A small observation before starting: this is the 150th article on Surreal and Creepy! And what better way to celebrate it than writing again about Pathologic 2, one of my favorite games ever.
Pathologic 2 is set in one of the richest fictional cities ever created in a video game, a place of deep and ancient traditions, full of cryptic and mysterious inhabitants struggling between conventional lore and new development of the town. Pathologic 2 is a long journey of 12 days through starvation and disease. After trying to keep yourself and the population alive, your decision will shape the story. And at the end of the 11th day, you will decide the town’s destiny and future. While the Diurnal ending will offer the possibility of roaming a peaceful town while interacting with every surviving character, the Nocturnal ending will show a very different town. In this article, I will analyze the Nocturnal Ending.
The Kin were the original population of the cold steppe, long before the town was there. The Kin is a variegated population of different beings, each with a peculiar aesthetic associated with their function inside the ecosystem. Herb Brides look like women with very few clothes, or partially naked. But the point is that they are not human. Their function is to help the herbs grow by dancing in the cold steppe… and to provide blood to speed the growth. Worms are instead very creepy and bold individuals, with very big eyes. They are not very smart but are instead almost hive-minded, working at more physical tasks. The Kin is related to Earth, worshipping the soil and protecting it. When the town started to industrialize, the Kin became victims of this event. Herb Brides were forced into prostitution, while Worms became the main workers at the Abattoir. The Sand Plague came to reclaim a place for the Kin, who are in fact immune to it. And the player can help to achieve it by pursuing the Nocturnal Ending.
To achieve the Nocturnal ending, the player must help the Kin and make the Town (or better the Udurgh, as you can read more about here: Pathologic 2 – the two faces of Mother Earth: what is slumbering under the holy ground?) survive the army. To do that, the player must find the courier with the orders for the final attack against the Polyhedron, and burn the letter. By doing that, the Sand Plague will never be healed through the underground blood of the Udurgh, and it will spread all around. The Sand Plague will obscure the sun, creating a perpetual night. However, without any more reason to harm the townspeople, the Plague will yes invade the city, but while losing its pathogenic power. It will not infect or kill people anymore, it will only morph the city environment to bring back the Kin and its most legendary exponents. The Plague will fill the air like ashes, obscuring the sun and terrifying the townspeople. On the other hand, Herb Brides happily dance under this eternal night, Worms are finally accepted by society, and the colossal Aurochs are back from their extinction. In fact, the first sign of the Nocturnal ending, after the sun’s disappearance, is the manifestation of colossal bulls all around the town.
Gargantuan shades taller than any building, the Aurochs create an even more surreal and cryptic environment during this ending. But what are these gigantic bulls? The Aurochs are a legendary breed existing in this cold steppe way before the town. Then, after the town and its industrialization, the Aurochs fell victim to the progress. When the Abattoir became the first income of the town, the Aurochs also were slaughtered there as any other bull, becoming only meat production and poisoning the earth with their blood. When the Plague takes back the town, the Aurochs stand proudly in this dark world as monoliths of a new era. Are the Aurochs copies or descendants of the bull God Boddho? Some conversations imply that they could be the same manifestation of the bull god, but being its descendants is also a viable option.
So, the town is now a plagued and silent wasteland, with colossal bulls standing all around; what happened to the townspeople? The player will find the majority of the inhabitants in the swamp, watching the horizon and a bit dozed off. As if they were under a nightmarish spell, the people barely remember the player, staring at the nothingness and unable to elaborate complex thoughts. Because, regardless of the eternal night and the plagued clouds around the streets, the town is now a safe place. The Sand Plague is not infectious anymore, it reached its purpose and now that the Kin and the Earth are respected again, it doesn’t need to kill anymore. As a sentient being, the Sand Plague knows that the war is now over, and it will not slaughter the surrendered town. If you want to read more about the Sand Plague, you can find my other article here: Pathologic – the Sand Plague: the evolution and the meaning of an eldritch sentient disease. However, no matter how many times you try to convince people that the town is now safe, they simply do not want to listen. They don’t want to share the Town with the Kin and, without any other place to go, they plan to simply wander through the steppe to search for another home. Everybody is completely detached from reality, stoned, a shell without any more purpose. People refuse to accept this change inside the town, staring at a purposeless future waiting for them on the other side of the swamp.
Not everybody is ready to leave the town, and some people, especially kids, still gather on the top of the Polyhedron, ready to live in this new reality. Masked kids scattered around the stairs of the Polyhedron are ready to provide cryptic pieces of advice to the player. As a dark reminder of its important role inside the Kin’s community, the Rat Prophet stands at the top of the tower, staring at the new kingdom that it helped to shape. Because as the first emissary of Mother Earth, the Rat cannot be happier with the outcome (and you can read more about this character in my analysis: The Rat Prophet: the lying emissary of an eldritch plague in Pathologic 2 [Creepy Characters]).
The three girls with special abilities are sitting together on the edge of the Polyhedron. They are preparing to become new Mistress, women of power always part of the three most important families in town, able to shape the town’s faith through visions. But the winds are changing, and so there is a need for new domains for the Mistresses. Grace, the daughter of the gravedigger, who always was able to communicate with the underworld and the dead ones, will become the new Mistress of the Dead, since the town has more dead people than living ones. Taya, the child of powerful dreams in charge of the Termitary, will become the Mistress of Bulls, since now there are also more bulls than people in the town. Clara, the Changeling and third playable character in the original Pathologic, will become a new Mistress. A lonely and isolated Mistress of great power, but still without a specific domain.
The player could speak also with other people in touch with the Plague who are somehow enthusiastic about this new direction. The little and weird Murky now lives in a train wagon, surrounded by all the lanterns that she was able to steal. The kid was often speaking to the Plague, but now this dark world could be scary enough for her, and to face all this darkness she needs a lot of light. Aspity is completely ecstatic about this transformation of the town, greeting you on top of one of the many unfinished stairways to heaven, and congratulating you as new the leader of the Kin.
The Cathedral, the spiritual building for the ruling family of the Kains, an eldritch structure where rumors say that time was born, is now a pagan temple for the Herb Brides. The women are dancing in the main hall, celebrating the beginning of a new era when the Kin is now at the center of the town. However, Eva from the city is also dressed as a Herb Bride, very interested in their culture and dances. However, her ingenuity could be a danger, and the player warns her about the risks coming from the Herb Brides. In fact, they could even devour her at the end of their dance. Definitively the Kin and the townspeople are at the antipodes of cultural traditions, and joining something that you don’t deeply believe or understand, could be extremely dangerous. Somehow, Eva here is a representation of cultural appropriations, including dangers and offenses related to it.
The Nocturnal Ending of Pathologic 2 is an incredibly dark experience, a portrait of a new world where the old beliefs are re-established that can be truly experienced only by reaching this ending, offering something that not even the original Pathologic was able to show.
You can also check the complete video of the Nocturnal Ending in the Surreal and Creepy YouTube Channel. Link below:
The sun shines high in the sky, the grass is green, the new neighbours look really friendly, and the town smells of cake. What could go wrong? Sometimes a lot of things, especially if you are unlucky enough to finish in a Town with a Dark Secret. This trope is quite well explored in horror and mystery movies and TV shows, from the Village to the cult-hit Twin Peaks, jumping to the recent Third Day with Jude Law.
