Funeralopolis: Last Days – A Fitting End to 2024
Written by Ceridwen Millington
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This 2024 release might appear to be just another part of the tremendous wave of free and low-cost horror games. Indeed, leading indie game platform Itch.io has become stacked to the brim with similarly looking titles, short horrors underpinned by an attempt to leave the player with existential dread. Funeralopolis: Last Days eschews the common cat-and-mouse trope for a similar trope of moody exploration, yet it feels very different to what’s out there at the moment. It’s one of the rare games that tackles Covid, for one, yet it’s also a commentary on what else threatens humanity today – and the choices that have always faced people. It’s even a charming and involving look at apartment block living. In other words, it’s a totally unique mix of ideas, and one of the most impactful experiences, old or new, to be found in this entire year.
It follows the unnamed overseer of a tower block in Huta-Grobno, an enormous fictional Polish megacity that is home to some sort of mysterious illness. Whether it’s a plague, an entity, or some sort of excuse for a state-led purge is not quite clear at the start. The overseer, hoping to find the truth, has dedicated his time to reading papers and tuning into secret radio broadcasts. The game, then, is a slow burn as he listens to the radio, gets piecemeal information from his tenants, and faces the slow encroachment into his life of this mystery threat. Such a story could be a whole novel, but the developer tightens this tale to a couple of hours and one floor of a building.
Fans of narrative-focused horrors will notice a resemblance to Observer, another Polish title that brings vividly to life a grim set of homes. In both there’s a sense of apartment blocks being in a shifting space between comforting and creepy. On the one hand they play host to whole communities, yet no one interacts. And they’re a refuge from authority, yet also a poverty trap created by the powerful. Observer, of course, sets exploration and mood within a wider mystery and some stealth mechanics, making for a stimulating journey – yet one that’s less singular.
Most people on the planet, thanks to Covid, will recognize what it feels like to be trapped at home whilst there’s an unpredictable external horror. The game vividly realises the tensions that come to light from such a cataclysmic event. Its mechanics are focused on routine with slight variations, and the increasing threat still doesn’t change the daily pattern of radio programs, conversation, and looking at the same set of walls. Even as the horror ramps up there’s an odd sense of comfort amidst the unease. Aesthetically the apartment block is pleasantly worn-in, and the short chats with its small rotation of residents are strangely compelling. Disaster is a trauma for so many individuals, yet in Covid there still were plenty of people who found some respite from the world’s machinations.
Homes are, naturally, a centerpiece of terror, given they’re places that are meant to be safe. So many horrors prey on our primal fears of what might lie in the dark, or of a sudden invasion by some malevolent force. This title, however, takes a different approach as it preys on our trust. People trust and hope that there will continue to be the security of shelter no matter what’s happening in the world. But this shines a light on how external forces – whether debt, pandemics, climate change, or any number of things – can transform people’s lives no matter how tightly they stick with routine.
Technical elements do warrant a deeper look, given that they are so integral to the game’s experience. It doesn’t need powerful hardware to run, having been played on an i3 with integrated graphics yet remaining gorgeous to look at. Art design is key here, and this is a world on a human scale: odds and ends on shelves, grubby walls, and characters with distinct, unvarnished looks. The mechanics can be a little clunky at times, particularly in how the game sometimes requires actions to be performed in a certain order. However, it feels like a trifling obligation to talk about the minor downsides, given the widespread artistic success that is Funeralopolis: Last Days.
One of the most surprising things that the game does is make you want to return to its world. It’s not a glamorous world, or filled with characters that have complex backstories that make them exceptional. Yet the routine of the game makes listening to the radio or paying attention to a neighbour’s rumours enjoyable. I live in a tower block myself and felt some welcome level of romance to my existence when playing this. It made me appreciate the inevitable quirks of residing in a city, the charm of getting to find a place in the world, no matter how small. It also made me appreciate the quirks of people as individuals, and the joy of recognising idiosyncrasy. But there’s a real-life horror, too, in the realisation that the game’s sense of community, however fractured, feels far less present in today’s real world.
Funeralopolis: Last Days seems like it might be something of a Rorschach test. My first playthrough left me with the impression that it warns of a fate that we need to resist. My second playthrough, encountering a different path, left me with the impression that we’re doomed whatever we choose – and that the only thing that matters is the passage we take to our fate. These are heady ideas suggested by the game, and which place it next to great art about society and its purpose, like that of filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski. There’s a particular relevance to playing it in the troubled times we find ourselves in, and at the tail end of a year that provides plenty to reflect on. But thanks to its interactive, unique, bizarre – and bizarrely homely – little corner of the world, I’ll no doubt return to mull over its multitude of meanings again over the years.