Analysis of Sintra Corporation from Yuppie Psycho: horror symbolism and the stereotypes of a working environment

The symbolisms surrounding the world of Yuppie Psycho are deeper than expected. For example, Chinese and Japanese aesthetic and environment meet Christian symbolism, such as witch hunting, or the snake as symbol of evilness. However, what is truly innovative and brilliant is the horror-parody representation of the corporate environment. Daily routines, behaviours, working categories and repetitive tasks are all encoded inside a horror-parody, where the stereotypes meet a hyperbolic terror.

Sintra corporation, the place where Yuppie Psycho is set, could be like a modern version of Dante’s Inferno, but focused specifically on the working environment. The comparison is not so exaggerated as you could imagine, and where Dante’s Inferno has different Circles encoding for a different sin, each floor of Sintra is instead a hellish parody of the working life. Where the sins of Dante get more evil while going deeper into Hell, each floor inside Sintra corporation will get more and more bizarre, going from low-level workers to the high managers. Also many horror symbolism follows exactly Dante’s law of symbolic retribution, where each sin, in this case a job, becomes a twisted mirror of what was before.

The characters are more parodic than disturbing, but are also embodying stereotypes of the working environment. There is the gossiper, the femme fatale, and the nerdish tech guy. Other characters are crazier, such as the motivational trainer going around on a horse, which, according to himself, replaces “all his virile impotence”. If the characters are bringing humour to the corporate environment, other working symbolisms are more subtle, surreal and creepy, especially for creatures and environment. Each floor of Sintra corp is a new hell, encoding a bizarre environment often closely related to a working department. But things start to get really weird in the upper floors, one example is an entire floor converted into an artistic exposition of the real artist Suguru Tanaka. Sintra corporation is not a normal working environment, but it is a mad machine, a rotten place, the upside-down of any normal job. Everything here is a bizarre paradox of nonsense, horror and exploitation of labour. In the following article I will focus not only on the analysis of many floors of Sintra, but I will also try to decode the bizarre symbolisms which link together surreal horror and corporate jobs. I will try to avoid SPOILERS, but there will be few ones, specifically in the first section: The Cafeteria. Following the ascending madness of the building, I will also write each section from the lower floors, to the upper ones.

• The Cafeteria: how the place of rest and networking could become a nightmare (Floor 1)

Let’s start with a very simple location, which will contain the biggest SPOILER of the article, so jump to the next section in case. The canteen and the cafeteria are the places for human connection, networking and relax. A place to be far from the chaos and the stress, where to have a break from the daily routine with the other coworkers. In Yuppie Psycho, at the beginning, the cafeteria is exactly this, a safe heaven free from weirdness and horror, where to airily meet the other characters. But this will last few, and the cafeteria will become a nightmare where every social connection, hardly built during the game, will vanish. The cafeteria from a safe heaven will transform in the worst nightmare, with a very strong dualism between the calm birthday party and the horror that will come after. Blood, craziness, death and body horror will replace the peace and the safeness in one of the most striking events of Yuppie Psycho’s plot. The canteen could become a stressful and uncomfortable place for new hired employees, or also for people subject to mobbing or not well integrated. Maybe this hellish mirror of the cafeteria could encode for this representation. Symbolisms will start to get more clear in the next floors.

• Repetitive jobs, company exploitation and mobbing: paid just to walk (Floor 2)

The 2nd floor of Sintra corporation is an impersonal hell of repetition and routine. The workers are a sort of mindless zombies with void faces, walking around directionless in a sort of trance. The sound of their repetitive steps is the only symphony in this sad environment. The workers are like ants, swarming around the second floor completely busy, but at the same time totally purposeless. They don’t have any objective, because the company is paying them just to walk. So they walk, continuously and relentlessly, dozen of little gears of a insane machinery. The 2nd floor is the lower one, after the cafeteria, so here the workers are of zero importance for the company. They are not useful for the rotten corporation, but they are still employed, so what they could do all the day? Of course just walking around.