The communities in these shows have a lot in common. At first glance, they are the example of a small but united community, where everybody is friendly, welcoming, and smiling; probably they are small and isolated communities, but for sure they know how to create a warm environment. But the more time foreigners are in touch with these communities, the more they start to discover the secrets and the questionable traditions, and how the environment is simply “wrong.” Towns with a dark secret are bounded communities that share common beliefs and hide very well their questionable practices. Often the trope is related to religious cults or Lovecraftian gods, worshipped in secret by the community. This is not a surprise since Lovecraft is the father of some of the most famous towns with a dark secret, especially Innsmouth.
Video games also explored this concept, often in gigantic open-world RPGs as part of a sub-quest. The Elder Scroll and Fallout series always have quests surrounding towns with dark secrets, maybe it is a welcoming town of cannibals, or a community worshipping eldritch gods. If in these games, the village with a secret is a very simple and secondary element, other games have as main topic a cult set in a remote and isolated community. Often, the games are survival-horror, with the best examples in the Japanese masterpieces of the genre Silent Hill and Siren. If nobody can argue that Silent Hill is about a town with a dark secret, the linear exploration and the too limited free-roaming elements are somehow misusing the trope, lacking for example the interaction with characters. Other examples, such as Call of Cthulhu Dark Corners of the Earth, are truly representing the concept but only in the introductory section of the game, to then morph into more linear experiences forgetting free-roaming and character interaction.
So what games are the best example in terms of gameplay and structural elements to portray the tension of towns with a dark secret? To start, in my opinion, the game should have a free-roaming, but not as a small fragment of a gigantic and variegate open world, but limited only on the town and its surrounding, to best build a continuous tense atmosphere without watering it down as a filler. The freedom should also be reflected in the dialogues and each secondary character should be freely addressed and questioned at any moment. This is an important concept to define a town as a community, but also to provide the player with the freedom and the tools to understand and discover more about the town. The characters should also be enough mysterious and with different personalities or backgrounds, creating a tense atmosphere of “who should I really trust?” A rewarding feeling in these games is also associated with the freedom of exploration, especially linked to finally entering a forbidden place that was there all the time. To ultimately obtain access to the mysterious church in the middle of the town, just to make a random example, is a strong emotional moment of reaching the root of all the mysteries, the Gordian knot, after wandering or listening about this building for a long time. I also give extra importance to games associated with towns with a secret if the player also has a fixed amount of days to discover and explore, with differences between days and nights, and a classic descent into madness the more the final day is approaching. To me, this is really the perfect equation on how to truly explore and enjoy the trope “Towns with a Dark Secret” inside video games.
For this article, I selected games following the aforementioned criteria. For each game I will briefly talk about the town, the characters, and the mystery surrounding the city, providing just a small taste of the complete experience. So if you want to truly understand and explore these cursed cities, you should embark in the journey and discover it by yourself. The article is a continuous work in progress and new games could be added in future if fitting in the set of rules to best portray a town with a dark secret.
Pathologic
Introduction: If you follow my blog, you should probably know already that Pathologic is one of my favorite games ever. The player has 12 days to discover the secrets of the town and to stop a mysterious sentient plague. In the first title, there are three different characters to play, each of them will have different access to knowledge, places, and interactions with the secondary characters. In 12 days, the player can explore and interact with everybody, giving preferences to favorite characters, and fighting to make them survive the plague. The sequel is an improvement in everything, but, at the moment, with only one playable character. Anyway, if you are looking for more info, you can check my review: Pathologic 2 Review: a metaphysical and unique simulation that will test your survival skills.
Town: This probably one of the best examples of fictional towns enriched with believable traditions, religion, and folklore. A place full of mystery, where the old rites and legends collide with the modern view and industrialization. The town exists isolated in the middle of the cold steppe, creating a unique folkloric environment. Some of the buildings are especially mysterious, for example, the Theater, a bridge not only with the afterlife, where cryptic masks are performing every midnight, but also a meta-gaming fracture of the wall with the player. Other examples are the Polyhedron, an impossible tower breaking any geometry inhabited only by kids, and the hermetic Abattoir, which on the contrary hides more “earthly” secrets.
Characters: Dozens of characters, one more deep and interesting than the others, are necessary to give life to this complex and rich society. Every line of dialogue is a clue and a new element of the complex puzzle, for a total of thousands of lines of dialogue shaping this cryptic encyclopedia. Focusing on interesting characters will be a necessity, especially in the sequel, where they can easily fall victims to the disease. Some characters are important for the spiritual or economic side of the town, often in positions of power and control over the flow of information. Others are more cryptic and difficult to reach, for example, the Mother Superior, a kid acting as the leader of the inhuman workers born from the steppe. Things will get really creepy with the most mysterious and alien characters, with a special mention to the Rat Prophet (you can read more in my dedicated analysis The Rat Prophet: the lying emissary of an eldritch plague in Pathologic 2 [Creepy Characters]) or the Albino.
Mystery: Understanding all the mysteries inside Pathologic is a titanic work, which requires complete attention and multiple plays. Between the lore of the town, the secrets, traditions, the role of each character and building, plus metaphysic and meta-gaming connections, there is so much to make implode even the most dedicated mind. But here lies the beauty of such complex and majestic work. Pathologic is the quintessence of the town with a dark secret, a convoluted maze of secrets, half-whispered words, and a complex relationship with characters. The different points of view and the additional layers of the three playable characters will even stratify more the complexity of the town.
Harvester
Introduction: Even with almost 30 years on the shoulders, Harvester is still one of the most creepy and disturbing point and click adventures ever made. Seriously, this is not a game for everyone, really sick and twisted, but also a unique experience out of time, with real actors and disturbing FMV scenes. In Harvester, the main character is the generic young-adult Steve, which for some reason is obsessed with becoming a member of the mysterious Lodge. But of course, the task will not be easy, and the Lodge Master will ask each time for more weird or unethical tasks. The game also includes a combat-system, more used in the insane second half of the game.
Town: The town can be freely explored by selecting any location on the map. Except for the Lodge in the middle of the city, and probably for the nuclear missile base, there is nothing apparently out of the ordinary in the other buildings, just everything that you would expect in a small town. But the freedom in Harvester doesn’t end here, since the player can even kill any characters around, since the game also features a primitive but appreciated combat system. Of course, killing somebody will immediately catch the attention of the police, and Steve will finish on the electric chair for an unconventional Game Over scene. Weirdly enough, a rare item also works as “out of prison pass” allowing to kill somebody without facing a game over.
Characters: The inhabitants of the town range from bizarre to completely psychotic, sometimes in really unexpected ways. Steve’s mother is one of the most peculiar examples: behind the facade of a housewife stereotype lies a sick and obscure secret. Even really secondary characters have their mysteries, for example in the case of a little boy that comes to collect the old newspaper each morning. If you forget about it, at the beginning he will kindly ask to remember next time. The more days pass, the more threatening the kid will become, till the point when he will try to gun you down. If you want to check even more the peculiar characters living in this town, especially one with a huge secret, I suggest you read my analysis on the Wasp Woman: Harvester: who is the Wasp Woman? [Creepy Characters]. The freedom of interaction is even bigger since, during the dialogues, every possible word can be typed to check if there is a response. A famous example is when a player asked to everybody “f**k you,” only to receive a really disturbing answer from Steve’s mother. Who knows how many secret conversations are still hiding in Harvester.
