils, the story had a simple premise and side objectives that corresponded with the themes of the game. They also were determined by the player and not the story, unlike how The Kindeman Remedy chose to let the characters perform the activities and not the player. It also felt at times that the game kept fighting on what tone the story would take. A lot of times we’d get a comedic satirical dialogue from characters. Then suddenly the tone shifts into a serious thriller which wasn’t too distracting but it does show that The Kindeman Remedy hadn’t quite figured out what kind of story they wanted to tell. 

Characters – Only the Corrupt Roam Here

Regarding the main duo, both Dr Kindeman and Sister Anna are great. They entertained me throughout and their relationship throughout the story really grew on me. Dr Kindeman was a fun Hannibal Lecter-like character with a sick sense of humour. Sister Anna was interesting and had a layer of mystery behind her. Sadly she was sidelined in the story since it was primarily focused on Dr Kindeman. I would’ve liked to discover more about her and how she was convinced to assist Dr Kindeman. 

Other characters that are sprinkled throughout the story aren’t as interesting. Most don’t make a big impact on the story and are merely just a tool for the game. There were some standout characters like The Warden, Dr Black, and Ronnie. The Warden and Dr Black act as antagonists, The Warden being a very corrupt individual. Dr Black was the cause of Dr Kindeman’s exile from the medical community. From his first appearance, he made his motives known and by the end, the final confrontation was very satisfying. Ronnie was the most talkative, being the guard who helped set up the executions in the prison. He would give us tasks to do but again they were only accomplished through cutscenes. 

Gameplay – Repetitive Management

The main gameplay loop is part Tycoon Clicker and Murder Simulator. Each day has two stages, the first taking place in the daytime when you cater to prisoner needs. Then at night you deal with dead patients and begin experimenting on live ones that you’ve kidnapped. You play as both Dr Kindeman and Sister Anna simultaneously to provide prisoners with medicine while poisoning a few to further your experiments. You’ll also be faking executions and taking them to your secret room to commit horrendous acts of violence in the name of progress. 

From the start, I found the gameplay simple though repetitive, after some levels with little change to the game loop. I’m usually fond of management sims like this but there’s no challenge in any part of the core gameplay. In fact, I never saw anything that hinted you’d get a game over in the story mode if something wasn’t completed. If I wasn’t invested in seeing what would happen with the main protagonists, I’m honestly not sure I would have kept going. This is a real shame since the endless mode requires you to finish the story to unlock. In which the true game experience resides. 

Make medicine as Dr Kindeman and choose to poison them as Sister Anna

Endless Experimentation (Murder)

The gameplay for endless mode is the same but now it’s challenging. For starters, you have objectives that must be completed every four days or it’ll result in a game over. Alongside this challenge, Dr Black will appear in areas to see if you’re up to mischief. If he spots you poisoning people or entering/exiting your secret room, it’s an automatic game over. Even though it’s missing its story components, the added challenge and the possibility of failing is great and I’m puzzled why it wasn’t included in the story mode. 

Regarding the darker aspects of the game, the experiments of Dr Kindeman are gory. The unfortunate souls that wake up in the secret torture chamber will not be dying quickly….or painlessly. You’ll have a choice of many methods of torture that will assist in developing Dr Kindeman’s research. Once you select one, you’ll play a quick time minigame until you fill the meter. Afterwards, you’ll dispose of the body by throwing it off a cliff. The animations are quite gory as you inflict pain with numerous devices on different parts of the body. I would have liked to have had different minigames for each device but then I’d liked a lot of additional gameplay components. 

Throughout the game, the protagonists commit horrendous acts on the inmates including this poor soul

Graphics & Audio – The Sound of Progress

The game’s appearance isn’t something special but it’s not a bad thing. The look of the prison’s infirmary is exactly what I’d think one would look like. A prison environment is already a location I’m always fond of seeing in games, even if it’s only a part of it. The main area that’s definitely a sight is Dr Kindeman’s secret torture room. It has many instruments of torture, blood and guts scattered around, plus the main attraction, a living experiment of a man who is missing his arms, legs, and stomach. I’d also like to give credit to the graphic novel-like opening and closing cutscenes that appear. I usually despise seeing comic still cutscens in games but it suited The Kindeman Remedy. I would have preferred them over the in-engine cutscenes which didn’t look as good. 

It’s truly a nightmare factory that also holds the best audio in the game. It’s mainly the screams of your tortured test subjects but you can really hear the different parts of their body being hurt. Alongside their screams, you can turn on a gramophone that helps immerse you in being the sick-in-the-head serial killer that Dr Kindeman denies being. The voice acting in the opening and closing cutscenes are good but I would’ve liked to have heard them throughout the game. They do say some short lines of dialogue during gameplay but they’re repeated too often and become a nuisance very quickly. 

The Kindeman Remedy was reviewed on PS5 thanks to stridepr.com.