This could also symbolise the mobbing on the workplace. Instead of firing an employee, the company puts him in a really repetitive, boring and tedious task. Such for example to walk constantly. The workers on the 2nd floor will not hurt the player, but will simply obstruct his way, making the path just a bit more complicated. The horror jump out from the creepiness of the environment and from the void workers, which act like parts of a hive mind, or fragments of a huge organism. An unwelcome feeling will always shake the player while travelling in the 2nd floor.

• The difficulty of climbing the hierarchy and the competition to find a job: the challenge against the impersonal Box Heads (Floor 2)

Corporate jobs often imply to climb the pyramid. Starting with a very low level job, hoping with time and effort to obtain a new and better position. For many workers this is a dream, after years of sacrifices to finally access to a new position with a better salary. Of course, the dream of a new job will also crush against the nightmare of competition and new hirings. Because you are not alone out there, dreaming for a new position, but just part of a huge competition.

This dream in Yuppie Psycho is the chimera of the 2nd floor workers. But of course in this horror environment, the exam for a new position is something creepy and bizarre. To finally leave the 2nd floor, an employee should face many Box Heads in a sort of ring. The Box Heads are normal workers, but wearing a smiling cardboard box on their heads. They are creepy and impersonal, without showing a face, but only fake greeting smile just painted on the boxes. They are the embodiment of the falsehood behind job competition, where everyone wears a fake smiling face, even if they see you as an enemy. Some Box Heads will charge at the player, trying to hurt him, while the others will continue to swarm around the ring. This is the symbolism for the challenge to find a work, a fight where everyone is against everyone. Where the smiling faces are just another weapon to be used for success.

• The repetitive task of doing photocopies: worshipping a killer printer (Floor 4)

The 4th floor of Sintra corporation is called the Hive for a reason. It is another place for low workers to be trapped into a world of repetitive and boring tasks. The environment is dark and depressing, with hundreds of working desks scattered around. The majority of workers here are using computers, furiously smashing the keyboard and getting aggressive if somebody pass too close to them. Yes, a clear example of raging stress. The 4th floor is the reign of tediousness. Some employees are waiting for something mysterious in a never ending line. A secondary character is instead forced to do 30’000 photocopies, probably one of the most dull jobs, and only because she is the last arrived. Repetitiveness is used to define seniorship, where the most boring task are responsibility of the younger. Sadly this metric is quite common also in real life, not only in the fictional Sintra corporation.

What could be the horror associated to repetitive and dull tasks? Of course to be hunted by a giant and monstrous printer. Yes, Sintra corporation is a really weird place. The employees of the 4th floor, at the beginning, are all surrounding a huge printer, called Dot Matrix, like if was a sort of sleeping God to be worshipped. The situation will change when the Dot Matrix will awake, killing everybody who was surrounding it while moving around on 4 huge human hands. The workers of the 4th floor are terrified by the existence of the Dot Matrix, forced to hide in a constant hunting ground, with the printer as alpha predator. People are forced to do photocopies while avoiding to be brutally killed by the Dot Matrix, a monstrosity able to hunt just by following even the most silent noise. This is truly a Dantesque hell for the employees responsible of doing photocopies, following exactly the Dante’s law of symbolic retribution.

• The obsession for the slogans of the Marketing department: a regression toward a feral state (Floor 4)

Obsessed by new trends, waves and tendencies, Marketing department is always looking for new ways to catch the attention of the market. Obsessing with finding the best slogan to sell more products, the Marketing department of Yuppie Psycho regressed into a primal and feral behaviour. All fault of a new Yoga fashion, which forces them to walk on four legs. They also forgot how to be human, acting like feral animals, biting the computer cables and growling. They will react aggressively to whoever will not able to communicate with them using the perfect slogan. Only a slogan totally fitting their situation will convince them to act friendly, otherwise they will growl and bite like feral dogs. The obsession for novelty and innovation will instead cause them to regress to primal instincts and behaviours.