Mystery: Of course, the Lodge is the most mysterious building, hiding the big secret of the town. And it is more than a simple cult. When the player will finally have the chance to enter inside the Lodge, everything will drastically change. A crazy and erratic world of surreal rooms and bizarre characters will open to the player. Let’s just say that the clown wielding a chainsaw in the first Dead Rising was not the first clown to do that. I will not enter in more spoilers, but if you want to discover the secret of the town and what is hiding in the Lodge, you should pass the daily amoral trials of the Lodge Master (or if you really want to check, here a complete analysis of all creatures and characters inside the Lodge: The enemies of Harvester: the complete Bestiary).
Deadly Premonition
Introduction: The game that made famous Swery and polarised the critic back in 2010 is a love letter to Twin Peaks, and it became a cult-game even with all its flaws. Francis York Morgan is a detective with a peculiar personality called to investigate a series of mysterious murders in a small town, practically the equivalent of Agent Cooper in Twin Peaks. The game is a quirk survival horror with free-roaming and adventure moments. The combat system is a bit superficial but still able to do its job while fighting the mysterious creatures appearing by night. The game got famous especially for the plot and the well-written characters, with a special mention to the protagonist, a funny and peculiar character that was able to have long monologues on existing B-movies, including the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.
Town: There is a lot to explore and discover, many characters to interact and activities to do. The town is vast and freely explorable by car, of course paying extra caution to don’t finish the gasoline. Fishing is also an activity here, but when the murders will start to pile up, everything will get denser. By night the town will change, and disturbing creatures will roam in the streets, including gigantic hounds able to impact the car as if they were monolithic rocks. Managing the quests accordingly to the time and looking for collectables are also important tasks.
Characters: Everybody in the town is quirk and bizarre, and, in the beginning, it would look crazy to think that a killer is hiding between them. Some characters are particularly well written and, by the end of the journey, the player will get attached to them. Others are instead only plainly weird, from the sexy lady at the car wash, to the gravedigger hiding a maze in his basement. A special example is the pot lady, a woman going around with a mysterious pot of food, clearly inspired by the legendary Log Lady of Twin Peaks. Secondary characters will provide quests during the days, some more interesting than others, but always contributing with new information about the characters involved. If you are really curious about the routine of specific characters, you can even spy them from the windows of their houses. A creepy but effective way to discover more about them.
Mystery: The murders will get each time more and more extreme and bizarre, and supernatural elements will start soon to be a central point in the game. Parallel misty dimensions full of monsters are only the tip of the iceberg, and soon a mysterious tree will take the spotlight. Prophetic dreams and cryptic mind palaces are also complicating the plot, with interesting vibes homage to David Lynch. The immortal raincoat killer will also start to stalk the player wielding an axe, and hiding will be the only way to escape his fury.
A Place for the Unwilling
Introduction: The gorgeous and cartoonish art-style should not distract you from the fact that this game is a love letter to the works of Lovecraft and his cosmic-horror atmosphere. In the game, you have 21 days to understand the mystery behind your old friend’s suicide, and to discover the secret of the city. Trading is a crucial task, together with gaining the trust of townspeople, but it is important to remember that not every single objective can be completed in one day. Defining priorities is a crucial task, for this reason, pen and paper will be a useful ally to plan your steps. Because the clock is always ticking. Sounds familiar? I hope if you read my blog yes, because A Place for the Unwilling is also inspired by Pathologic, both for structure and mechanics, just this time you have more than 12 days, and the survival and fighting elements are missing (and for some players this can be a plus).
Town: The town is clearly inspired by Victorian London, with smoke and steam covering the streets. The map is quite large, with several districts and landmarks, but luckily a Fast Travel option will also help to move around. The art-style is simply gorgeous, creating a unique environment that can easily be both colorful and warm, as well as cold and detached. The lore of the town is incredibly full of details, not only there are landmarks and books scattered around to enrich the experience, but the player can even buy daily newspapers, beautifully crafted and illustrated, an example of meticulous attention to detail. The city is a place of social clashes, a community built with steep steps between the rich and the poor, where the workers are fighting against the classism of the ruling elite. But in this case, political and social tension merge together with a Lovecraftian environment. The rich fictional world of Lovecraft and his followers is imbued in this world, with references to the town of Innsmouth, or how a farm got devastated by what was described only as a “color.” And if references are not enough, a spectacle called the King in Yellow is in town, and with enough money you could even buy a ticket.
Characters: The town is full of characters, especially shopkeepers, which not only are gears of the complex machinery of the town, but are also essential to the trading business. The majority of people are extremely kind, always able to offer interesting and rewarding conversations, proving additional lore about their past, the town, and the world itself. By doing quests, favors, or upgrading their business, the main character will enter more and more in confidence with the townspeople, starting to discover the secrets and the mysteries beneath the society. It is possible to also join secret societies or clubs, or taking sides between clashes and rivalries, for example, a mother and her son’s widow, or in the neverending social battle between the workers and the elite. In this town even the most mild and gentle personality could hide a terrible secret.
Mystery: The secrets and mysteries surrounding the city are deep and well hidden behind the colors of 7 families. A city built in 20 years, rich and functional, but also so much older than that. A place where dreams are vivid, even if sometimes people dream only of colors. Other dreams are instead more prophetic and almost alive, like existing in another realm. There is a lot to discover and several characters will offer different fragments of knowledge and lore. Helping a librarian to upgrade his shop, and you will explore an impossible maze of forbidden books and new knowledge. But it is good to remember that only a few citizens are truly holding the keys to the deepest secrets of the town. And when the brutal murders will start to spread in the city, friends and foes could be already decided. Without forgetting that the spectacle of the King in Yellow is in town.
Lakeview Valley
Introduction: This game is a huge surprise for many reasons. First, it is a lot deeper than expected, with many secrets, play-styles, and things to discover. Second, I think that it is hugely inspired by Harvester, same grotesque and disturbing atmosphere, but this time with more freedom to explore the town and its many secrets. The game is defined as a “serial killer RPG,” and this is saying already a lot about the gray morality of the game. Because if it true that you can be a popular saviour inside the town, it is also true that it is even easy to become the town’s worst nightmare. Multiple-endings are there to reward the different styles: being a holy saint and you will achieve something, murder everybody in secret instead for another ending. Killing people will also unlock dark gifts such as infinite stamina or a better HUD, so surely the good path here is more challenging. Because the player has one week before the final revelation, deciding how to spend each day will decide the mysteries discovered. And if this was not enough complex, NG+ are available, and several quests will update and continue in further plays.
Town: The small town doesn’t look immediately weird or bizarre, with the exception of the mysterious creature hiding inside trees trying to confuse the player’s morality. There is the sheriff investigating on any death, small shops, a dining close to a lake, and nice forests with a graveyard surrounding the town. Darker buildings will also appear while going down the path of the killer, including a huge and disturbing circus. As expected from a small town, the people are nice and welcoming, with very few exceptions. The player has one week to explore the town, spending the time in the preferred way: fishing, improving the home, gardening, search stones to repair the sauna, talking with people, enjoying wild intercourses, or even planning how to murder everybody and don’t get caught. Because if on one side gaining popularity will make townspeople happy and welcoming, murdering them will pleasure the night creatures. Because by night, the town will change.
