Creepy Tale 3: Ingrid Penance is the latest entry into the Creepy Tale series and sees us play as a rude little girl who must learn from the consequences of her actions as she ventures through the depths of Hell.
We all know of morals, about all the things we should and should not do. If we do something we’re not supposed to, we must face the consequences of our actions, or there will be hell to pay, and in the case of Creepy Tale 3: Ingrid Penance that’s exactly what happens to the titular Ingrid. Creepy Tale 3: Ingrid Penance is a point and click 2D side-scrolling puzzle game developed and published by Creepy Brothers; this is the third game in their Creepy Tale series.
Creepy Tale 3: Ingrid Penance is the latest entry into the Creepy Tales series, which began in 2020. Much like its predecessors, players must solve various puzzles in a beautiful 2D world inspired by childhood fairy tales but with a dark twist. Much like the first two games, Creepy Tale and Creepy Tale 2, Creepy Tales 3: Ingrid Penance is its own stand-alone story that isn’t connected to the past two games, besides art style and certain story themes.
This time around, in Creepy Tale 3: Ingrid Penance, players take control of Ingrid, a rather rude and self-centered little girl who has absolutely no respect for anyone and only cares about herself. Ingrid is asked by her mother to deliver some bread to her poor grandmother. This is similar to the tale of Red Riding Hood, but instead of a Big Bad Wolf, Ingrid is instead dragged to the fiery pits of hell, where she must face the consequences for being such a foul little child. Will Ingrid atone for her sins, or will her soul forever be damned in Hell? Well, that’s all up to the players to decide.
Depending on your faith, there is often the belief that there is either a Divine Reward or a Divine Punishment while depending on how you lived your life, you would either go to one or the other. In the case of poor Ingrid, who must have done some truly heinous things to somehow wind up in hell while he is still being alive and, let alone being a child, has found herself in the Divine Punishment of Hell.
When she arrives in Hell, Ingrid is branded on her hands with two numbers, on her left hand six sins and on the right three good deeds. Now depending on how players decide to make Ingrid respond to characters around her or interact with her environment will decide whether she will lose or gain more sins or more good deeds. Want to learn from your mistakes and be nice to people? Expect more good deeds. Want to be a rude little menace who constantly forces her way through everything? Expect more sins for your transgressions.
These moral decisions also impact how you complete the game’s puzzles or rather how easy the puzzles become. If you want to try to fight a tentacle monster with a knife rather than try and give it food from your inventory, then expect to lose your head rather quickly. The game doesn’t reward you for being needlessly mean and cruel, and you are in fact oftentimes usually punished for your cruel actions.
As for the puzzles themselves, Creepy Tale 3: Ingrid Penance does not give you any hints on how to solve them. Players will have to rely on both their smarts as well as their creativity in order to solve these puzzles. Players are usually rewarded for thinking out of the box, but it does make the puzzles take some time to complete, especially as players won’t be given any hint as to what can and cannot be interacted with. Despite taking a while to solve, once completed, you feel smarter for solving the game’s puzzles.
As for the various environments of Creepy Tale 3: Ingrid Penance. Each region of hell is distinct from one another, and each region has its own set of denizens inhabiting it. The art of the game feels like a mix of styles from the cartoon Over the Garden Wall with its earthy color palette and its illustration-esque sprites and the dark grittiness of games like Don’t Starve but wrapped up neatly into a 2D side-scroller.
A common theme that players will see throughout the game is references to various fairytales and works of literature from the likes of Hans Christian Andersen and The Brothers Grimm. As mentioned earlier in this review, there was a reference to Red Riding Hood; there are also references to Jack and the Beanstalk, Alice in Wonderland, and Hansel and Gretel. Even the developer’s own name is a spin on The Brothers Grimm. This makes Creepy Tale 3: Ingrid Penance feels like a fairytale and one that hasn’t been sanitized to be more kid-friendly because kid friendly this game is not.
Our poor protagonist Ingrid will have to face the many horrors of hell, and players will likely die quite a few times trying to figure out the game’s various puzzles. Whether it be turned into a statue, decapitated by a tentacle monster, or strangled by a child-hating owl demon, Ingrid will die many times and in many horrible ways, some more amusing than others. This may turn off a few people, especially those who are not comfortable with child death, but this may be seen as a bonus to few as Ingrid is just that insufferable, and watching her die might be more enjoyable than solving the puzzle itself.
Another thing that players will notice in Creepy Tale 3: Ingrid Penance is that the game is entirely voice-acted. The voice acting in the game is top-notch and brings these already wonderful characters to life. Particularly with Ingrid herself, who in the beginning sounds stuck up, whiny, and just downright rude, but we can truly hear her grow as a character by the way she speaks, becoming kinder and far more sympathetic as the story goes on. This character growth wouldn’t be as effective without the excellent voice acting.
Creepy Tale 3: Ingrid Penance is essentially a fairytale story that, much like the stories that inspired it, teaches a valuable lesson about our actions and their consequences. Except unlike in those fairytales, we get to decide the outcome of our rude little protagonist’s fate. The game features excellent voice acting that helps show character growth, as well as bringing the many charming characters to life.
Though some themes may not be for everyone Creepy Tale 3: Ingrid Penance is an excellent entry into the Creepy Tale series and is a must-play for fans of fairy tales and puzzle games or for those who really want to see Ingrid face the consequences of her actions. Creepy Tales 3: Ingrid Penance is currently available on Steam.
