Grotesque receptionists and an in-game art gallery: discover the surreal-horror art of Suguru Tanaka inside the survival-horror Yuppie Psycho [Art and Videogames]

Art and videogames are always a sophisticated combination, quite useful for example to improve the atmosphere of a location. Paintings on the walls and iconic statues were always important elements in horror games, since the dawn of the genre, such as artistic elements reborn as puzzles in Resident Evil. Recently, Yuppie Psycho tried a new way of connecting real art inside a game by creating an in-game art gallery of an existing artist.

Yuppie Psycho is a survival horror set in a psychotic corporate environment, built using a detailed pixel-art to create original and nightmarish creatures (have a look here for an example: Monster of the Week: Dot Matrix (Yuppie Psycho)). Suguru Tanaka is instead a Japanese artist focused on a surreal and horror atmosphere. His works are characterised by oppressive black and red colors, used to portray terrifying creatures, impossible architectures, and claustrophobic spaces.

How was this collaboration born? I was able to ask this question to Francisco Calvelo from Baroque Decay, and he was kind enough to answer. The collaboration between Baroque Decay and Suguru Tanaka started back with Catequesis, the first game designed by the team. It was a huge and complex project, a pixel art survival-horror with religious themes, which is now in standby. Suguru collaborated with the team, bringing his art inside the locations of the game.

While Catequesis is on standby, the collaboration took a new shape with Yuppie Psycho, where Suguru’s art was used to convey a surreal-horror atmosphere in a self-contained and unique space. While hoping that the collaboration inside Catequesis will continue one day, let’s focus now on the unique in-game art gallery inside Yuppie Psycho.

The art gallery will introduce itself to the player in the most direct and creepy way possible. The receptionists at the welcome desk are what you would expect from a surreal-horror art exhibition. Their faces are a grotesque mass of raw flesh missing any anatomy, as if their bodies were also a disturbing work of art. The creatures are practically unable to speak, but looking connected to each other like a sort of individual hive-minded being. The way they move and twist their bodies is also a possible clue on how they are part of the same entity. The room is also completely mirrored, exactly divided by a line passing in-between the two receptionists. Maybe the art exposition itself is a giant living organism, and the receptionists are just a fragment of it. There is much of Silent Hill going on in their design, and for sure this is a positive note in their introductory role. Talking about the lore of Yuppie Psycho, the existence of a luxurious art exhibition inside a multimillionaire corporation doesn’t look like an off-key note, but a detail that highlights the world of excesses of rich corporate environments.

The receptionists will provide the pamphlet about the exposition, welcoming the player in the disturbing world of Suguru Tanaka, with the exhibition titled The Blood of the Devil, a world made of empty blackness and bright red geometries. The in-game exhibition is exactly how you would imagine a proper art gallery. The paintings are standing in their supports, between marble columns and with red drapes behind, divided into different sections. Each piece of art shows also its title, as a proper physical exhibition. Let’s have now a look at some of Tanaka’s paintings (virtually) exhibited inside Sintra corporation.

The typical red colors from Suguru’s works are well represented in these paintings, while the contrast with the black is able to generate a unique and surreal environment. It is also interesting to notice how red colors are sometimes part of the architectures, while the creatures are black shadows (such in The man on the right is lying), while instead in other works, such as Olivier, the monsters are redder than the environment. Giant monolithic structures and impossible architectures are not the only elements to be highlighted by ruby colors, and in some cases, organic elements substituted the levigated shapes of the buildings (as in the Hidden meaning of numbers).

Inside the art gallery, the surrounding space is composed of black and dense darkness, where only the art objects are providing life and meaning to the environment. The red colors from Tanaka’s paintings are really fabricating an interesting contrast with the environment, creating a surreal and uneasy space where the art is the most mysterious element. There are no enemies in this place, at least not physical ones, and the painting themselves are hiding the most dangerous threat: the Lady in Red. The pale woman has a disturbing grin on her face, with the skeletal body covered in a red dress. The arms are especially grotesque, so unnaturally long and thin.

The peculiar painting works as a sort of boss battle. Staring directly at the painting of this distorted aristocrat will cause direct damage to the player, as if the painting was emanating nefarious energy. The only way to defeat the Lady in Red is to use the other paintings to make it teleport around, imprisoning it in a place where could not harm anymore. The Lady in Red is a living and dangerous being, probably a part or an emanation of the entity that composes the art gallery.

Creating a proper art gallery inside a videogame is an interesting and brilliant idea, which I am curious to see expressed more often. While fictional crazy artists, such as Stefano from Evil Within 2, are able at the same time to create a twisted artistic environment and to work as the antagonist, the use of existing pieces of art is able to create a bridge between fiction and reality that often benefits horror atmospheres.

