The idea of a rural gothic horror mystery is interesting, and Runt definitely delivers horror. Few games in the genre capture horror at this kind of level, from paranormal threats to abusive family mechanics and oppressive rulership in society. It might seem like a home run; however, there are quite a few catches…
When starting up Runt for the first time, it was difficult not to dismiss it as a poorly made visual novel. The first 20-30 minutes have more incorrect sentences than correct ones, and the language is simple, brutal, and relies on a very thin vocabulary. The story also comes off as one-tracked to an almost silly point.
Runt starts out with meeting the Strayer family, composed of the five sons of the cult leader known as The Mouth of God. This has obviously rubbed off on the sons, who each seem to be heavily into Christo-fascist ideology, except for maybe, depending on the player’s choices, the youngest son, Runt. The person most strongly capturing this is the oldest son, Hunter, who, through abuse and the shadow of his father’s influence, became the dictator of the small rural village. Nowhere is this abusive nature shown more clearly than through the family dynamics, which are full of crude remarks, insults, and nonstop physical abuse.
It is very easy at this point to dismiss Runt as a game that indulges in violence and suggests this family is messed up. However, after the long and painful introduction, these concerns quickly disappear. When talking to other villagers, it becomes clear that the bad language was a stylistic choice to show the Strayers’ low education level, and the rural village is quite nuanced and full of very different individuals, just like actual rural villages.
As the days pass by, the nuance is shown more and more, and the game tries its hardest to show the struggles of everyone in the village under the iron fist of Hunter. However, there is one aspect where Runt fails so badly that it raises the question of whether it should have attempted it at all.
It tries way too hard to paint the other brothers of Runt as sympathetic individuals. This rings so untrue when most of them are constantly displayed as complete sociopaths. It is difficult to care about people who strongly go out of their way to mentally and physically abuse everyone in their surroundings, including family. Halfway through the story, this reviewer actively tried to pick the choices that would most likely get as many of Runt’s brothers killed as possible to make the village just a slightly better place, but to no avail.
Despite this, it is difficult not to love the world building and characterisation in Runt. Although it is a mystery game, the mystery has barely been mentioned in this review because it feels like it plays second fiddle to the other conflicts in the small village.
To sum up the mystery and main plot of the game: on the anniversary of the boys’ father’s death, his church is desecrated by a very gory and vile message saying ”5 Days”, and the main plot is to find out who did it, why they did it, how they did it, and what will happen on the fifth day.
However, it is very difficult to care about this task despite Hunter constantly abusing the player character to make them solve the mystery. Quite frankly, it is a large ask to expect anyone to care about whatever happens to the Strayers. It is far more interesting to learn about the rest of the villagers and help them out, which is honestly a quite amazing sign of a well-written visual novel.
While the visual novel part of Runt is interesting and carries more thematic depth than it at first appears to, there are sadly a bunch of bad design choices that pull the game down.
The biggest one is minigames/puzzles that appear throughout the playthrough. While this is normally not an issue in visual novels, here they become one because a lot of them are just straight-up poorly designed. The most heinous example is the sewing minigame. At first it feels okay, but when it comes to cutting the thread, it seems almost random where the player is supposed to click. Instead of clicking on the shaking thread to cut it, the player is supposed to click on the final stitch to cut the thread. Even knowing that, the actual area is so small that it is impossible to figure out exactly where to press. This becomes especially damning, given that the player has to play through the game multiple times to figure out the mystery.
It is a shame, as it would be a pleasure to learn more about the world, the residents, and the actual solution to the mystery. However, when doing so would mean playing a lot of repetitive and, in some cases, straight-up horrible minigames, it is an easy pass. To add insult to injury, Runt also lacks one of the most basic features of a visual novel: an auto feature that progresses the text after a short while for ease of reading. One of the few visual novels where trying to go for multiple endings does not feel worth the hassle.