Characters: Even during the day there are weird and unexpected surprises, especially from the characters. A villager will simply shoot at the main character if he trespasses on his property, or a dumb clown will decide to follow the player all day just to see if he is doing bad deeds. A preacher will visit only on Saturday night to check the player’s moral compass, while the headmaster of the circus will unlock gifts and items if the player kills townspeople. The town and its inhabitants are full of secrets to discover, from relationships and quests to more hidden things, like an entirely hellish dimension that can be reached only by sleeping in a specific bed. There are many things to do and discover, and one week will not be enough to understand everything, this is why multiple playthroughs are necessary to really enjoy what the game has to offer.
Mystery: The first bizarre thing to notice during the night is that the inhabitants will disappear, substituted by silent butterfly versions of them. More aggressive and creepy creatures will start to appear, from the fragile Moth People, to a huge pig, or a black shadow which will hide under the bed if attacked, saying each day new disturbing things. Seriously, the most creepy characters and hermetic mysteries will come alive at night, including literally the disturbing scarecrow that during the day will only creepily stare at you. Each ending will also reveal a new side of the town’s mystery, while complex quests and rewards are unlocked only by completing a series of challenging actions.
Helltown
Introduction: Helltown is a first-person low-poly adventure where the protagonist starts to work as the postman in a small and isolated community, still under construction, which will soon reveal to hide more than a secret. Playing the postman is an innovative point of view in these games and, especially at the beginning, will allow discovering small clues about the community through the smells and the shapes of the mysterious packages. The game is divided into days and some night events, but it becomes quite linear in its second half. Dying is also easy, and the creatures roaming in the night are challenging and relentless foes: running and hiding is the only hope to escape these horrors. Helltown is a more confined and short example than other titles in the article, but definitively fitting the trope.
Town: The town is small and still under construction, but this is part of its personality, with half-built houses and raw structures scattered in the forest. The bucolic community is surrounded by nature, sending strong vibes of the ideal American town in the 1950s. There are also hidden and mysterious elements around the town, such as a peculiar manmade structure of stones, a dark cave, and a hidden cabin in the woods. On top of a small hill, watching down on the town in all its mystery, lies a hermetic church, center of all the secrets of the town. The town is small but surely able to show its personality.
Characters: The inhabitants of the town look like clones jumped out of a time machine, all trying to be perfect and friendly like a forgotten US society, with a fake and disturbing smile printed on their faces. Especially at the beginning, each day will bring new conversations, and some of the characters will provide sibylline and cryptic details. But if the townspeople are not providing many clues later-on, small and grotesque abominations living in a dungeon, which separates the living from the dead, will have more information regarding the supernatural phenomenon scourging the town. Because when the reality will start to shake, other beings will become the new citizens of the town.
Mystery: The town will quickly show its anomalies by night, at first to the player while sleeping in the hotel, and later by spreading through all the city. Monsters will start to roam the streets, a quite variegated horde, from spider-like creatures, to crawling half-body demons, or sort of puppet-undead versions of the townspeople. But of course, finally getting access to the mysterious church will unveil the secrets of the town. Plus, the game has multiple endings, quite different and difficult to achieve, including a “dog ending” for fans of Silent Hill.
Pale City
Introduction: If by looking at the images you are thinking that this is another random game made using RPGmaker and with a corny plot, well, I hope you will change idea because this is a really dark and original RPG with incredible writing. The best thing about the Pale City is definitively the world-building, which has an insane amount of lore. The gameplay is pretty standard but satisfying. Often you will fight alone against multiple opponents, and a good strategy and balance will be necessary to survive.
Town: I don’t want to spoil much, but this is a grim world where babies are born crawling out of tunnels to then finish in an indifferent city hoping that somebody will adopt them. Of course, the few ones that can crawl out alive. Gods are dumb or insensitive beings far from humans, living isolated or eternally digging tunnels. Then, you have a huge variety of weird cults, totally insane characters, and every possible mischievous act. This is not a game for the faints of heart, because some moments could go really dark. The city is growing on the mass of corpses of the people dying, absorbed directly inside the Platform. There is no other place to escape since the city is the only structure existing in this dangerous world, otherwise entirely composed of a black and deadly sea. This game has a quantity of deep and interesting lore, enough to potentially generate sequels and spin-offs. Every room or character is there for a reason and will provide an additional level of information about the world. During the game, the player will visit many places inside the town, from the Mage Academy, to more obscure places such as an infinite garden existing inside a building, or the tower of a silent god surrounded by insane people asking him to speak. The journey will also lead to more dangerous places, such as the tunnels and the darkness beneath the town, or a hidden demonic society hidden inside a well.
Characters: The characters are always interesting, reminding me of what Yoko Taro made with Drakengard. There are no good or likable characters, but each of them is interesting in its shades of gray, or of black, if it had shades. A lot of choices will really make you feel dirty, and sometimes the most mischievous act will reward the player. Seriously, from the main character to every inhabitant and party member, there is nobody worth of empathy, and each of them will share a path of self-destruction and questionable moral choices. Some characters are very interesting and mysterious, from the criminal kingpin fused with a grotesque parasite, to a wild magician always silent. Guilds and societies are also extremely innovative and well-planned, always creepy and disturbing, especially the House of Life and its leader, in charge of retrieving the dead bodies of children unable to escape the tunnels.
Mystery: The game is quite long, almost 15 hours including the majority of the side quests. It is also full of secrets and interesting hidden scenes, which will often reward the player with lore and experience. Every dialogue is enriching and will open to new lore and traditions of the city, while exploring the side-quests will offer questionable but rewarding decisions during the end game phase. The combats are not oppressive and only functional to the plot, so understanding the existence of the city, its secrets, and elements, is the major driving for the player.
Paradise Killer
Introduction: This game came out as a huge surprise and, for sure, one of my favorite games of 2020. Paradise Killer is a first-person detective adventure set on a colorful tropical island full of lore, traditions, and secrets. The main character, Lady Love Dies, is there to investigate a complex murder-mystery related to the complete slaughtering of the ruling council. Exploring the island in search of clues and questioning the several characters is the only way to discover the culprit, in a balanced mix of exploration and deduction. Interestingly, the game can be finished at any moment by calling the final trail, but, of course, several hours are necessary to truly understand what happened.
Town: This time it is more appropriate to talk of an island, more than a town, a huge space that can be explored in any direction, from jumping on top of buildings to climbing mountains. The lore of the game is so complex that I will need pages to analyse everything, but let’s start with some details. The island is the number 24 of a long list of islands created by an immortal elite while searching for perfection, but each of them somehow failed to create the perfect society. From the deceiving plans of cosmic gods to the invasion of demons, each island was destroyed and a new one was built. There are many mysterious and interesting places to access inside the island, from a prison, to a temple on top of mountain, ancient graveyards, and even a sealed pyramid: each time a new location will be discovered, will bring a river of new info and lore. Seriously, there are dozens of collectables providing information about games, traditions, and even the gods worshipped on the island (and for more info, here my complete analysis about the cosmic gods: Worshipping Cosmic Goat-like Gods: mythology and pantheon of the resetting islands of Paradise Killer). The only suggestion is to take your time to truly explore and understand one of the deepest and interesting locations inside a video game in recent years.
Characters: The characters are a reflection of the insane and colorful island, each of them more bizarre and peculiar than the others. Just to have an idea, Crimson Acid is an idol blessed by the gods with a goat head instead of her face, while Witness of The End is a religious zealot always wearing a mask and supervising the end of each island. Oh, and of course how to forget about Shinji, a punk blue demon teleporting around and existing in multiple places at once. No matter how colorful or eccentric the characters can be, in the island they are the bad guys, many of them forming the Syndicate, an elite of immortal beings in charge of resurrecting old gods using kidnapped people, while building their perfect paradise, regardless of the consequences of whoever is outside the Syndicate.
