Lobotomy Corporation, An Adorable and Disturbing Strategy Roguelike

Lobotomy Corporation is a rogue-like simulator out of South Korea. It combines elements of Prison Architect and Fallout Shelter with gory and gruesome monsters from fairy tales and urban legends. You take the role of a new administrator in a mysterious facility that harnesses the energy that these monsters, Abnormalities as they’re called, create.

There’s everything you’d expect from a rogue-like management simulator. You have employees that will help you manage the monsters, but they’re susceptible psychological breakdown and corruption from the Abnormalities. They also have their own set of values, meaning each individual employee will act differently.

The Abnormalities themselves are categorized differently as well. They each have their own Threat Level, which as you probably assumed, determines how dangerous they are. The more dangerous they are, the more energy they emit. However, you have to keep the monsters happy, or they’ll try to escape or straight up kill everyone in the facility. Even still, they’re monsters, so they might try to escape or go on a killing rampage regardless.

It’s a rouge-like game, or “rouge-lite” as they call it, meaning you’ll start out with no information about the monsters. It’s all trial and error at the start as you slowly learn more about them. But that knowledge carries over to new playthroughs in the form of an encyclopedia, and an AI assistant called Angela.

Details about the story are kept brief, but there are a few hints. Throughout the course of the game, you’ll learn more about the mysterious company you work for, and who you are. You’ll also be able to talk to Angela at any time, who can help you manage your tasks, and even fill you in on the lore.

Aww, look at their horribly mangled bodies! Don’t you want to eat them up?

Lobotomy Corporation has a cutesy, cartoon art style. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect from South Korea; a minimalistic style that makes gore, monsters, and body horror look totes adorbs. There’s a gif on the Kickstarter page of one of your employees being strangled to death by a giant teddy bear monster and I can’t tell if it’s cute or horrifying.

It the Lobotomy Corporation Kickstarter has any flaws, it’s the English translation. It was clearly translated from Korean, and it wasn’t done well. There are several grammatical errors and sentences that just don’t sound right. There’s nothing that’s total gibberish or exceptionally funny, but it does make the campaign feel cheap, and makes you wonder how well the translation in the game will be. My favorite is in the Risks and Challenges section: “We used to develop much more simpler games back in our days of club activities as an university students.”

However, that’s a small complaint compared to the overall package. There’s a lot of information about the game, plenty of screenshots and gifs, there’s a trailer that really shows off the Fallout Shelter elements, and the game itself looks good. If you’re interested in backing, you have over 30 days, which should be enough time for the campaign to reach it’s $40,000 goal.

Track the progress of the Lobotomy Corporation Kickstarter in our Campaign Calendar.