Mimes, birds, and a theater: all the meta-gaming roles of the masks in Pathologic 2

The town of Pathologic is a weird and mysterious place, where ancient traditions mix with the futurism of impossible architectures. Normality is an alien concept in this town, and every citizen is completely out of the ordinary, cryptic and mysterious characters, each of them hiding many secrets. Buildings are also as mysterious as their inhabitants, with towers of impossible geometries, staircases going nowhere, and a slaughterhouse hiding an inconceivable truth.

Between the many bizarre things, the Theater and the masks are probably the peculiar tip of the iceberg, with characters such as the Tragedians becoming almost the icon of Pathologic. The Theater is an alien world in the heart of the city, the place where everything starts and ends, connecting life and death. This is also the emblem of meta-gaming, a place where the fourth barrier is broken and the player is integrated into the game.

To fulfill its function, the Theater uses masks, a peculiar set of actors wearing the same outfit, which are spread around the town like worker-ants leaving their hive to sustain the colony. The masks are the vehicle of meta-gaming, entrusted with multiple functions, from living tutorials to creating shades of knowledge for the plot. The masks are divided into two categories: Tragedians (which I also refer to as mimes) and Executors (or Orderlies, or sometimes just birds). They both wear a traditional and complex outfit, but their purpose is completely different, as well as their behavior. Both Tragedians and Executors have multiple roles, working at the thin border of meta-gaming. There is also a strong hierarchy between the masks, with the Executors in charge of more complex roles, closer to the hearth of the Theater.

Tragedians

Completely dressed in black with an inexpressive white mask, Tragedians could appear creepy and intimidating at first glimpse, but they all share a mite temperament, rarely associated to something clearly evil. Also by focusing on their image in the loading screen, it is clear how they also share a connection with the afterlife, as the Theater itself. Their bodies are covered in scars, which are similar to the ones of an autopsy. Tragedians are the workers of the Theater-hive, a multitude of actors able to blend in the Town apparently unnoticed, fulfilling a multitude of roles and functions. They act as living tutorials, explaining the bases of the game, but also providing an inner interpretations of other characters. Tragedians act in the meta-gaming field, providing different layers and interpretations to many situations, often helping the player. In the following paragraph I will analyse the different roles and purposes of the Tragedians in Pathologic 2.

• Universal actors that could interpret any other character

As proper mimes, Tragedians like to interpret other characters in the Town, and this is usually happening at different levels. Especially in the prologue or during dreams, a secondary character will repentantly morph into a mime, showing how the Tragedian was just interpreting that character. Those events are important to show that everybody in the Town is somehow an actor, and that any mime could take that role. They are a sort of “empty template” for a NPC, raw material which could be molded in any other character. Sometimes, especially in dreams, these mimes will also act as dead characters, giving a voice, a role and a purpose to a dead character. In these occasions, the Tragedians performing this complex acting are called the “Restless Ones”.

• The inner Reflections of other characters

This is probably the most cryptic and interesting task of the Tragedians, and something that was not present in the first Pathologic. In specific moments, a mime will be standing close to an important character, usually in a complex pose, like crouched on a tall object or dramatically watching outside of a window. These peculiar Tragedians are called Reflections, and they will appear only briefly in a specific day. Their purpose goes far beyond the veil of meta-gaming, provide information that the player could not gain otherwise. The Reflections are the inner souls of the characters, breaking the wall of secret and mystery surrounding Pathologic’s characters. Just in this rare occasion, the Reflection will reveal to the player what is bothering a character, which are his fears or doubts. The Reflections are there to break the masks, providing the real key to read a character, another interesting meta-gaming element which add complexity to the world of Pathologic. Because if it is true that everybody is wearing a mask, knowing just once what is hidden beneath it will simplify or make even more complex the interaction with that character? It is also interesting to specify that a couple of characters have multiple Reflections associated to them, since they are wearing many “masks.”

• Tragedians as Living Tutorial and early help for the player

During the early stages of the game, mimes will be scattered all around the city to help the player. Yes, the player itself, not the main character. They will break the fourth barrier to explain directly  to the player concepts and rules of the town, acting as a living and integrated tutorial. They will also help the player to survive by providing free food, water or coins, everything to increase the survival rate of the player in the tough first day. Strangely, nobody in the town seems to notice the Tragedians, they are like technicians working outside the architecture of the city, exiting outside of the video game, only as a bridge between the player and the game.

• Tragedians as Living Signs

In rare occasions, the mimes will also work as living signs, with the only purpose of giving directions. Standing motionless like statues, sometimes under an invisible spotlight, the mimes will point for example to key items for the player. In a specific point in the plot, when an alarm bell is sounding, the mimes will create a human path across the city leading to the bell, standing on the side of the way but pointing toward the right direction. This is another element of the meta-gaming experience, to silently guide the player during the unfolding of the events.