Mystery: Paradise Killer is a world of hidden lore and knowledge, of constant lies and secrets hard to reach. Each new dialogue, item, or location will add new pieces to the puzzle, a complex mixture of cosmic gods, multiple universes, and a metaphor about capitalism. In fact, common citizens are kidnapped and forced to worship dead cosmic gods, in order to feed their psychic energies to resurrect them, while the immortal elite is only planning their perfect paradise. With a bit of effort, the player will reach the murder room after passing protective seals, learning how the murder is even more complicated than it looked before, while obtaining all the passwords will allow the access to what is slumbering inside the pyramid, or the truth about the “Purification Ritual” once reaching the main temple. If talking several times with characters and buying their secrets will open and new world of background, alibi, and motifs, it is through the dozens of collectables scattered everywhere that the player will truly understand the nature of the island, and of the islands that existed before.
To Dawn and Back
Introduction: This game is a small but welcomed surprise, a free game available on Itch and really fitting into the category of towns with a secret. In the game, you play as a mysterious kid, which has 7 days to explore and interact in a decadent city inhabited by grotesque mutants. A first-person adventure where dialogues and choices are at the base of the gameplay, but also a random component of dream sequences will help to shape the experience.
Town: A decadent maze of dirty streets and walls full of graffiti is what truly defines the city, a place clearly not welcoming and uneasy since the first exploration. There are few important buildings such as the apartment block, where many characters have their houses, the cryptic and amoral Church, and a nice convenience store. The exploration is rewarding, especially since each new day will unlock more areas to explore and will change the dialogues with the secondary characters. Worth also to notice how different decisions are mutually exclusive or limited, not only for quests and dialogues, but also in terms of items such as the lock-picks. Inside the city, there are several locked doors, but only a small amount of lock-picks available for each play. Multiple plays will be necessary to open every door and to discover the secrets hidden behind. At the end of each day, the kid will talk with his mother of what he made, and the mother will react to the decisions of the boy.
Characters: There is nothing ordinary in the disturbing, grotesque, and abstract mutant-like creatures inhabiting the city. The kids and his mother and the only exception, the others are like a bizarre and twisted carnival. Tall-skinned humans speaking almost randomly, sleeping abominations, artists that crucified as a form of art, and gigantic half-deer zombie-heads apparently speechless: the town is the house of the most alien characters you can imagine. But they all work out as proper citizens, living in their house, or working at some places. Some creepy characters are hidden or spying from far rooftops, but they can be easily identified by zooming into them. The dialogues usually change day by day, and some creatures will speak to the player only on specific days, while others will offer proper quests. Every inhabitant is portrayed with red colours, a bit out of focus, creating even more intense surreal and dreamlike designs, which become the visual mark of this project.
Mystery: The dialogues with the characters, the daily events, and the possibility of accessing new places and events are what is driving the gameplay and the curiosity of the player, creating a sense of hope for the next day. Will the giant zombie head ever speak? What if in my next play I accept to put a hand while closing my eyes as the speaking-hole suggested? The surreal and mysterious atmosphere plays a strong role here, even if at some point it drifts more toward the political and social satyr of the US system, especially after participating in the bizarre rites at the church. A shorter and less complex experience than the other games in this article, but definitively a game to try and explore, even more since it is free.
Smile for Me
Introduction: Whimsical and colorful adventure in first-person, where the main task of the player is to bring again the smile on the faces of many unhappy characters. But believe me or not, the game is also fitting in this article because under the cartoonish façade lies a dark soul. Habitat is the name of a mysterious community where sad people go to try discover again how to smile, a sort of surreal rehab for unhappy people. Everything in this game is full of personality, from the bizarre characters to the interface and the dialogues. Each character has a series of tasks that need to be solved in order to make it happy again, usually involving exploration and the use of several items. Interestingly, the player has total freedom in deciding which characters to help in a limited amount of time. Because the days will pass, and you should return to your (talking) bed by night before it gets too late. Breaking the curfew will have unpleasant surprises, other than making you lose time for the next day.
Town: Habitat is a weird and surreal environment, between a town and an insane rehab clinic, full of cameras and extravagant doctors. There are different areas composing the community, which are usually closed or off-limits, and the only way to access them is by completing the requests of different characters, such for example to access the lounge or the carnival. The last one is an especially bizarre place, with a giant mouth in a corner, and creepy paper puppets in charge of the different games. The apartments work as the main hub of the game, the place where the player should come back before the curfew at night. The consequences of failing in doing this are quite… disturbing. Of course, the more characters become happy, the more the items collected, which can be used to unlock new and mysterious areas. Fliers and posters scattered around the city are also providing interesting details to expand the lore of the setting.
Characters: The characters are the central point of the game, each one more peculiar and bizarre than the others, with personal reasons to be sad and relevant tasks associated to recover their smile. From a bipolar clown and an evil little girl looking for a way to make the clown cry, to a gentle luchador, and even a gardener vampire: the 22 characters are all very peculiar and bizarre, with different stories and backgrounds. Some of them are particularly mysterious and depressing, such as somebody living inside a hole with written around “I gave up peace” and recognising people only by looking at pictures. Trying to make everybody happy is a complex but rewarding task and, the more quests completed and days passing, the more new characters will appear. There are also secondary characters in charge of administrating this mysterious rehab community. The games at the carnival are organized by weird origami-persons, really bizarre and creepy for appearance and dialogues. For example, one of them will even ask you to prove that you are made of flesh! But at the top of this absurd pyramid sits the doctor in charge of Habitat, which of course is a real puppet providing its questionable pieces of advice in recorded videos.
Mystery: Soon after arriving, the player will realise that there is something weird and mysterious hidden behind Habitat. Several characters complain about the community, a boring place where they just wait in their sadness, without much to do. Also, the puppet in charge of the community doesn’t look very glad when the player helps its patients, and it constantly reminds of how this is wrong, and waiting is the key to make people happy. Plus, the disturbing videos playing at night as a punishment for breaking the curfew add another layer of surreal uneasiness. The mysterious atmosphere is enhanced by the intentional lack of information regarding hidden gameplay elements, which will definitively worry the player. How many days do I have to make everybody happy? How many times can I break the curfew before something really bad happens? These are only a part of the open questions that will cross the mind of new players while trying to solve the mystery behind Habitat and the doctor in charge.
And if you want to check what will happen at night, after breaking the curfew of the disturbing puppet, here is a video about it in the Surreal and Creepy YouTube channel:
Kraken Academy
Introduction: Kraken Academy is definitively the less horror game on this list, nonetheless, it is also one of the most fitting for this article for topic, gameplay elements, and execution. Mixing absurd comedy and a pinch of dark humor, Kraken Academy is set in a mysterious school that will be destroyed in three days… in an apocalypse mixing earthquakes and a swarm of ferocious crocodiles. Yes, the game is quite insane. The main character must help a gigantic Kraken to discover the Traitor behind this problem and save the school, to do this, he will receive an amulet to travel back to the beginning of the week. The gameplay is a brilliant adventure featuring all the perfect elements of the sub-genres that I described in the introduction: many characters and their sidequests, a three-day routine divided into days and nights, plus the ability to even reset the days while keeping all the items. For example, some quests can only be solved by collecting items in the last days, to then reset the cycle, while dating characters can also be done once per cycle. This is to show how resetting the days is a key component to understanding everything that is happening in Kraken Academy.
