Tamashii is a game difficult to define inside a specific box. If it is true that the game is mainly a platformer with complex puzzles based on creating clones, the combination of a disturbing atmosphere and intended glitches creates a unique and hermetic product. Tamashii is full of secrets, easter eggs, and scary surprises hidden as fake glitches and bugs. Every room is hiding something, every scene can have a coded message or a subliminal image, in a game where even the game folder itself is hiding old prototypes and files protected with passwords.
The bosses are one of the most interesting points of Tamashii, huge abominations that will need effort and different strategies to be defeated. One can be a puzzle, another a chase for your life, or even transforming the game in a “shmup”, each battle is a different scenario. Worth also to specify that the bosses are a cluster of symbolism, biblical quotes, and hidden references, not only before the fight, but also after being defeated, when a religious quote will flash on the screen for a split second. Moreover, if you are curious to read more about these creatures, you can also check my article: The Bosses of Tamashii: behind the religious symbolism of glitchy abominations of flesh.
Vikintor is the game developer from Brazil behind the surreal insanity of Tamashii. Vikintor created several games, including the free Estigma, a nightmarish combination of Pacman and Q-bert. Teocida is instead the upcoming prequel/sequel of Tamashii, another cryptic and mysterious puzzle-game defined as “Metaphysical Aptitude Program”.
While waiting for the release of Teocida, I had the opportunity to talk with Vikintor about his career, Tamashii’s secrets, and his future directions. If you are curious to know more about the most hidden secrets of Tamashii, its symbolism, and cut secrets, the following interview will satisfy your curiosity.
Q1: Thank you Vikintor for the opportunity. I am curious to know: how your career as solo developer started and how Tamashii was born?
A1: I worked on a factory while programming Tamashii in my spare time. At the time I had only the basic gameplay elements, but I didn’t had expectations or an aesthetic for it. I spent a lot of time trying to find an aesthetic that I liked, and playing some obscure old games helped me to get inspiration.
As I am an enthusiastic person about esotericism, I had the idea of creating an identity that mixed video games with esotericism in a subversive perspective. But I decided to take gamedev a bit more seriously after re-playing Paranoiascape, which helped me with the aesthetics, mostly because It was the first obscure game I’ve played as kid. It was an unlabeled disc that my father bought in a market when people trade pirated games copies and sell every kind of stuff, like broken televisions, used toys, porn and probably stolen stuff.
Q2: Which were the most important references, both for movies and games, for the development of Tamashii?
A2: Besides ParanoiaScape, I was inspired by games like Garage Bad Dream Adventure, Kowai Shashin, Spider the videogame (PS1) and Yume Nikki, and movies like Tetsuo The Iron Man, Society, When Black Birds Fly and Eraserhead. For the game esoteric references, I only cared about classic books that I own physically, I’m not a big fan of reading about that stuff in the internet.
Q3: Tamashii is a game full of surprises, secrets, hidden messages, symbolism, and intended glitches. Why did you decide to use this formula for Tamashii?
A3: My intention was to create something that achieves the same felling I had when I was a young gamer discovering an obscure game for the first time. And because I’m a huge easter egg hunting fan, I tried to make a game that always seems to be hiding something.
Q4: Hidden Biblical quotes and religious symbolism are an important part of Tamashii’s atmosphere. Why did you use this symbolism to define the world-building and the atmosphere?
A4: I tried to find a balance between sacred and profane, making something that sounds and seems alienish, edgy, weirdly erotic and esoteric at the same time. Also, Tamashii characters were mostly inspired by Gnostic mythology and symbolism.
Second; I also aimed to make the game fells like a religious propaganda. For that I was heavily inspired by pretentious old PC and NES educational videogames, making Tamashii the more preachy I could at the time, but with an anarchic approach to its content.
Q5: Between the many cryptic secrets, a scene with a video of a quite creepy “live streaming” got quite famous. Could you tell us more about it?
A5: I don’t remember where the idea came from, but I was planning to add some events to the Live Streaming segment, but I never did. The game actually checks if the computer has an active Internet connection and, if not, displays an error message.
The room in the video was actually my own room at that time. I still thinking about implement the same thing on more games, but I have to take a time to at least prepare something cooler for it.
Q6: Was there something cut from the final release, like a boss battle or a really creepy glitch?
A6: The game has a bunch of cut content that still inside the game. There’s some beta and unfinished puzzles rooms and some boss’s layout variants, A fake install screen that can be found only on version 1.0 (It was an error), also an unreachable test room with all movement mechanics from Estigma. There is also a room with a windmill that works depending of player score on levels.
Q7: Tamashii is a game full of secrets, including coded messages and hidden files in the game folder. Do you think there is still something that the players didn’t discover? If yes, could you tell us some clues about it?
A7: I remember about hiding a visual signature to an audio in the game (that only can be seem using a spectrogram) and some visual that can be noticed with different brightness settings, but I can’t remember much more.
Q8: Other than Tamashii you also recently released Estigma, a horror puzzle with a similar disturbing atmosphere. You are also working on other projects, but I am curious, which is your “dream project”, the game that you would like to develop one day?
A8: A dream project for me is creating something that I can consider weird even by my standards, because I don’t believe my games is weird as much I like them to be.
Q9: Teocida is the upcoming sequel of Tamashii, which is also set in the same universe. Teocida is described as a “Metaphysical Aptitude Program”. Could you provide some details about this definition?
A9: In addition to the esoteric theme, with Teocida I also wanted to bring the game a little closer to parapsychology. As if the game were a succession of tests, including the Zener cards used for clairvoyance studies.
Q10: Could you give us some information about Teocida and how will it be connected to Tamashii? When will it be a possible release window for Teocida?
A10: I decided not to name Teocida as Tamashii2 because of the changes in direction compared to the first game. While in the first game we control a character who is new to that world, in Teocida we follow the story from the perspective of the Matriarch, a character who knows that reality very well. Also the game can be played before or after Tamashii, and I thought that a number on the tittle could implies the opposite.
I don’t have a release date yet, however the story is done, now I’m just absorbing content and getting inspired to prepare the secret content.
Final remarks:
I would like to thank Vikintor for his time, the interesting answers, and for sharing hidden images of Tamashii. His amazing horror puzzle was a true surprise full of secrets and unexpected events, and I am really looking forward for the release of Teocida. While waiting, if you still didn’t play Tamashii, it is available on STEAM, PS4, and Switch.
Surreal and Creepy 