Executors

The Executors are dressed in a complex bird-like outfit, described by the author of the game as Muu Shubuun, the wicked bird associated with the Reaper. More authoritarian figures, the birds look to be on a higher hierarchical level than the mimes. The Executors are also more intimidating than Tragedians, not only for their outfit with glowing eyes but also for their menacing behavior. The birds are even more connected to death than the mimes, and usually in a more threatening way. At the meta-gaming level, they are in charge of more elaborated tasks, not as merely tutorial, but driving the plot and the questions beneath.

• Driving the plot by providing clues

The Executors usually speak and order more directly and, while the mimes create the environment of a scene, the birds are the living explanation encoded in it. If the mimes act at the meta-gaming level as help or living tutorial, more connected to the gameplay, the birds are instead providing to the player puzzling clues and misty information about the main plot. They are the ones pulling the strings.

• Close to dying characters

The birds are more mysterious being, associated even more with the world of the death. They usually appear on the deathbed of infected people, standing there like a bad omen. They are the bringers of fate’s thread, vultures that mark the spot of a dying human. In the original Pathologic, an Executor was always standing outside the door of an infected character. Where the Tragedians exist to interpret any character, the Executors are instead standing when a character is ending his role.

• Orderlies: normal men helping to fight the plague

The Orderlies are contradictory and simple group of Executors rooted in the Town itself. They are random characters integrated into the story, without any association to the meta-gaming. Just random characters that help the main character to fight the Plague spreading across the city. Like for proper plague doctors, the bird-like costume is protecting them from the disease. Orderlies probably exist to increase the mystery around the Executors, to create contradiction and ambiguity. The player will have difficulty understanding if somebody wearing the costume is just a random character, a being outside the gaming-tissue, or maybe even the Plague itself! The outfit, in this case, is not a universal identifier, unable to identify what is lurking inside it.

• Talon and Beak

Talon and Beak are two special Executors, a representation of the Theater, and not only simple workers. The talon and the beak are the two main weapons of predator birds, which are used to hunt the prey, so it is not a surprise that they are also the main Executors of the Theater. They are the Alpha and Omega, the heads of all the Executors, the left and right hand of the Theater. They rarely appear outside of the Theater, acting more harsh and direct than the other Executors with the player. Talon is harsher toward humanity than Beak, probably even more associated with death and punishment than the other Executors.

• Death itself

If Talon and Beak are creepy and mean Executors, another bird is simply terrifying. If the Executors are in general connected with illness, a mysterious figure called at the beginning only “???” is probably the direct embodiment of Death itself. The mischievous creature will appear for the first time in the main hideout of the protagonist during a sort of daydream. The creature is surrounded by the hanging bodies of the kids that the main character should protect, a disturbing vision of a terrible epiphany. The bird will threaten the main character, saying that soon he will kill all the people that the main character should protect. The creature is also a clear representation of the Plague affecting the city, and will sometime appear in front of the main character after he healed somebody or prepared a cure, just to mock and threaten him.

 

The Rat Prophet: the lying emissary of an eldritch plague in Pathologic 2 [Creepy Characters]

The Rat Prophet is a mysterious being connected with the eldritch plague infecting the town of Pathologic (you can read more of the Sand Plague in my article: Pathologic – the Sand Plague: the evolution and the meaning of an eldritch sentient disease). The enigmatic creature is connected with dreams and death. It is never actively hostile, but with its puzzling prophecies and the subtle lies, he can be a mischievous adversary. If the world of Pathologic is full of enigmatic and bizarre characters, the Rat Prophet is surely the embodiment of mystery.

The prophet can manifest in at least two physical forms. The first one is a small humanoid figure, maybe a child, wrapped with a blanket but missing the hands, with rat head. This is also a similar shape to the one in the first Pathologic, just on that occasion it was more well dressed. The other manifestation is slightly more abstract and creepy, and it was showed only in Pathologic 2. The rat face is still there, but this time there are also two big and glowing eyes. But the body is now the most absurd detail, a small mass covered in a blanket and missing all the limbs, floating in the middle of the air.

The role and the purpose of the Rat Prophet are a complete mystery. The creature is often visiting other characters while they are dreaming, appearing as a prophetic being. Usually when appearing inside dreams, the Rat Prophet assumes its humanoid shape. On rare occasions the creature can also manifest in the reality, usually in the bizarre and incomplete second form. It likes to appear repentantly, outside the main view or hidden somewhere, like if it was always there watching. The Rat is a talkative being, which achieves its objectives by relying only on well suited words.

