The Many Sins of House Ocampo exposed

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Century-spanning mystery deduction adventure in Argentina coming to Windows and Linux on Steam

Ever wonder what decades- or even centuries-old skeletons are lurking in your family's closet? We probably all have some that would be awfully uncomfortable if they spilled out. Certainly the Ocampo family does, as we'll discover for ourselves in the second game from indie German developer Dead Idle Games, The Many Sins of House Ocampo.

It's 1977, Buenos Aires, when a young woman named Lucía receives a mysterious letter that "puts into question everything that [she] thought she knew about herself and her family." It seems that Lucía is really "the last living descendant of the Ocampos, an Argentinian settler family rumoured to be beset by a terrible curse." Eager to know more, she begins rummaging through a "trove of documents, letters, cassette tapes, films and diaries" that shine light on "almost a century of lies, betrayal and death." 

Lucía soon discovers that "the bloody roots of the Ocampo family tree run deep and dark," including a "a hunter, obsessed with ensnaring the ultimate prey; a mother, consumed by guilt; an archaeologist, blinded by ambition; [and] a poet, driven to the depths of madness and despair," among many others dating all the way back to Northern Patagonia, 1880, where Salvador Ocampo arrived on "Mapuche territory with a group of settlers" and twenty years later disappeared forever without a trace. For Lucía, each new revelation lets her piece together the details of her ancestors' tragic fates in the hopes of determining whether she is "doomed to suffer the same end as them." For players, each glimpse into the past is a playable opportunity to witness these events first-hand. 

Presented via stylish pixel art in "glorious 320x180 resolution" with a soundtrack that "oscillates between Argentinian folk, dark ambient, and classical piano," The Many Sins of House Ocampo is a retro-styled point-and-click that promises to explore "dark and mature themes." Described as a "mystery adventure with deduction mechanics," the game is essentially split into two distinct elements. The mystery-solving portion happens in 1977 as Lucía gathers clues and makes connections on her deduction board to "reconstruct the Ocampo family tree." The stories she's uncovering aren't mere abstractions, however, but rather playable vignettes of the last moments of each key figure, triggered whenever Lucía discovers evidence of their deaths. Each will reveal new information of importance, and most will present a central puzzle or minigame before returning players to the present. Of course, the real puzzle to be solved is the grander mystery of how they all fit together and what it means for Lucía herself. 

It's too early for a target release date just yet, but The Many Sins of House Ocampo is ready for wishlisting on Steam, where it will launch for Windows and Linux. In the meantime, be sure to check out the developer's previous game, the FREE horror-tinged, narrative-driven thriller aboard a 1920s train called If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers, available on Steam and itch.io.