Revenge of the Colon is a brief and unsettling body horror experience from Lilou Studios.

Body horror in the indie horror scene is not that uncommon, and it’s not uncommon for plenty of titles to veer into that territory by being a horror game. But in Revenge of the Colon, it’s the main feature.

You play as a respected and talented gastroenterologist who must perform colonoscopies on a series of patients, all citing strange issues that require you to investigate.

indie horror has a bad reputation for vilifying mental illness, you could throw a rock and hit any number of titles with a main character that goes “insane” and murders their family, or goes off their meds and does something terrible, and it’s a trend that I would love to see die out.  So with Revenge of the Colon,  I was worried about how Lilou Studios would handle things such as eating disorders or other medical diseases that would be covered in a game about being a gastroenterologist.  On the Steam page, there is a warning that such topics are discussed.

But I can say that I’m pleasantly surprised. Before the start of each colonoscopy, you have a brief scene where you speak with the patient and learn about their history and problem. The doctor you play is subdued but professional, and his responses to the patients revealing private information are always respectful and reassuring.

It felt well done, the disorders that are referenced are never used to gross out or shock the player which is a relief.  As things veer off into absurdity towards the end of the roughly two-hour experience you start to see more cartoonishly horrific things in the bowels of your patients, but at the start when things are grounded and real medical issues are discussed, Revenge of the Colon was surprisingly respectful.

So, Revenge of the Colon sees you navigating the bowels of your patients, searching for and obliterating obstructions with a small suite of medical instruments.

You might find some small polyps that you must cut out and cauterize, or other items lodged in place that need to be pulled out and flushed away.

From a gameplay perspective, it’s very slow and light. Given that it’s a short experience and much more about mood and atmosphere than complex gameplay this isn’t too much of a knock against it.  You can scan each obstruction you come across that gives a small note as to how to remove it, so you cycle through your tools and get to work.

When you’re done, you must flush out the remains and continue on. It’s weird, but after a certain point of flushing out old pieces of corn and breaking up small deposits of fat, I found myself in a flow state similar to one you might find yourself in playing House Flipper of PowerWash Simulator. It’s ridiculous to say, but getting in the pattern of performing these FPS colonoscopies was easy and routine and even weirder, pretty engaging.

But this is a horror game! And it’s sufficiently unconformable. Obviously, the work you’re performing is upsetting enough, and the “setting” being inside of a person’s colon is enough to make the game feel, uh,  cramped. The hazy PS1-styled graphics choke the environment down in a great way as well. You exclusively progress forward through the colon as a low and ambient soundtrack drones in the background.  It’s definitely eerie, and the darkness of a person’s guts is enough to keep you wondering what’s around the next fleshy bend.

It’s not until the end of the game that things start getting weird.

You’ll find monstrous parasites and fully formed fish that cry out like human babies as you flush them away. It gets weird. At a certain point, you’re eager to get to the next patient just to see what you might find in their colon…which is something I never thought I’d say.

A couple of different endings are available depending on how you treat your patients and they round out a nice little experience, and a weird little short story of a game. Revenge of the Colon is a creepy and eerie little thing, while light on gameplay, offers something unique and surprising for its 2-hour run time, and it manages to do so with less gross-out than you might think.

You can buy Revenge of the Colon on Steam