The main character will first meet him inside a dream. In this peaceful occasion, the Rat will appear only to warn the main character that people could die at night, and that the time will not stop while sleeping, a meta-gaming warning that the passing of time has consequences in the game. The other meetings are instead far more cryptic and ambiguous.

The Rat is connected to the Saburov, one of the most powerful family of the city. The mistress of the family, Katherina, thinks to be a prophet like the other families, but she is wrong. The Rat is the lying prophet who whispers in her ear fake futures and possibilities, making her believe in a gift that she never received. In the second meeting, the main character will discover the truth on why the Rat is considered a prophet.

The third meeting is the most disturbing. At the graveyard, the situation is really critical, because too many people are dying for the Plague in a town that was not prepared for so many deaths. The only option is to build huge mass graves, but in this town, the soil is a peculiar place. The dead bodies are too packed together, and this will bother them and the Earth itself. On this rare occasion, the main character can also speak with the corpses, or the Cold Ones, to understand their suffering. The Rat will manifest in its incomplete form to offer its help. It will truly calm the Cold Ones, apparently solving the problem, but it will refuse to reveal how he achieved that. After many questions, the most probable explanation is that the mischievous creature devoured half of the dead bodies. The Rat could look harmless, almost pitiful, but it is an ancient and scary being.

But the Rat is not only connected to the Earth, but also to the Theater. The enigmatic building is not only a place for actors, masks and pantomimes, the cradle of meta-gaming, but in Pathologic 2 it is also connected to the Afterlife. At each new death, the player will fall inside the alternate version of the Theater, a place for dead souls and powerful beings. It is after few deaths, that the main character will meet a scared guardian. She is terrified because somebody left the door open, and a mischievous rat-imp found its way out to the world. Sounds familiar? No space for mistakes, because the next time the Rat will be in front of the Theater, complaining about the absence of its hands and explaining  to the player the consequences of his deaths, which will affect the reality like a tumour.

If the Rat is an emissary of the Earth, why was it living imprisoned under the Theater? It said to Katherina to speak for the Earth, but is it really true? What is the true nature of the Rat Prophet?

Rats are more intelligent than worms, are like humans, or the equivalent of them for the underground world. Intelligent and smart, rats are the agents of the soil, the mouths of the mute Earth, which will  speak through them. Rats are also spreader of plagues and diseases, another connection to Earth and the Plague (even if in Pathologic 2 there are no rats, but in the first one they were truly a menace). It also defined itself as a thing of shadows, depths and Earth, merging together the definition of soil and underworld, a thing from below.  But of course everything regarding the Rat is a complex enigma, and this “below” is somehow cryptic, a word with many shades. It is in fact a dual entity, the bridge between true Earth and the underworld, a being connecting life and death.

Also, the Rat defines itself as an actor, a child of old theatrical rags. A mischievous actor, probably the greatest actor in the Town. For this reason it was living in the Theater, but as a prisoner. But now the world is its stage, and nobody is safe from its influence. It lives through lies, a wild card spreading chaos, helping or deceiving whoever it decides. The Rat is probably not following the Earth nor the Theater, but only itself.

The Rat Prophet is one of the most mysterious creatures of Pathologic, a cryptic actor, an emissary of the Plague, existing between the world of the living and the death. It is the embodiment of contradiction, an eldritch being able to break any logic behind Pathologic, existing at every level, from the meta-gaming to Deus Ex Machina of the events in the town. The Rat is a dweller of the beyond at any shade of the word, freely roaming in the under-Town, both physically and spiritually.

When the Plague of Flies is a huge humanoid fly: the Flyman from Rusty Lake Paradise [Creepy Characters]

In Rusty Lake Paradise, a small community in an island in the middle of the lake is punished with an alternative version of the Egyptian Plagues. If you are interested in a detailed description of the Plagues, including a giant spider-mantis hybrid, you can check my article Rusty Lake Paradise: the 10 new Plagues of Egypt.

In this article I will talk of one specific Plague: the flies. If in the Bible, the flies are a colossal swarm of billions of individuals, in Rust Lake there is only one fly. The Plague of the flies got condensed, and instead of a swarm of small and tedious creatures, there is only one huge and aggressive being. The Plague is now reversed, but the result could not be more terrifying. A huge humanoid-fly going around the island and hunting whatever is alive. If this is not enough creepy, let’s also say that the Flyman was before the brother of the protagonist. During the previous Plague, about gnats and lice, the brother of the protagonist decided that was a good moment to eat a lot of sweet things. Of course this didn’t end up well and the brother, after being swarmed by bugs, ended up in a huge cocoon. Exactly from that cocoon, he will be reborn as the deranged Flyman.