• The hell of job interviews and the pressure to be selected: worshipping a giant Mouth hoping to be devoured (Floor 4)

The stress to find a new job, to be selected and appreciated for you curriculum vitae (CV), is a modern plague especially for young people searching for a job. The ritual of preparing for a job interview, while competing with others hoping to be the one selected, is really one of the strongest modern social pressures. Candidates train themselves, trying to edit the perfect curriculum and to prepare to survive to the complex interviews. People sometime would do everything to be hired, everything to finally have the perfect CV.

In the twisted working world of Yuppie Psycho, this concept is embodied by a giant seducing Mouth. Yes, this is one of the most bizarre thing in the entire game. The Mouth has big red lips, with pointy teeth, a long snake-like tongue, and blood instead of saliva. The Mouth speaks seductively, in a warm way, trying to offer kisses and attention to the chosen one. Employees worship the Mouth like a God, kneeling while bathing in her blood. The bigger dream and achievement for the cultists is to be finally selected to be devoured by the Mouth. But the Mouth is selective and spoiled, she will not eat whoever, but only the ones truly deserving. Some workers are waiting in the chairs, modifying their CV with the perfect slogan, hoping to have the qualities that the Mouth is looking for. In desperate times, finding a job is one of the most important thing, even if this means to be devoured by a giant Mouth. Being accepted means everything, both inside and outside of the working environment, regarding the consequences of such acceptance. The Mouth symbolises all these needs to be accepted and selected, for which people are ready to worship for.

The archives and libraries in the age of Internet: dust, spiderwebs and abominations (Floor 7)

In the ages of Internet, searching for working knowledge has evolved into an easy task. Libraries and archives are now almost obsolete, where every data and information is stored in the Web or inside huge servers. The library in the 7th floor of Yuppie Psycho is the exact mirror of this situation: an empty place full of dust and spiderwebs. The horror is mot limited just to this, since the archivist went crazy and morphed in a sort of half-spider cyborg, placing egg-mines as traps in all the library. In Yuppie Psycho, the search for knowledge also regressed to a parody of the crazy search of the Holy Grail. The workers have to find a mysterious book hidden in the depth of the library, passing tests and avoiding the deadly traps. If reaching for knowledge is easy in Internet age, in the broken Sintra corporation this is absolutely the opposite. A dangerous and impossible task, where only few people will succeed.

• Stress, smoke and environment: using an indoor graveyard just to smoke (Floor 8)

Well, after all the harsh and depressive symbolisms about the corporate environment, to conclude the article this is a more funny and light hearted comparison. In every company or working building, it is always funny to see how smokers gathered around to smoke just outside the main entrance, or hidden in outdoor staircases. In Yuppie Psycho, this is of course parodied to the extreme. The 8th floor of Sintra is an indoor forest, including a graveyard for the founders of the company. There is a giant green space just inside the company, so where the smokers would go? Of course to smoke in the 8th floor. But in Yuppie Psycho there are also to consider the horror symbolisms, so the forest is always surrounded with a dense mist of smoke. This smoke is mainly produced by a creature called the goblin, a bizarre and creepy ex-employee of the company that is constantly smoking in the deepness of the woods. This floor also works as connection and easter egg to the previous game of the developers, Count Lucanor, which was set in a similar environment.

 

Many other secrets and mysteries are waiting hidden in the floors of Sintra corporation. I just analysed the connections between horror and working environment that I found more deep, funny or interesting. There is a lot more to discover in the complex pixelated world of Yuppie Psycho, but this will be another story.

When body horror meets ghosts: the most twisted and grotesque ghosts of Fatal Frame/Project Zero saga

Fatal Frame (or Project Zero in Europe) is one of the best Japanese horror franchise. While Resident Evil is focused on biological nightmares, and Silent Hill on psychological horror, Fatal Frame (FF) searched is comfort zone in creepy fictional Japanese traditions and folklore. Each new installment tells a tale rooted in old rituals and forbidden knowledge, where something got terribly wrong. The main enemies are always ghosts, usually from different historical ages. The main characters are able to defeat these malevolent entities using the “Camera Obscura”, an ancient camera able to exorcise ghosts by taking pictures of them.

