"Don't worry. It happens to the best of us. This is Purgatory."
brutal orchestra (full name hieronymus bosch's brutal orchestra, common abbreviations include hbbo and borchestra) is a turn-based roguelike videogame made by itsthetalia (also known as Talia bob Mair) and nicolás delgado, published by hellbent games. the game can be bought both on steam and itch.io.
what's the gameplay like?
as mentioned before, brutal orchestra is a turn-based rpg. this means that enemies can’t attack at the same time as your party members do and vice versa (there are some exceptions to this, but for the sake of simplicity i will not go over them here).
during the player’s turn, each party member can, by default, attack only once. this forces the player to strategize their one and only attack, and to think whether they should use it to support their other party members or slaughter whatever is in front of them faster.
“but what does “drag unit to swap” mean?” great question. the battle arena is always divided into 5 tiles, both on the player’s and enemy’s side. a lot of party member's abilities in borchestra only deal damage to the opposing enemy, which means if the enemy were to be not in front of the party member, they would simply end up hitting nothing. of course, there are also abilities which deal damage to left and right enemies, which makes that attack unable to hit what's directly in front of them. some enemies also take up multiple grid spaces, which makes those aforementioned left and right abilities hit those enemies multiple times.
in most turn-based rpgs, you are unable to see what abilities enemies are going to do. brutal orchestra, however, instead shows you exactly what the enemies will do on their turn, through the timeline. the timeline helps remove the element of rng, praying to god that you picked the right set to defend an attack an enemy can use.
you are also able to click on any of the enemies to view all of their abilities, health, and passives. passives change how a certain party member/enemy behaves. for example, nowak's focus passive will grant him the status effect knows as "focused", which lets him deal either 2 additional damage or 50% more damage to enemies that have higher health than him.
perhaps the most interesting mechanic of brutal orchestra is pigment. pigment comes in 4 different colors - red, blue, yellow and purple. pigment is mostly used to perform party members' abilities, and can be generated through a number of ways.
perhaps the most common way to generate pigment is through hitting enemies or getting hit, as each party member and enemy has a health color. upon getting hit, that party member/enemy will produce pigment of their health color (with the exception of gray-colored health colors, those do not generate pigment at all.) party members generate only 1 pigment, while enemies generate 2. under normal circumstances, the pigment bar can hold up to 10 pigment, while any more will go into overflow. if there is any pigment in overflow, on turn end, each party member will take damage based on how much pigment was in overflow.
there are 2 for certain pigment to be generated. the yellow pigment generator generates 3 yellow pigment at the start of the player's turn. you are able to store these pigment in the pigment bar, otherwise, they will be discarded on turn end. blue pigment is able to be generated through lucky blue pigment. upon any party member performing an ability, there is a base 40% chance for 1 blue pigment to be generated. this chance automatically becomes 0% if the pigment bar is full.
you are also able to use wrong pigment on abilities, which will still let you do the ability, but making the party member take damage depending on how much wrong pigment was used (like overflow).
if all of this is too hard to remember, the game offers you a useful little glossary in the pause menu! some things (like the pigment bar or passives) can also be hovered on, to be given a quick explanation on how certain mechanics work.
what's the story about?
"you died. someone killed you. you are now in purgatory and you will never escape."
the game follows the story of nowak, who has just recently found himself in purgatory, a world where things from many other worlds come after they die. confused and lost, he encounters a "demon" who introduces himself as bosch (yes, like the painter!). bosch proposes nowak a deal - just like him, the man that killed him will arrive in purgatory, just as confused and lost as nowak is. if he cooperate with bosch, he ensures that he will help perform "exact brutal revenge the moment he arrives!".