The Flyman is a disturbing being, not only for his appearance, but also for his behaviour. He will fly peacefully around the island, slow and heavy in the thin air. He could be also a bit comical, with the big body lifted only by two small wings. But the other members of the family know that there is a bloody mind inside that mask, and they will hide in every possible place to avoid the creature. Seriously in every possible place, such for example in a hole digged into ground or inside small furniture.

Sadly, other creatures will be not so lucky, since they will not feel threatened by this goofy flying humanoid. A rabbit and a bird will not run away from this unknown predator, paying a very high price. The Flyman will sting them with his mouth, then will probably kill them by draining their blood. And this could the same horrible destiny of the other family members, if they would be unable to hide.

Other than rabbits and birds, the father of the family will also become a victim of the Flyman. The creature that once was the son will sting in the head his own father, in a disturbing and unexpected scene. The father will luckily survive, but this will not anyway erase the creepiness of the scene.

The Flyman is a cryptic and mysterious being, without a proper explanation of his origin, or which impulses other than feeding are driving him. The creature is also mute, unable to speak and to make any sound, creating a figure even more divergent from a human being, a mysterious and incomprehensible creature unable to communicate in any form. Even more weird is that, starting from the next plague, the brother will be back to normality. And the Flyman will never appear again in the game. Like a proper natural disaster he hits, destroys and kills, to then simply vanish.

Nonetheless, even with his goofy appearance, the Flyman is a terrifying and unique character. Nobody is safe from his hungriness, not the animals, nor his parents or siblings. The Flyman will hurt his own blood, reaching the point of almost killing his own father. This is the emblem of broken familiar bounds, with a brother trying to kill his entire family. A family destroyed, forced to live in fear, hidden and hunted by one of its own. The creature is a unsolvable riddle, a being driven by an insane appetite, without any moral or logic, but apparently not considered harmful by many creatures, including his own father.

The Human Hydra of Fear & Hunger: never trust a NPC [Creepy Characters]

Fear & Hunger is for sure the darkest RPG ever made, set in a dungeon without morality and full of horrors and brutality (you can find a complete review in my other blog Dark RPGs: Fear & Hunger a journey in a land without morality). The enemies are grotesque and creepy foes, and even the secondary characters are often mysterious and disturbing beings. In the following article be aware of light SPOILERS only regarding the nature of a specific creature, just in case you want to experience Fear & Hunger without knowing nothing.

One of the first characters to meet during the game is the Human Hydra, a grotesque and huge ball made of heads and twisted corpses. The creature looks dangerous and intimidating but, after the shock of the first impression, it can be approached to talk. The monster is able to speak and will have a special request for the player: since it is hungry, it needs some food. But of course, what a creature like this wants as meal? Human meat, especially of children. The Human Hydra will make a direct and “polite” request: if the player has a young girl in the party, the monster will point to her as perfectly fitting for its taste.

What to do? The monster would not force you into doing anything, will not attack the player even if he refuses the task. There is no risk or loss. The choice is completely in the hands of the player. The Human Hydra is a colossal and mysterious being, it looks dangerous and powerful, so probably the players could be more willing to sacrifice the weak girl in order to obtain a powerful reward. Moreover, the creature is probably the first not directly hostile creature to meet during the harsh exploration of the dungeon, amplifying the feeling of positive reward associated with it.

So, you decided to feed the girl to the Human Hydra, what will happen now? The horrible act will begin with the creature screaming an awkward “Virgin Meat!”, before starting to assimilating the girl. The scene is strong and disturbing, but luckily quick. The girl will try to “swim” away from the blob of corpses, fighting her way out while shaking her hand in search of help. But the monster will drag her inside, till she disappear in a cacophony of meaty sounds.

You have done a terrible action, sacrificing a young girl to a disgusting monster, sending her toward a horrible death. What about the reward? What about the powerful weapon or the advancing in an important quest line? Nothing. The player will receive exactly nothing from the Human Hydra in exchange for the terrible sacrifice made. And to be honest, the Human Hydra never proposed anything as reward. The monster just said that was hungry, and the player decided to feed to it an important character of the team. A lesson to learn: never trust a disturbing monster.

If you are here now, probably you are very pissed off about your choices. During the dialogue with the monster, the player can also select an option to rip one of the heads off, starting a battle with the Human Hydra. A colossal and disturbing monster, made of dozen of twisted corpses feeding on human meat, surely will be an impossible enemy to defeat, especially so early in the game. Eight different heads should be severed off from the the main body in order to kill the monster. The heads are easy to cut and with few HP, but many turns are necessary to sever them all, having only few characters in the party. What terrible attacks will use the Human Hydra against you during this long fight? Insults and threats. The colossal monster cannot hurt the player, but will insult him in a rude and childish way. The terrible and disgusting creature can be easily defeated without any harm, something really unique in the dangerous world of Fear & Hunger, where a simple Guard can mutilate the main character with one hit.

