I used to play puzzle games a lot when I was younger. You know, the kind of easy-going, not-too-difficult games where all you had to do was swap different shapes around or click on matching groups to earn points. Jewel Quest, Bejeweled, Collapse—there was a simplicity in all of these that made them refreshingly addictive, even more so when they eventually ramped up in challenge.
Because of this, I was delighted to find myself addicted to something like Flesh Psychosis, a casual indie game developed and self-published by Milkshake Games. Though its demo originally debuted more than a year ago, it recently popped up in my feed during the Steam Next Fest, where game demos are thrown around like confetti and confectioneries. But what makes this casual little puzzle game so addicting, and how does it stand out against other games in the genre?
Playing Flesh Psychosis
Flesh Psychosis is, admittedly, a little barren when it comes to its story. But then again, even something that presented itself as grandiosely as Bejeweled did lacked a traditional narrative as well. Rather, you get the general gist of things within a few minutes. You are an assistant to a zombified mad scientist named Madline, whose pursuit of deliciously monstrous meals has led them to overcomplicate things tremendously. To craft these meals, you’ll have to assemble the right ingredients together within a set amount of time.
If only it were so easy. A giant, spacious tank makes up the main playing area, with ingredients falling from the sky and pooling together at the bottom. You’re given a total of 20 turns to drop glowing ingredients from above, blow up the piles of brains and bones at the bottom, collect the ensuing pieces, and craft one of two recipes for Madline at the end of each round. Successfully do this three times, and you beat a level. Whenever you run out of turns, the funnel at the bottom of the tank opens up, swallowing up whatever you didn’t manage to collect.
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Already, there are some interesting moving pieces here. You’ll have to take into account not just the ingredients you’re trying to collect but the way they interact with each other physically as they accumulate at the bottom of the tank. Physics plays a decent role in your strategy here, as does a handful of power-ups you can use to your advantage. Need to clear up an annoying row of things at the bottom of the tank? Blow them up with a laser. Need a specific ingredient instead of the one you have now? Swap it out with something else. Your only limit in using these is your own ability to collect ingredients, as the resources needed to use them are acquired through successful matches. Even something like your choice of meal to create gives you some more options, with either one often featuring a different set of ingredients to collect.
Visually, the game doesn’t take any liberties when it comes to flashiness. Every successful match is met with a boom of colorful bits of brain matter and aqua stars. There’s nary a dull or muted color here; everything pops out all the time. The scientist even starts to fall apart and decay with every successful dish you create, which is a nice touch. The thick outlines, the flashy colors, and the reuse of assets in multiple places all reminded me of the handful of games from GameHouse’s old library that I used to play all the time. I almost wonder if it was intentional.
Should You Play Flesh Psychosis?
Depending on the final price point, I’d say Flesh Psychosis is worth checking out. I experienced a minor bug or two during my time with the demo, but they were far from being overly obnoxious. One involved a mysterious message that was in an entirely different language for some reason. The other was just the game’s graphical settings not saving when I selected them. But that seemed to correct itself after a quick reset.
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In just a few levels, Flesh Psychosis really left an impact on me. Maybe I was craving some kind of simple game to distract my brain for a while, or maybe it was this strange feeling of nostalgia I felt for a genre I loved when I was younger, but I really enjoyed myself here. I can’t imagine it’ll climb to the difficult highs of other, more popular puzzle games. But I don’t think it’s trying to. And that’s okay. Sometimes, I just want to relax.
Flesh Psychosis will release on Steam on March 28, 2025.
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