Town: In this case, the town is more specifically a school, but still surrounded by lore and interesting locations. First, there are four different clubs in the school, each associated with a subject, such as sport or art, and with a mysterious guardian spirit. Also, the students of each club are very different in personality and behaviour, and each club has its mysteries and quests to solve. The clubs are not accessible since the beginning, and different time loops are necessary to explore everything. At the end of each time loop, a specific mission will start, allowing to discover even more secrets regarding the school. What is happening in the abandoned dorm? Is there a secret bunker below the fountain? Are there ghosts in the art exhibition? Managing the time will also allow to access secret events and quests, for example, attending the classes at each club only on specific days of the week. The school is full of secrets and stays fresh till the very end, when you can discover how to dig for treasures, or how the vending machines are starting a revolution.
Characters: Insane, bizarre, and over-the-top characters are the common rule in Kraken Academy. From a cute human-broccoli girl to a boxer obsessed with fighting bears or a girl who always rides a dumb-looking horse, the school is definitively an extravagant place. And, of course, this without considering the giant Kraken living by the lake and able to control time. Some characters can also be quite creepy sometimes. For example, when the Broccoli Girl is eating broccoli, the main character will make her notice that this is cannibalism. She will then laugh, answer something like “I guess so,” and then just continue eating. Each character has a schedule through the different days and nights, plus often a personal quest to achieve their friendship. Time loops are often necessary to complete the most challenging quests, while following the character schedules allows understanding more about their behaviour and personality. Because many secondary quests are a welcome surprise to discover more about the Academy, for example why Broccoli Girl is a vegetable, or what happened to the students “sent to the woods.”
Mystery: Kraken Academy is an insane place full of mysteries, from small ones to complex conspiracies. With more days passing, the earthquakes will get more frequent, and devouring-child crocodiles will start to appear in the school. This is related to the big mystery that the giant Kraken asked you to solve, but many characters and clubs have their personal mystery. For example, children are disappearing, there is something hidden under a fountain, bears are living in the woods, ghosts haunt abandoned storage rooms, oh, and without forgetting the gigantic Kraken living by the lake. And if the clubs are strange, try to join by night the mysterious demon-summoning cult established by the art teacher.
Traditions and taboos can be older than living people remember, and their true meaning could be lost in time, evolving in ethereal rules still followed, but without truly knowing the purpose. The mysterious Town of Pathologic 2 lies in the middle of a cold steppe, a system completely isolated from the outside world, kept alive by ancient traditions and rites. The land itself and the bulls are worshipped and sanctified, while the inhabitants live together with ancient creatures from the steppe. However, the Town is evolving, facing a conflictual relationship between past and future, where old buildings are repurposed as factories, and old rites are forgotten in function of modern architecture.
The earth and the soil itself are considered holy, worshipped as a benevolent and welcoming mother, but also feared as a punishing God, which is called Boddho by the believers. A set of strict dogmas protects the integrity of the earth, creating taboos and restrictions to respect such an ancient being. For example, digging holes in the ground is a forbidden crime in the Town, and only specific individuals have the permit of performing this controversial task, such as the guardian of the graveyard. Of course, not everybody is following the rules, and several people are digging and exploring the underground. In a hidden abandoned house, the son of an important personality built the first and only well in the town, not for searching for water, but for understanding the secrets hidden beneath the Town. The kids are a cryptic sub-system inside the Town, which is usually driven into breaking other taboos (as you can read in my analysis of the first Pathologic: The cryptic Kids of Pathologic: dangerous games for children). A group of kids known as the soul-at-halves is secretly using the holes in the ground, but for a more disturbing and evil purpose. When the kids need to punish an enemy, instead of killing or imprisoning him, they will prepare a special trip inside of one of those underground tunnels for their enemy. That person will come back from the tunnels completely changed, practically stoned and traumatised. Whatever truth was revealed to the prisoner while he was underground, it was enough to break his mind.
Dead bodies are also brought back to the ground when death comes for their life. Burying people is the only way to celebrate a funeral in agreement with the traditions. Cremating a body is considered a regretful sin and a mischievous offense to the deceased, and even during the epidemic, it will be difficult to change the customs of the Town. The gravedigger is considered a holy and respected profession passed down through generations. Digging graves is probably the only exception to excavating the ground, and this can only happen inside the holy graveyard and by the hands of the guardian. In rare occasions, such as for the father of the main protagonist, bodies can also be rejected by the ground, like foreign elements considered too impure to be welcomed back to the ground.
As previously said, Boddho is also a punisher god. Mother earth will not stay silent when the humans destroy and vandalise its sacred ground, and released a deadly and sentient disease called the Sand Plague (for more info, check my article: Pathologic – the Sand Plague: the evolution and the meaning of an eldritch sentient disease). The terrible illness came directly from a hole in the ground, dug with the intention of freeing such terrible weapon as a way to cleanse the Town. The disease is mother earth’s scream, a defense mechanism to purge and bring again to the ground the humans who are violating the holy traditions. The people from the steppe, also called the Kin, and true children of Boddho, are in fact immune to this deadly disease. This is because they still share a connection with mother Boddho, still revering the old traditions, without severing them as the other townspeople did.
What is the secret lying underground? The answers are hidden in the secluded Abattoir, a place so mysterious and forbidden that the player will have only one remote chance to access it. Once the main temple and holy ground of steppe religion, due to the expansion of the Town and its economy, it became a slaughterhouse for bulls. However, the place didn’t lose its holy and worshipping nature, and wandering in the creepy tunnels of this gigantic hive of stone and blood is a nerve-breaking experience. The biggest surprise is seeing a colossal hole opening in the middle of the Abattoir, a red mouth going down into the depth of the earth. The hole was used to drain the blood of the slaughtered bulls, a drastic way to get rid of a biological waste, but also a sacrificial offering to Mother Earth. The giant hole emanates a red light, like a luring call to be explored. Only by bravely jumping inside the depth of the Abattoir, the main character will discover what is hiding underground.
The tunnels below the Abattoir are not made of stone, but of a fleshy material resembling raw meat. The setting is alien and disturbing, but at least an organic bioluminescence coming from strange plants is shading light on the grotesque tunnels. It is not a surprise that people abandoned to wander in these tunnels will lose their minds, coming back as empty shells. The history says that in the past, the Abattoir also slaughtered like common meat a legendary breed of bulls, the Aurochs, directly descendants of the god Bos Turokh. Their godlike blood fled in the giant hole, feeding the ground with its intrinsic power, probably giving life to the earth itself. The earth was now alive, a proper god imbued with the lives of hundreds of demigod creatures. Blood always worked as a nutritious ingredient for the ground, and the Herb Brides, members of the Kind responsible for nurturing the soil, always knew that. Herb Brides not only dance to speed up the growth of plants, but they also use blood to fertilise the harvest. Keeping all this in mind, it is not a huge speculation to assume that the bodies buried underground are in fact consumed and absorbed by the organic tunnels beneath. The Sand Plague is not only cleaning the disloyal faction but is also feeding the hungry ground with hundreds of newly buried bodies, a way to heal and restore the powers of the wounded earth.