Again, after defeating the monster, there is no reward. Sacrificing the girl to the monster or killing it in fight will bring to the same prize: exactly nothing. The Human Hydra is a disgusting and useless being, unable to move or feed, a lazy creature without any true power. It is a trickster, who can convince inexperienced player into committing a horrible a deleterious act without any positive consequences. The game is also having fun of the player, while teaching him an important lesson: don’t trust nothing in this dungeon, if cannot be completely sure about the risk or the reward. This choice also adds deepness and personality to the dark world of Fear & Hunger, where there is no morality and wrong choices are easy to take and often regretful.

The official background of the Human Hydra is also very disturbing. Later in the game, the Gods will answer to 3 questions of the player, providing details to the complex lore of the game. According to them, the Human Hydra born from the guards of the prison which, when madness and horror were spreading, trying to save themselves with “an act of love”. This could sounds nice, but in the deeply dark setting of Fear & Hunger, this has a very disturbing meaning. Sylvian is the Old God of love, who deeply loved humanity, but one day her love got twisted. To please the God, the followers can have sex in her name inside special circles, offering to her their “love”. What it is truly unexpected is that this act of physical love will fuse the bodies of the worshippers, creating a twisted abomination of flesh. Are you getting the point? The guards of the prison organized a huge orgy to please Sylvian, hoping to be spared from the spreading madness. But the unexpected result was that their bodies were fused in the Human Hydra. Yes, Fear & Hunger is a dark and creepy game.

To conclude, I would like to highlight how the design of the Human Hydra is heavily inspired by a creature in Junji Ito’s masterpiece Uzumaki. Another positive point to the complex design of the Human Hydra.

If you want to watch all the interactions with the Human Hydra, including sacrificing the girl and fighting it, you can watch the video on the Surreal and Creepy channel:

Cat Lady: the Crow and his daughters [Creepy Characters]

Cat Lady is a poetic and deep game, with a strong storytelling able to touch delicate and important points. The main character is Susan, a woman tired of living that will suicide at the very beginning of the game.

The afterlife is not as she expected, looking more like a disturbing and surreal paint ruled by an old lady. There are also other weird and cryptic inhabitants of this mysterious Underworld, which will play a part in the tale of Susan. The Crow and its grotesque daughters are a remarkable example on how much bizarre and disturbing the characters of Cat Lady can be. From now on will be SPOILERS of the main plot.

Susan is not able to die and will come back to life each time she is killed. After her first death, she will meet the Crow. The entity will manifest as a nervous eye inside a television, which will move frenetic. The Crow will introduce itself and will provide Susan a challenge, before making her coming back to life. Behind one door there is a big surprise for Susan, but only if she guesses the correct door.

The eye is moving around, watching and scanning. The Crow analyze everything, both the main character and the player. The design of the Crow is intended to break the fourth wall, since it is portrayed as a realistic eye, something that the player will feel real and outside of the videogame media. The player will also feel directly observed by the eye.

The name of the Crow is not a random one. In several cultures, birds and especially crows are associated with the afterlife, having the role of psychopomps. More specifically, the crows are guides for the deceased souls, responsible to highlight the correct path for them to the underworld. Also in Cat Lady, the Crow is the guide in the afterlife of Susan, the one knowing the paths she has to follow and the destiny awaiting for her. But the Crow is not a trustable guide, nor the totemic animal of the folklore, but a subtle entity playing with fate, life and secrets.

Behind the correct door, the surprise awaiting for Susan is not what she would expect, but just flower on a table. This is not a pleasant gift for Susan, but a memento connected to her worst memory: the death of her child. The Crow will anyway bring her back to life, but after making her suffer, after playing with her secrets and her memories. The Crow knows every little secrets of every deceased soul, nothing can hide from its searching eye. And it will use these secrets against you, to make you suffer.

As previously said, the Crow has two bizarre daughters. They have the form of giant dolls, with distorted faces, like if they are watched through a deforming mirror. Following a classic puzzle, one daughter is always lying, while the other is always saying the truth. The dolls are guarding two doors, but only behind one there is the gift from the Crow. Interacting with the daughters is the only way to understand which is the “correct” door.

If the design of the Crow is weird and disturbing, the daughters reach another level of creepiness. The nose and the eyes are unnaturally big and protruded, highlighting the wrongness intrinsic in these figures. In a 2D game, the daughters are the only characters with a 3D aesthetic, giving them a unique deepness, together with the ability to follow Susan turning their neck. There is something deeply unnatural in the way they are designed. The daughters are following Susan with their big and void eyes, but the 3D effect provide to them the ability to break the fourth wall and watch directly to the player, even in a more direct way than for the Crow. Worth also to specify that they are covered in blood, which will not help in identifying them as benevolent entities.

