Mouthwashing: The Indie Game the Rose to Fame

By: Elizabeth May

March 4, 2025

Leadership. Responsibility. Accountability.

These are the themes of the indie video game Mouthwashing. Every theme the game covers is complex and masterfully approached. The compelling story, in-depth characters, and mind melting horror all adds to the message Mouthwashing sends.

There are many aspects that add to Mouthwashing’s glory. While I could go on and on about Mouthwashing, in order to keep this review spoiler free, I’ll only be covering the basics of the story, the graphics of the game, the horror elements, and more.

Mouthwashing is a psychological horror game developed by Wrong Organ that is currently six months old. Since its release on September 26, 2024, Mouthwashing has left its mark on the gaming world and soared to fame. Mouthwashing is single-player and available on PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and Windows and takes roughly two to three hours to complete. 

Mouthwashing takes place on a ship traveling through outer space to deliver cargo. Of course, something goes wrong, and the crew and the ship are left stranded in space. The story follows five characters: Curly, Jimmy, Anya, Swansea, and Daisuke. The player switches between playing as Curly and Jimmy, which makes the story a bit complicated to follow, but when everything pieces together, there’s a huge epiphany for the player. 

The switch between the two characters isn’t the only confusing part of the story; there’s also flashing forward and backwards which makes the timeline not completely fluent. I think this adds to the story and makes the twists all the more shocking. 

Mouthwashing isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s got many deep themes that could be triggering to some people. There were moments when I found my gut churning in revulsion, not just because of disturbing visuals, but implications that let my mind wander. That’s something Mouthwashing does masterfully. It doesn’t spell out every little detail; it allows the player's mind to become their own worst enemy. 

Mouthwashing also doesn’t shy away from gory or gross scenes. The graphics aren’t realistic enough for the game to get overly detailed, but that doesn’t stop the gore from being absolutely sickening. 

I have only one complaint with Mouthwashing’s graphics: the hands of the characters. It’s a nit-picky complaint, I’ll admit, but the character’s hands just look so stupid. They’re blocky and sometimes incredibly disproportionate to the characters. The most noticeable are Anya’s hands. They’re massive! I couldn’t help but crack a smile every time I saw them, which, in the end, pulled me out of the immersion of the game. 

But Mouthwashing would pull me right back in with another unnerving twist. This game is full of twists and nothing is trustworthy. I found myself not trusting a single character, not even the playable characters. 

From the beginning of the game, the player is left feeling like they’ve missed something incredibly important. This information is slowly revealed to the player. As it was, I found myself looking at every character through a new lens and suddenly everything I thought I knew was flipped. 

I sometimes find when games flip everything upside down, the game becomes full of plot holes and is just down right confusing, but I didn’t find this problem with Mouthwashing. It was masterfully executed and left me understanding the entire game while also filling in holes to the story. 

That all being said, Mouthwashing is just another average indie game to me. I can fully see why people find this game to be so gripping, but I personally just see it as just another horror game that got its fifteen minutes of fame. It's a fantastic game, don’t get me wrong, yet I doubt I’ll ever replay it or even remember it in a year. 

Don’t let me deter you from playing Mouthwashing for yourself. I do recommend looking into a list of trigger warnings for the game, since it does cover some pretty heavy topics. Other than that, I think this is a game that everyone should go into blind. The story is what makes this game so captivating and the less you know about it the more fun your gaming experience will be.