While wandering underground in the living tunnels, the main character will meet a physical representation of mother Boddho and the Town itself: a gigantic beating Hearth. The Hearth is weak and ill, threatened by a metal spike piercing in the ground. The spike symbolises the progress of the Town, which is now creating more complex and absurd buildings, forgetting more and more the old traditions and destroying its own past. The Hearth will speak with the main character in a peaceful and whispered way, almost as if it was an echo inside the mind of the main character.
The Heart is also addressed by the townspeople as the Eighth or, using the ancient words, the Udurgh. The name has a complex meaning, indicating a multitude of people connected with each other. The Udurgh is in fact both the Hearth of the earth and of the Town itself, two sides of the same entities that are now endangering each other. The Town is forgetting about its past, violating the ground and the animals while pursuing industrial and architectural advances. The earth on the other side feels in danger, wounded and forgotten, and spread the Sand Plague in order to restore its former and glorious past, getting rid of its own illness: the humans. Interestingly, the Plague created to scourge the Town by the earth can also be healed only by the earth itself. In fact, the blood in the Abattoir, spilling from the living tunnels behind, is the only remedy to cure the Sand Plague.
The Eighth is on the brink of extinction, and the main character will have the final decision on its fate. Killing Udurgh will cause a huge lake of miraculous blood to spill from the ground, helping to eradicate the Sand Plague. On the other end, following Udurgh advice will bring a new era in the Town, where the Plague will terrorise the living, and mystical creatures from fairytales, such as the gigantic bulls Aurochs, will populate again the land.
You can also check the video on Surreal and Creepy channel about the last section of the Abattoir level and the meeting with Udurgh:
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 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 Pathologic was released back in 2006, it really was a unique surprise. Total freedom, hardcore survival elements, a cast of cryptic characters, and one of the most complex, surreal, and hermetic lore ever. Surrealism and existentialism collided in an intricate adventure, with so many branches and deep subplots. Since that time, Ice Pick Lodge continued to evolve, providing many other interesting games, but Pathologic had always a special place. After 15 years, when I read the sentence “the Steppe has thousands of eyes,” after crossing the border of the rural part of the map in Pathologic 2, a chill runs up my spine, and I felt at home again. With a completely revised graphical style, it is finally the time to try Pathologic 2 for PS4. And no matter how hard you will try to look for a more complex, dense, and atmospheric game around, it will be almost impossible to find.
Without any spoilers, let’s make it clear that this is not a direct sequel, but more a re-imagination of the first game, a sort of reshaping of the possibilities, starting exactly the very last day of the first Pathologic. For the long time fans of the series, being back in the Town is a nostalgic shock. Every place is easy to recognize, from the Theater where the masks are performing their midnight play, to the alien Polyhedron, towering above the city in its impossible geometry. But this time, everything is recreated using a top-notch graphic. The Town was never so gorgeous and detailed, painting such a unique and alive environment, which will mutate during the course of the days. Simply wandering around the Town is a pure pleasure, with unexpected surprises and bizarre architectures at every corner.
If you never played the first Pathologic, the game is about stopping an eldritch plague in 12 days, while exploring a huge city and interacting with a dozen of enigmatic characters. Each day there will be many quests to do, and tough decisions to take, while also trying to survive to starvation and the plague itself. The survival side of the game is tough and challenging, especially if you never played the original. Each day, the player should eat, rest, and drink accordingly, while doing the quests and wandering around the city. Forget about these details, and the alternative is a horrible death. However, the game offers complete freedom to the player in how to survive. While bartering and buying food is the most reasonable alternative, every action is allowed, from breaking into houses to steal, to harvest organs of dead people to sell them at the black market.
Death will be uneven in Pathologic 2, with a permanent debuff with each new game over. Also, it is possible to save only at specific locations having inside a clock, adding another level of frustration. Pathologic 2 is not an easy roller-coaster, but a harsh and painful experience, which will reward only the dedicated players. The game is tough, with so many variables to consider in a limited window of time. For this reason, the game feature one of the most comprehensive customizations of the difficulty, where every variable can be adjusted. So if you still want to enjoy the unique world of Pathologic 2 without many worries, you can do that, but of course, this is not the original way it was supposed to be played.
The combat system is improved over the previous Pathologic, with the stamina to balance, strong attack,s and also a blocking system. But even with the new improvements, the combat system is not, and it was never planned to be, the main focus of Pathologic 2. The gameplay is merely a tool because the immersion and the articulated setting are what truly define Pathologic 2.
The atmosphere is dense and unique, surreal and enigmatic, almost a perfect representation of a dream-flow inside a videogame storytelling. Dreamlike and mind-blowing events are countless, each of them more interesting and surprising than the previous one. Repent changes of scenes, dreams inside dreams, characters morphing into others, the surprises will never end in the cryptic town of Pathologic 2. This is especially true for the prologue at the beginning of the game, a more linear experience welcoming the new players before entering the open world itself. This section is a masterpiece of surreal storytelling, also offering new characters and information regarding the deities of the steppe. Even only by playing the prologue, you will understand how Pathologic 2 is not only a game, or a work of art, but also one of the best representations of a dreamlike narrative inside the videogame media.
Several ephemeral subplots or branches in the original Pathologic are now enriched with details and contents. An example with very mild spoilers is about the group of children known as Souls-at-Halves. Kids in Pathologic were always a really enigmatic subclass of the society (also, I wrote a complex analysis about them here, but remember the heavy SPOILERS: The cryptic Kids of Pathologic: dangerous games for children), but the Souls-at-Halves were one of the most bizarre. Back in the original Pathologic, the children claimed to share their souls in half with a totemic animal. In Pathologic 2, this is no more just a simple detail, because by entering the main quarter of the children’s gang, you will listen to several different animals making noise, like a sort of zoo. But there is not even an animal around. Also, after this quest, I started to listen sometimes a cat meowing, but an invisible one. Coincidence?
The characters are a special side of the game, and one of the gears that makes this experience such appealing and complete. Mysterious, cryptic, almost prophetic, but embedded in the absurd society of the Town. No matter who will you trust, interacting with them is always an enriching moment, and the quest provided, even the most boring one, will be part of something bigger.
The music and the sounds are in synergy to enhance the experience. While the music combines folkloric and ethereal sounds to build a dreamlike atmosphere, industrial or gurgling sounds create the effect that something is really wrong in that town.
The level of detail, effort, and lore in Pathologic 2 is simply maniac (in a positive way), and please keep in mind that the original Pathologic was already a game with encyclopedic and complex lore. Coming back again to the silent steppe was never so good and enriching, with so many new details and clarification to understand like never before the hermetic culture and the folklore of the steppe. Because Pathologic 2 is more like a zoom inside the world of Pathologic. If in the first game there was only one main quest every day, with maybe a couple of secondary events, here every single day is full of activities, quests, and random events. The number of general things to do and the alternative branches created by player’s decisions make impossible to see everything in one playthrough. Also, it is important to understand which events to prioritize, because some of them will have really heavy consequences, such as the permanent death of some characters. But it is anyway incredible the massive amount of quests, events, and conversations present in one day, so multiple plays will be necessary this time to discover every secret of the Town.
For example, you can buy a bull with the promise that he will speak on your worst day, or interrupting a particular secret meeting will result in the main character curse with muteness, unable to interact anymore with other town-folks. With so many secrets and branches, the developer found a really innovative way to help the players. If in Pathologic the Twyrine was only a characteristic liquor, here it becomes a prophetic instrument. By getting drunk with Twyrine, the main character will connect with the city itself, and a random secret will be revealed on the map. Even the description of the items is not there for nothing, but will open a world of possible interpretations rooted in the complex steppe’s society. For example, the white chalk is described as: “some lines are natural, some are man-made. Chalk, composed of the dead bodies of sea-creatures, is a good tool for setting boundaries.” If you are having chills right now, you are ready for Pathologic 2.