With their void eyes the daughters watch without judging the player, lost in their emptiness. The feeling of unpleasant discomfort is really high, especially their dumb staring will create a tense discomfort in the player, like being watched by a “peeping Tom”. Compared to the Crow, the daughters are also watching everything, staring directly in your life and spying on your secrets. But while the Crow is an active manipulator, which uses the secrets he collected as a weapon while guiding the souls, the daughters are passive spies, watching and knowing but without using the information collected in any harmful way. They just like to stare and observe for an empty pleasure of the void discomfort that will cause.

Everything regarding the Crow and its daughters is rooted in the feeling of having your secrets exposed. The daughters are watching what you do, following, staring without judging, but knowing everything. The Crow on the contrary is more subtle, a sort of trickster that knows everything and like to play with secrets. There are no more secrets in the afterlife, everything is revealed and exposed, used to judge, and the Crow and his daughters are the embodiment of this.

The afterlife is a dangerous place, where everything is exposed, weighted, and used against you. Especially by someone who should guide your soul to his destiny, like the Crow.

PS: I also recently discovered that the Crow is dubbed by Rem Michalski, the creator of Cat Lady himself. For a creature acting as Deus Ex Machina of the life of Susan, I found this particular quite interesting.

Harvester: who is the Wasp Woman? [Creepy Characters]

If you never listen about Harvester, this means that you missed one of the most disturbing game ever made. Let’s just say that is a gory point and click adventure inspired by Twin Peaks, with weird and disturbing characters, that also implements a fighting system. If you are curious about the weird and twisted creatures that you have to face, go to check my other article regarding the bestiary (The enemies of Harvester: the complete Bestiary).

Here I want to focus on one specific character: the Wasp Woman.

The Wasp Woman is a mysterious character that lives in an almost abandoned house. She doesn’t live there alone, but surrounded by hundred of wasps. Yes, her nickname is pretty straightforward.

She really loves the wasps and anything related to the way they live. If you try to have any conversation with her, regarding from whatever you type (yes you can type any question in Harvester), she will just say something about wasps. At her eyes they are selfish, that do not contribute to the human society and just live to sting another person. She will even praise them for their strong and symbolic sexuality!

“Yes… a great deal of pleasure… the wasp is a sensual being, not a labourer, hedonistic instead of industrial. Some think them quick to anger… in truth, they are easily swayed to ecstasy… they penetrate your flesh… and the muscular contractions in their thorax as they pump venom could be likened to the muscular contractions of ejaculation… each painful welt… an act of love.”

She is pretty useless to the game, and almost not related with any quest or character. She is only sitting in her home, talking about wasps. There is a secret that she is hiding, but can be discovered only in the most evil way. If you attack her, she will instantaneously die, showing a particular of her body that was always hidden. Her lower half is the abdomen of a giant wasp! Exactly, the Wasp Woman is literally a Wasp Woman, maybe the queen of the hive.

Some people claimed that in the original script the Wasp Woman had a very important role, and several scenes were cut from the final version. The Wasp Woman was a much complex character, and the wasps were a deadly plague affecting the city. They would defend their queen, attacking the main character if he was trying to hurt her. Also, the house of the Wasp Woman could be set on fire, freeing the wasps in a blind rage across the city, with several scenes showing the attacks.

If Harvester is strongly inspired by Twin Peaks, the Wasp Woman is clearly a reference to the legendary Log Lady. Both live isolated, are considered weird and called mainly by a sarcastic nickname. Also they apparently are unrelated to the main plot…just apparently, both probably know much more of what they show.

In one of the most gruesome scenes ever made, the little sister of the main character will eat a spider carrying the eggs of a wasp. Later on, the wasps will crawl out from her eyes! People seems to be plagued by the wasps without even knowing it, a hidden disease that is spreading across the city.

Who or what is the Wasp Woman?

Trying to avoid SPOILERS about Harvester, I will now explain my theory. The Wasp Woman is a subtle and misleading form of evilness. She doesn’t look dangerous, it is just an old crazy woman living alone. However, she is able to hide so good her true identity in plain sight. Without killing her, the player could never realize what kind of creature she truly is and, since she is never giving to anybody a reason to attack her, probably nobody would never discover her true nature. She is a devil hidden behind the facade of a harmless old woman. While she is sitting there, her wasps stealthy spread over the city, planting their eggs in unsuspecting victims, till will be too late. It is a form of evil that spread around unnoticed, killing the weaker ones, like the little sister. In our society there are many representations of this subtle evilness that spread quietly till is too late and explode, from prejudice to lies.

