ok so i booted up pandorium and right away the art style is like someone drew it on a napkin during a very horny lunch break. it's got that costello jank where the proportions are just slightly wrong in a way that loops back around to being charming. you play this pimp character who gets these pills, right? and the pills make the girls all dazed and compliant. classic setup.

the sex minigame is where things get properly unhinged. you're clicking around trying to fill this meter while the girl makes these faces that are somewhere between "i'm seeing god" and "my brain is soup." the sound design is just some wet slapping noises that loop badly. i spent way too long trying to figure out if the alien tag meant there were actual aliens or if it was just a vibe. turns out there's this one scene where things get extraterrestrial and honestly i laughed so hard i had to alt tab. the gangbanged tag delivers exactly what you'd expect, it's messy and the animation cycles are like three frames on repeat but somehow it works.

the prostitute characters all have these dead eyes that follow you. not in a horror game way, more like they're judging your life choices while you're clicking through the same three dialogue options. there's this one moment where you give a girl too many pills and she just sort of vibrates in place. i don't think that was intentional but i respect it. the whole thing feels like a fever dream you'd have after watching too much adult swim at 3am while scrolling through newgrounds.

pandorium is what happens when someone says "what if we made a hentai game but we're also kind of losing our minds." it's broken in ways that make it better. the pimp mechanics are barely there, the pills system is confusing, and i still don't know what the actual goal is. but i kept playing. not because it's good, but because it's fascinating. like watching a car crash where all the drivers are naked and also possibly from space. dare to play it alone, or invite company?