The diagnosis: adventure syndrome leading to ultimate madness. The treatment: a long, long holiday in a mental institution. This graphical adventure game (with a real-time element), places the player in a padded cell, just one of thousands of rooms in the labyrinthine asylum. The time is 9:30 PM and the only objective is to escape by 5:30 AM - no easy feat, considering the building's insane layout, the many loony inmates, the staff of wardens, doctors and shrinks (who possess a sadistic streak and a wealth of terrifying treatment methods), and a multitude of morbidly humorous ways to die.

Asylum's game world is depicted in 3D graphics from a first-person view and is navigated using single keystrokes for movement. All other interaction is carried out by means of a text parser, which supports a vocabulary of 250 words and understands more-or-less complete, natural sentences e.g. "get everything on the bed except the card." A built-in hint system and save feature are also available.