Maybe the Wasp Woman is literally the “Devil” of Harvester. In many dialogues, while describing the wasps, she attacks the religion and God. The bees according to her are “raised worshipping a God that demands sacrifice and atonement“, also defining the production of honey for the society as a “Judeo-Christian rite of sacrifice“. This is not true for the wasps, that are free to sting without worries, without sacrifices and heavy dilemmas, embracing their dangerous, selfish and free nature.

Do you start to see some connections?

Also, if you want to check all the dialogues and interactions with the Wasp Woman, including her terrifying death scene, have a look at the video in the Surreal and Creepy channel:

Count Lucanor: Hellish goats, disembodied goatherds and though choices [Creepy Characters]

Count Lucanor is a little weird gem, a dark fairytale where the exploration of a mysterious castle and the interaction with different characters allow the discovery of alternative scenes and endings. The most interesting features of this game are the characters and their evolution, really creepy and unsettling. A naked man thinks to be a pig transformed in human, while the decapitated head of a goatherd is using his two demonic goats as hitmen. Yes, you read right, killer hellish goats.

This last character is particularly creepy and disturbing, so let’s talk a bit about him. At the beginning of the game you will find him happily surrounded by peaceful goats. However, when the nightmare begins, the goatherd will be dismembered by his own goats. But he will survive, well, just his rotten talking head. Two hellish goats will be by his side, killing at his will. He will become a nightmarish killer, offering his services to the player.

In a particular moment of the game his goats can be used to kill two specific characters. Each goat will kill one character, and the decision is in the hands of the player. Also the player can decide to kill both the characters, making the bloody goatherd screaming happily “Party, party, grotesque party!”.

When you will come back in the room, you will see the terrible consequences of your choices. If you thought that Count Lucanor is a game for children, now you will change idea. Blood and guts are everywhere, highlighting the terrible and painful death of the characters. If only one of the characters is killed, the other will be in pain commenting the atrocity of the scene. A really though moment for a pixel art fairytale.

 

Many games allow the player to experiment the consequences of their action, but rarely I found myself so disturbed like after the dark deal with the creepy goatherd. The toughness of dealing with such intense violence in a game that looks like a “retro coming to age fairytale” is really shocking, especially thinking that the main character is just a child in search of adventure. Do not misunderstand me because I am not doing moralisms here, I just want to highlight how I was surprisedly creeped out and disturbed by this game. The Goatherd and his hellish goats will always have a place in my personal list of the most creepy and surreal characters of a videogame.

Did you know that the Goatherd was the first protagonist of Count Lucanor? Check it more in the interview that I had with Francisco Calvelo from Baroque Decay.

A Wolf in the Woods: character analysis of Darkwood [Creepy Characters]

In every woods there is a wolf. We know this very well from the fairytales. But the wolf that lives in Darkwood is far more cryptic and creepier than any other wolf. The hunter of Little Red Riding Hood would not have a chance against him.

I will try to avoid SPOILERS as much as possible while analysing the Wolf, but of course will be some minor ones.

The Wolf is the personification of the perfect hunter, in both the animal and the human world. Not only he is a humanoid wolf with a great sense of survival and a sharp instinct, but also he has a powerful rifle with him, like a proper killing machine. Wherever he is camping, not even a monster tries to enter in his perimeter, probably scared by his presence.

The Wolf is wearing a heavy coat, apparently bigger than his size, with a clear bullet hole in the heart. Nobody could survive that wound. Is he immortal? Is he wearing the clothes of someone he killed? Maybe he really had a meeting with a human hunter, and the animal won the competition. Now he is wearing these clothes as a trophy, since the Wolf is the only true hunter in Darkwood.

Human and animal coexist in this character. Sometimes he calls the protagonist “Meat”, like if was just a prey for his fangs, sometimes instead “Comrade”, like a proper soviet soldier.  He is clever and manipulative like the worst human, using the main character for his purposes and always seeking for knowledge to use as bargain money. However, sometimes he cannot control his animal side. For example, once he will jump and lick the main character face for the gratitude, like a dog. He is also very ashamed and at the same time proud of his animal side and will get easily angry if you have fun of his canine origins.

But one thing he cannot control is his hunger. The chickens of the village are his favorite target, but he aims for a better and more precious meat, the one that will truly make him happy. The Wolf feels discriminated by humans and he is searching a revenge on them. Also for this reason and to embrace more his animal nature, he lives in a doghouse surrounded only by dogs. They are the only ones truly understanding him.

The Wolf is the embodiment of the contradictions. A character born by the surreal and mysterious trees of Darkwood, the perfect hunter that lives in between two natures. But he is also a tragic character, not accepted by anybody, far from any society that is terrified by the Wolf. However, don’t feel so sorry for him, because he is also a subtle, manipulative and revengeful character.

Will you trust the Wolf?