Battles are strategic and challenging, with each new ghost representing a different battlefield, with its own movements and ability. Ghosts can fly, pass though the walls, crawl on the ground or even directly run, everything to make the life of the player really difficult. And of course, following them with the camera it is not an easy task.

The majority of the ghosts represents classic stereotypes from Japanese horror movie, from creepy girl in kimono to the classic woman hidden behind long hair. Of course historical figures are also presents, from samurai to monks. The results are anyway terrifying, but there is even something worst. In every game of the saga, there are always twisted, creepy and disturbing ghosts, often overpassing the threshold of “Body Horror” in an innovative way. If some ghosts are only poor soul which died of a horrible death, some “things” are clearly beyond explanation.

In the following list you can find the most twisted and grotesque ghosts of Fatal Frame. The list is in descending order, like a descent to Hell, going from creepy ghosts to the embodiment of “body horror”.

• Falling Woman (FF2)

If the image could be not so twisted as expected, the movement and the behavior of this ghost are really sick. The ghost will suddenly fall from the ceiling, randomly, while screaming. Every time she appears, it is a huge jump-scare. All her bones will break during the fall, but this will not stop her from crawling on the floor toward the player in a really disturbing way.

• Broken Neck (FF2)

This is easily one of the most scary ghosts in the entire franchise. Even if her fatal injury is just a small alteration, the creature is able to really creep the player out by staring at the camera, with her twisted and broken neck. She is also one of the most recurrent fights in FF2, another reason to hate her.

• Engravers (FF3)

Artists responsible to create complex tattoos on the maiden of an ancient ritual. After their duty is completed, they pierce their hands with needles, to make them worthless, and they also gouge out their own eyes. With their void faces and the arms full of needless, these ghosts could make a cameo in the movie Hellraiser.

• Man in the Dark (FF2)

Almost a dry body with a completely messed up anatomy. Bones appear through a dark and dry skin, while the void face has nothing human. This ghost was abducted by the darkness, killed and imprisoned there. Now the darkness is embodied in him, in his dark skin and in his void traits.

• Tall Woman (FF5)

Inspired by a Slender-esque Japanese urban legend, the Tall Woman is a disturbing ghost without any apparent background. Her body is unnaturally tall and thin, an impossible silhouette for any human being. This creature was probably never human, which makes her existence even more mysterious. With her long arms, she is a dangerous foe, able to reach the player unexpectedly.

• Long Arms (FF1)

Now is time to start with really deformed and twisted ghosts. “Long Arms” is a disturbing ghost with an abnormal and altered morphology. His arms are unnaturally long, with stretched bones, making him really dangerous. There is not a clear background for his deformity, it is only known that the man was searching for her daughter, but he ended up killing several other children.

• Headless Priest (FF1)

What could be a higher expression of body horror than a priest with his detached head still floating neckless around? This priest is a victim of the extreme justice dispensed by the house master. Also his attacks are the embodiment of body horror, with head and body attacking independently.

• Female Head (FF1)

If a headless priest was not enough disturbing, now is the turn of a floating female head. She has no body, but simply exists as a floating head. This ghost can fly, but can also creepily roll down the stairs. The crazy expression on the face and the insane eyes only complete her disturbing profile.

• Kizura Himuro (FF3)

Everything is completely wrong and twisted in this poor soul. The limbs are too long and wry, including the neck. Moreover, her arms are separated from the body, torn away by ropes during a horrible ritual. Her face is also a mask of terror because the pain she suffered. Her appearance is simply too wrong and terrifying, and her body so twisted that expresses all the possible pain.

• Utsuro (FF2)

A secret boss present only in the Xbox version of FF2. Utsuro is an amalgam of ghosts, fused together to create an immense ghostly body. The creature embodies all the victims of a village, together for a last and deadly fight. The boss is really difficult to fight, since to face him the player should finish before the complex Survival mode. Since there are very few and bad quality pictures available, you can appreciate better the immense Utsuro in the following video.

