Dollmare Review (Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 & PC)

Taking a part-time job at a doll factory didn’t sound all that difficult. Daunting, yes — but not the worst way to earn a few extra bucks. And for a short while, it was an easygoing experience. I’d clock in, head to the locker room, and begin a shift. A conveyor belt would bring me a doll, and I’d manually inspect it for defects—missing arms, legs, or eyes, for example. I’d then look for torn clothes, blotchy bits of plastic, and things that wouldn’t pass a formal examination. The director would hand me a paycheck, and I’d head back the next day to do it all over again.

The second day brought about a different experience—a peculiar one that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. A doll would arrive on the conveyor belt like usual, but it would provoke an unexpected response once I yanked on its vocal cord. “Open the window and fly,” it would say in a giddy tone. Its eyes would pan from side to side, and its eyelash would flicker in tandem with a malfunctioning light bulb. I’d remove the doll, but then another would arrive on the belt. The cycle would continue, and the warehouse, although quiet and seemingly empty, would begin to reveal its true colors.

As each shift passed, I’d uncover a new strand to pull at. A series of letters left behind by a former employee would instill a deep sense of regret within me; a cute plaything would spout inappropriate comments; a doll would tamper with the generator; and a perpetual fear of losing the ability to control the conveyor belt would lead me to plunge into the depths of the factory to fix a few broken parts. By the third shift, I was no longer inspecting dolls for broken pieces; I was looking to survive in a hostile world that had more loose parts than missing limbs. And yet, I continued to return to clock in. I had cash to earn, and I had little upgrades that wouldn’t fund themselves. Not that said upgrades made a single difference to the overall experience, mind you.

If I wasn’t combing over dolls and checking their voice boxes, I was tending to matters around the factory—a journey that involved repairing broken dolls with various leftover parts, disposing of sentient objects, or traversing a Backrooms-like warehouse in search of an escape route. But the objective, really, was usually the same. I’d punch in, and I’d sort through dozens of dolls. If it had a defect, I’d throw it in the trash. If it was in good condition, then I’d place it on a conveyor belt and wait for a small green light to inform me that I was on the right track. A bit of cash would be added to my bank account, and I’d unlock small items to add to the desk—fans, puzzle cubes, framed photographs, and even a pumpkin, for some reason.

Dollmare isn’t a full-fledged horror, in that it doesn’t make a habit of feeding you wall-to-wall jump scares to smother its short runtime. Rather, it serves as a psychological experience that meshes claustrophobic working conditions with frequent spells of dread. For the most part, the game sees you working in a large warehouse—a room that houses a conveyor belt and two terminals—where you analyze a doll, and decide whether or not it’s fit for purpose or if it needs to be disposed of. If the doll has a malevolent energy, then you send it to the waste tank. If it seems like a normal toy, then you put it on a second conveyor belt and wait for a light to grade your decision. The higher the grade, the greater the paycheck.

While the core premise is rather straightforward here, Dollmare does feature a good amount of unsettling moments and some eerie details for you to uncover. For example, you could be carrying out ordinary jobs, but you could also be led down a rabbit hole that tasks you with locating a possessed doll for an urgent client request, or you could find yourself wading through the dark in search of a generator to restore power to a dimly lit warehouse. The point is, no two shifts are ever the same, and honestly, the game does a great job of keeping you on your toes with its unique procedural  elements. Moreover, you have several steps to juggle, including UV analysis, foreign object detection, and general maintenance procedures.

Funnily enough, the act of inspecting, repairing, and judging dolls is a lot more satisfying than I initially expected it to be. The loop might be simple, but the frequent curveballs and brief bursts of horror that occur when you least expect them certainly make an otherwise momentous graft a lot of fun to sit through. Of course, it’s still a rather short game (two hours at a push), and it doesn’t ever really break out of that bog-standard factory routine. Yet, it’s the little details here that make Dollmare shine, like the snarky comments that radiate from an anonymous director, and the tender scares that force you to question your choices.

While I wouldn’t have turned down the opportunity to work a seventh, eighth, or even a ninth shift in the doll factory, I did find myself feeling satisfied with the outcome of the journey. And you know, I’d do it all over again, if only to unlock an alternate ending and to see if the dolls have more to offer. To that end, I’d say that Dollmare makes for a pleasant horror with a good amount of depth and replay value. Is it the best doll-centric horror on the conveyor belt? No — but it is up there among the greats that line the shelves.

Verdict

Dollmare takes the monotonous routine of bending over backwards to suit company demands and adds its own unique ribbon to it, with a simple yet oddly satisfying deduction experience that caters to both psychological horror fans and mini-game-loving players alike. Although a little shorter than, say, Five Nights at Freddy’s or The Stanley Parable, it does a brilliant job of holding your attention as you cross the i’s, dot the t’s, and glue a few limbs to malevolent dolls with murderous tendencies. For that reason alone, I’d say that it’s more than worth the asking price.