Welcome to Mondamone!
Six great houses gather for a lavish celebration in a sprawling manor. Old grudges surface, alliances shift, conversations linger a second too long. Imperfect Smile is the perfect weekend game, if you like to find yourself, knee deep in politics, and stress on who's gonna murder your uncle, Priprup. But if you understand the world of Mondamone well enough, you might be able to save him.
As a kind grandson: Gilbert, you took on the challenge to travel to the manor imminently, and take the threads of time into your hand and drive the story to calmer horizons! Although Gilbert can be sassy, he would never-ever say no to an over-humified Witch in the forest on a drenching mid night hour, which kicks off the mystery solving!
So what kind of game This is:
Imperfect Smile is a narrative-driven detective puzzle game where knowledge is the only real progression. There's a strong duality to the game, and each half comes with its own challenges: the Manor part, where you use observation, and deduction to solve the mysteries within this medieval set-piece, and the Carriage part, which funnels and fuels the detective-work through strategy, and Gilbert's good old love for gambling. You only have 8 hours to make everything right!
Your goal is simple to state and difficult to achieve:
prevent the murder before the night decides its outcome for you.
The Carriage: Where YOU take control!
Inside the cart, you have to accomplish the challenges of the All-Tree in order to continue the séance, which ultimately can save your uncle Priprup! Take part in a unique gameplay, where you will be rolling dice, gathering cards, and building strategies! Rolling dice creates patterns and patterns become cards. Cards unlock new dice, new spaces, new tools.... or collapse into nothing if you overreach!
Sometimes the rolls will provide directions to go, other times they won't provide you guidance. In rare cases, the All-Tree itself is choosing cards instead of you, which cards are of great power: to reward, or to punish. This very much spices up, the already very difficult systems, making each round unique!
You are not guided.
You are not protected.
You only have what you learn and what you roll.
And how much teeth you have left.
Do well, and you may gain access to new rooms, sharper insights, or entirely new ways of interpreting what you see.
And the challenges are also getting harder and harder as the hours go by. Not just in sheer volume, but also meaningfully, making things more difficult and even more restrictive than before! The same parchments may allow leeway for you in the beginning, with the order of the card placed or the type you have to gather, but closer to the end... let's just say, you have to be prepared.
What you accomplish in the carriage directly alters the Manor. So push your luck to reshape what is possible later.
The Manor: Where knowledge matters
A second gaze into the Eye of the Tree lets you drift through the Manor as an ephemeral witness to its future. So before Gilbert get to the destination, explore the secluded manor: steeped in ritual, violence, and generational secrets. Unravel the movements and intentions of its inhabitants and piece together the truth hiding behind polite political masks and the events that lead to the current conclusion.
The manor progresses through eight distinct hours. Its inhabitants repeat routines, maintain lies, and nurture private sins. Return at different times and piece together relationships to understand how affection curdles, motives align, and murd… friendships are made.
Solve abstract and environmental puzzles woven into the architecture of the manor: coded messages, symbolic mechanisms, and artifacts tied to an older and darker history. Where the threads lead is never obvious, but always deliberate.
The manor does not reward haste.
It rewards understanding.
And understanding in Mondamone, is dangerous.
For those who love: Key terms and features:
Nonlinear investigation
Explore the manor across shifting hours and reconstruct events based on what you notice and remember.Knowledge-driven progression
Information is the only real upgrade. What you know changes what is possible.Dual gameplay structure
Strategic, dice-driven decision-making in the Carriage directly reshapes exploration and discovery in the Manor.Systems that reward understanding
Dice patterns become cards, cards unlock new possibilities, and every risk permanently alters future options.Character routines and hidden motives
Track where people go, what they hide, and how their relationships shift over time.Journal system
Journal for tracking important information, speeches that you've uncovered, item locations, card history and many more.Atmospheric, dark worldbuilding
No jump scares*. Horror emerges from implication, cruelty, and the consequences of human choices.Multiple valid solutions
There is no single “correct” conclusion: only outcomes shaped by what you believe to be true.And a captivating story of power, guilt, and the cost of knowing too much, but doing too little.