 

I would like to thank really well done websites such as “Behind Came Lens” and “Fatal Frame Wiki” for the majority of the information. For more details regarding Fatal Frame universe, please have a look at these sites.

Interview with Francisco Calvelo from Baroque Decay, the creator of Count Lucanor and Yuppie Psycho

From the depths of a dark fairytale castle to a haunted company in a dystopian future, Baroque Decay is always able to use its characteristics 8-bit aesthetic to create creepy and surreal nightmares. The Count Lucanor is a game focused on plot and exploration, following the story of a child starting a journey to find his destiny. The game jumps from a fable to a proper nightmare, with multiple endings and many secrets. The gorgeous pixel-art cutscenes and all the elements typical of The Count Lucanor come back in the next game: Yuppie Psycho. The new game is bigger in any aspect, showing how Baroque Decay is improving as studio with each new game.

It is important to remember that Baroque Decay’s games are not only focused on plot developing, but are also proper old-school survival horror games. Item management, balance of resources and even limited save points; all the elements of a proper survival horror are present in both games. Behind a comic or fairy-tale facade, the games are also really creepy and disturbing, with a set of nightmarish pixel-art creatures (check my article about the bestiary of Count Lucanor if you are interested).

With Yuppie Psycho successfully released just at the end of the month, I had the possibility to interact with Francisco Calvelo, the director and art-designer of Yuppie Psycho and The Count Lucanor. He is the founder of Baroque Decay and the responsible of the gorgeous pixel-art behind the games.

Together with the talented Francisco (who prefers Fran), we talked about the past, the future and some hidden details about Baroque Decay’s games. If you are curious to know about the future of Yuppie Psycho or who was the first protagonist of Count Lucanor, I suggest you to read the following interview.

Q1: Thank you Fran for your time and for the possibility of interacting with you. I am curious about how Baroque Decay started as team. How Baroque Decay was born and how did you decide to work together on your first project? 

A1: I (Fran Calvelo) was working on an office job as graphic designer, and in 2013 I decided to quit the job to make videogames. I met Maxime Caignart (Coder) online, and both began to work on a horror game for mobiles called “Catequesis”, and later on “The Count Lucanor”. Regarding the name of the company, I love the baroque art and the “Decay” is always the most interesting aspect of anything. Instead of the glory days, the juicy stuff is always in the decay.

Catequesis: the first project of Baroque Decay

Q2: Which are your bigger inspirations and you references, both in cinema and video games, while developing your games?

A2: So much inspirations that is difficult to point only a few. We love the work of David Lynch, Shinya Tsukamoto, Cronenberg, Junji Ito, Shintaro Kago, Maruo, and we are lovers of Anime, like Jojo Bizarre adventure, and thousands of other series. In games we love Zelda, Resident Evil, Silent Hill. But I think our bigger inspiration is Deadly Premonition.

Q3: Your games are famous for having a really beautiful pixel art, especially when used to create gorgeous cutscenes. How much time is it necessary to create them and how much are they important for the aesthetic of your works?

A3: I spend around 2 weeks for each minute of cutscene. It’s a hard job, but I think it gives a nice reward to the player. Even now, they are part of the aesthetics of the game. Sadly it is too much work to keep such a good quality for the whole game, but at least with those small cutscenes the players can get immersed in a anime-ish story.

The pixel art of Count Lucanor is even better when animated.

Q4: The Count Lucanor was your first game published and a really well developed dark fairytale. If I am not wrong, the game is based on a history from an ancient Spanish book. Why did you decide to use this setting and how the idea of The Count Lucanor was born?

A4: We had to pause our previous project “Catequesis” because was too ambitious, so we finally decided to just make a small game with few mechanics. I found an old manga tale in a second hand store, about a goatherd that lost a goat and found a castle with a goblin in it. That was the spark to begin the project. We used the name “Count Lucanor” because was a Spanish medieval fairy tale compilation, and also the sound of “Lucanor” was a bit similar to “Alucard”.