as mentioned before, purgatory is just an amalgamation of different creatures and items from other worlds converged into one. its lands are "deeply incoherent", and a sane person would lose their mind trying to navigate it without any help. which is why most people tend to stay in the place they arrived in, explaining the far shore's popularity, also factoring in its fairly peaceful wildlife compared to other regions. some are not so lucky, however, and instead arrive in places such as the orpheum, where a constant rain covers the sky, made by a being known as the ungod. there exist people even unluckier than those in the orpheum, ending up in the garden (or, whatever its true name is, if it has one). the garden is like a personal hell to whoever enters it, warping to their fears, aspirations, the deepest parts of their minds.
there is far, far more lore than this in this game. however i do not want to dwell too much on this since i think reading it yourself is far more enjoyable! plus i just don't want to make this section too long
how did you find out about borchestra?
my first encounter with brutal orchestra was seeing it in the lisa subreddit (i don't check that place anymore it stinks), seeing how somebody posted about the game having a reference to lisa the pointless. i posted about it in an old discord server i used to be in, but not much happened after that.
a month or so later, my lovely husband (best friend) asked if he should buy brutal orchestra, by hosting a poll in a different server (according to him, he found out about it through the same way i did, the lisa subreddit). it didn't win the poll, however. perhaps most of my interest piqued when i found out more about this game through zingus. what got me interested the most in borchestra was their video about brutal orchestra.
...what is funny is how exactly i found out about zingus himself. because i'm pretty sure i found him by trying to search something through google lens. memory is very hazy, so i for the love of god can't remember what it was. from there, i started scrolling through his twitter profile, and along the way got interested in brutal orchestra. that interest didn't last long, though.
i finally bought the game in october, after 2 of my other friends decided to buy it as well. it helped me through the boredom i had to endure during the power outtages my country had to go through almost daily. although i don't actually play the game that much anymore (i promise i'll pick it back up... one day...), i still very much enjoy seeing content of it! perhaps it's because this game's community is very small, so any fanart of it is like finding a treasure at the bottom of the ocean.
who's your favorite charac-
it's anton. it's anton and that's not even a contest. i'm sorry to everyone i dissapointed by liking him but he makes me feel insane. every time i draw him i need to tell myself that i am a normal person. i am not. that is a lie. i am very much not normal and this is proof.
i have a folder titled antoncore where i just save images that i think fit him in one way or another.
do you see this shit. i literally almost never do this to anyone else. what kind of black magic is this that he has cast on me.
anyway on another note i guess i also like thype and bimini a lot. hans and kleiver are also somewhere up there. not as much as anton though. sorry.
any postfaces?
brutal orchestra is a very, very special game to me. i like to believe it has influenced my writing in a number of ways. it has many, many things that i like about it. such as the insane crossover potential with the whole "purgatory is just composed of things from different worlds", to the incredible niche thing of characters having their own color-coded text. yes i am well aware it's not something about normal people obsess over but i'm not normal. it is a game i will forever blab on about to my friends and other strangers.
below is a drawing of me and my friends dressed up as brutal orchestra characters because i didn't know what to put here
...hey, speaking of art! unlike some other interests of mine, i have drawn many, and i mean many drawings for brutal orchestra. heavily influenced by the fact i'm in a server with fans of the game. below are some of my hand-picked favorites. if you want to see them in full quality just press "open image in new tab" or whatever your equivalent of that action is
of course, i also have to mention the modding community of this game. generally, i really like mods made for games, as they're usually made with pure love and admiration for that game, so much that it inspires others to try and add their bits of love into it. brutal orchestra's mods are also generally made with that exact love in mind, and although i do not play the mods myself (i just suck at the game okay.........) i really enjoy browsing the wiki to see what kind of characters others have thought up of. i definitely recommend checking some of the mods out over at the itch.io tag after you've completed everything in the main game.
and to end this off... hi talia server! hiiiii!!!!! i know you will be seeing this eventually so i just want to say you're basically the reason i got rid of my fear of talking to people i'm not familiar with. for the most part, at least. i am so grateful to have met you all you are so very silly! affectionate. you in particular clueless you perhaps are the silliest of them all.... anyway i! don't know how else to describe my admiration for you all so! mwah.
