Pathologic drags you behind it at an aggressive pace. The day's tasks are timed out in such a way that perfect observation and planning will leave you with a few valuable hours to dig yourself out of your hole of debt or hunger or reputation. Anything less than perfection will have you barely scraping by, and the consequences of failure are brutal. But absent any big fuck ups, there is always just enough time. With the small exception of how youre basically encouraged to save scum to avoid catching the plague and dying, failure isn't some random bullshit that happens. Sometimes bullshit, but never random. It has a presence, you see it coming miles away, you spend every second the game gives you trying to put as much distance between you and it as possible.

The plague in Pathologic has a face. Literally, the clouds of plague juice have faces. I don't know why. Much of the text is "esoteric" (read "Weard ass Russian Shit"), the dialogue and visuals are stilted. Science is magic and magic is obscure dirt poor cult shit, or maybe magic is actually more real than science. There's a lot of spiritualism in the local populace but I don't remember any of them anthropomorphizing the plague itself. But regardless. The plague clouds have big faces. Some of them even chase after you and you gotta put them on skates.

One time I starved to death because I forgot to eat before I went to bed.