Q5: This is a really personal question for my own curiosity. I really liked the characters of The Count Lucanor, especially the evolution of the goatherd and his goats. Why did you decide to include hellish goats as enemies? What was the idea behind the character of the goatherd? [check HERE for my analysis of the character]

A5: At first the main character was going to be the goatherd, but we had some technical issues controlling the goats, so we preferred to split that into another character. Well, in a lot of fairy tales there are goats and goatherds, so I just wanted to make them part of the nightmare, in the best possible way. And for the character, I just wanted to picture someone nice and funny, but at the same time a bit dangerous. Some kind of metaphor on those friends that are older than you when you are a little kid. They are the fun, but they usually do forbidden stuff.

Q6: Yuppie Psycho is described as “First Job Survival Horror”. Why did you decide to go for a corporate office setting for Yuppie Psycho? How challenging was to integrate horror elements in this uncommon environment for the genre?

A6: I’m a little bit bored of the medieval, “sword and shield” setting. So after watching Gremlins 2, which has a very similar setting, I decided to go full on a corporate office environment. It is not hard to add horror in any setting. The trick is just to transform the usual stuff of that environment in a twisted monster. Once the player can’t really be sure of what is secure and what is dangerous, the horror is done.

In Yuppie Psycho, a printer can be your worst nightmare

Q7: Yuppie Psycho is definitely a bigger game than Count Lucanor in every aspect, from playtime to the number of characters and dialogues. Which were the most challenging parts during the development of Yuppie Psycho?

A7:  The problem is that we base our gameplay too much on the story. So the player is playing the game especially to discover the story. Making a good story, with good cutscenes, situations, animations and characters is hard. It is much harder than basing your game on a strong game mechanic. We also wanted to do something bigger in the same time, but we ended up working double of time than with Lucanor.

Q8: First “Save Soul” in Count Lucanor, now “Photocopying Soul” in Yuppie Psycho. What will happen to the soul in your next save system?

A8: Who knows! But surely it will be something similar. It is interesting, we didn’t have that mechanic in Lucanor at first. We had automatic saves, but after the first beta testing we saw that the players played with no fear that way. So we added the “coins and the fountain” save system. And after that, all the players were telling us that they loved that save system. So we ended up with something iconic to keep for our next games.

Q9: Yuppie Psycho and Count Lucanor are full of creepy and disturbing characters and enemies. What is the enemy/character you feel more attached with or you had the most fun while developing?

A9: I think it was the Camerlengo, from The Count Lucanor. Again a late addition to the game. We added this “Mr. X” enemy that chases you around the castle. It was really fun to see the reaction of the players when they heard the steps of the Camerlengo, or the sentences he says to the player when he is hiding under the tables.

The Red Camerlengo in all his creepiness!

Q10: Was there something that was cut-out from the final release of Count Lucanor or Yuppie Psycho, for examples additional characters, areas or enemies?

A10:  Yes. There are always areas or characters that we have in mind, or even quests that we develop for a bit until we realize that we will not be able to finish them. It is very hard to work on such long projects, sometimes the development goes out of your hands and you don’t have other solution than to cut and adapt what you have.

Q11: Now that Yuppie Psycho is out, and is going very well on STEAM (congrats!), I think we are all curious about your plans for the future. Are you already developing/planning a new IP, or thinking more to DLCs? If you promise to not kill me, since I imagine many fans are bombing you with this, are the future plans also including Catequesis?

A11: Thanks! We are surprised for the good welcome that the game is having. So we want to reward the success by adding all the stuff we had to cut in a free DLC. So this year the plan is to work on that and on the Consoles port. We are thinking a lot on Catequesis, several fans ask for it. But it’s very outdated now, so we need to figure out a good way to renew it to feel fresh again.

Final Remarks:

I would really like to thank Fran for his time, his kindness and for the possibility of interacting with him.  Thanks to his answers, now I know a lot more details about his games and his work, and I am glad to share them with other fans. Baroque Decay is really giving new life to horror games, and I cannot wait for their next work. If you want to experience Baroque Decays’s survival horror games, both Count Lucanor and Yuppie Psycho are available on STEAM.