I don’t know how many thousand lines of dialogues compose Pathologic 2, but the result is truly mind-blowing. Every dialogue is an enriching opportunity, a cryptic piece of a gigantic puzzle, a small and maybe hidden reference to fill such complex lore. The dialogues have different layers and interpretations, sometimes almost metaphysical, while other times they hide meta-gaming comments of the developers. No matter how you judge this, but reading is one of the most interesting activities that Pathologic 2 can offer, and you will crave for new lines of conversation just to discover an interesting piece of the lore. Because in the interconnected machinery that is the Town, there is not even a character that is useless or worthless. Also, the new portraits during the dialogues add a new layer of involvement: seeing how the characters move or grin in this new 3D aesthetic is a totally different thing compared to the first Pathologic.
I could write for hours about all the details and the novel addition to Pathologic 2. I could write how each time you sleep, a surreal and weird dream will take place, a small gameplay section rooted in the daily-routine of your character. But for me, it is time to stop now, and to write in the future more specific analysis of the game, because this is only a review.
Pathologic 2 is a metaphysical and unique simulation that any player should experience for hours, diving himself into the complex lore of the Town. There are no other games like Pathologic around, a proper work of art, and a true masterpiece of surreal storytelling. A complex and enriching experience that will reward curious and dedicated players, welcoming them in a unique and mysterious world, with its own rules and traditions.
Pathologic 2 is available for PC, Xbox One and PS4. For the purpose of this review I received a key from the publishers for the PS4 version.
Knock Knock is a mysterious, hermetic and cryptic horror game developed by Ice Pick Lodge (for more info, you can check my review: Knock-Knock: an insomnia simulator in an Escherian nightmare). The Lodger is the main protagonist of the game, probably a scientist who is trapped inside a complex house, built in his own mind to shield himself from his past. Regrets, guiltiness, and horrible secrets are all the elements that were used to built the house, and gears of a complex story.
Night after night, the surreal and dreamlike mansion of the game is constantly visited by bizarre and twisted entities known as the Guests. They will play with the Lodger a creepy version of hide and seek, while searching for him all around the house. They want to keep the Lodger away from his truth and from the discovery of his own identity, by keeping him in a constant time loop. The Guests will not harm directly the Lodger, but will reset the time, making each night like a never-ending nightmare. The Guests come from the Forest, a mysterious and mystic place just outside of the mansion. A place hiding and protecting the truth that the Lodger should search with all his mind and effort. The Guests are a sort of immune system of the Lodger’s mind, trying to protect him by deleting his memories and isolating hurtful truths. The Guests have bizarre but symbolic appearances, usually connected to the Forest, or highlighting complex psychological traumas affecting the Lodger such as the loss of identity or hidden truths.
In the following article I will provide an analysis for almost all the Guests of Knock Knock. I kept outside of the article only few very simple Guests, such as a moving bed or a floating circle of candles. Due to the random nature of the encounter, I am not 100% sure if the list is complete. For the few last Guests which I was not able to encounter myself, I provide pictures found in internet. Also I was able to retrieve only few official names, so the majority of the names are of my own invention.
Box Head
Emblem of identity disorder, this is a stationary Guest, and one of the most common enemies. While the body and the legs are human, the head is completely hidden above a wooden box. If the lack of facial features is the emblem of the loss of identity, the branches coming down from the box are a clear influence of the Forest. As explained before, the Forest has a huge influence on the plot and on the Lodger itself. It is the place of hidden secrets and unwanted truths, a magical and metaphorical world showing a huge connection with the majority of the Guests.
Haunters (official name)
Humanoid figures of different shapes and sizes, completely covered and hidden in a hood of leaves, with the exception of thin human legs. They are an impure irradiation of the Forest, when the mysteries of the trees meet with the doubts of a damaged human mind. The forest is covering the truth, throwing gasoline on the fire of the complex search for your own identity. The Forest and the Lodger are two opposite forces: while the Lodger is searching for the truth, the Forest is trying to hide it… or maybe it is exactly the opposite, and the forest is the truth that the Lodger is afraid to reveal.
The Amalgam of Branches
Huge emanation of the forest breaking into the house as a huge mass of branches and leaves. This ball will slowly roll on the ground, aggressively, toward the main character. While moving, the creature will produce as squishy sound, like if the wood is wet. The Amalgam of Branches is the most hermetic secret of the forest, hiding a truth so complex and impossible to see, hidden under a solid wall of wood. Like the safe of the forest, its content is impossible to be revealed, a harsh and twisted secret.
The Doppelgänger (official name)
The climax of identity disorder is of course to face your own evil twin. In the last nights, the Doppelganger will make his appearance. Often, he will attack aggressively the player, able to climb staircase and to move really fast. In contrast with the real Lodger, who only speaks gibberish, the Doppelganger is able to speak and will say sentences like “Finally I am home”. In other occasions, the evil twin will behave peacefully, just wandering around the house to switch off the light bulbs. In this case, meeting the Doppelganger will cause a strange effect where the player will become the Doppelganger, obtaining also the achievement “How’s Annie?” (a clear reference to Twin Peaks, which knows how to deal with Doppelgangers).
The Weeping One (official name)
An exception between the Guests, the Weeping One not only is not aggressive, but she is also an important source of information for the main plot of Knock Knock. During the last nights, a desperate cry could be heard around the house. A child is crying in a corner, closed in her drama. By approaching the Weeping One, two different outcome could happen. In the most positive scenario, the Weeping One will simply vanish, providing an interesting page of a diary with crucial lore of the game. In a more unlucky scenario, the Weeping One will show her deformed face, damaging the psyche of the main character.
Prosthetic Leg
The first enemy to be encountered, Prosthetic Leg is a mysterious but very human being. Thin, slow and fragile, the creature wears a straitjacket, also showing a steampunk prosthetic leg. To highlight the loss of identity and personality at the base of Knock Knock, this Guest is also headless, without showing any identity. The straitjacket is also a direct symbolism of the craziness and the denial affecting the Lodger, which is slowly descending in his own personal hell. Worth to notice that, in the previous version of the game, this Guest and the Chained One both showed a head.
The Chained One
Second Guest to be encountered, it is a deadly and fast ghost-like creature. His transparent body is covered by a ruined blanket, while his arms are trapped with chains. He has the typical appearance of a classic ghost, but it is quite dangerous, due to his almost invisible body and his fast movements. As Prosthetic Leg, also this one is headless. The Guest could be symbolising just a ghost, since the Gothic setting of the house could be metaphorized by a classic ghost. However, in previous images this Guest had a head, precisely an old man with a long white beard. Another interpretation could be that this Guest is symbolising time or ageing, which inexorably pass while the Lodger continue to be trapped in his time loop.
The Twisted One
The most creepy and probably the most aggressive Guest, the Twisted One is a fast living nightmare. The creature is thin, with pale skin and a not so smart face. His body is completely twisted and reversed, with the butt where the face should be, and even an additional set of arms. The Guest is really dangerous, able to move quickly and to climb stairs. His twisted nature is unique to the Guests, probably highlighting even more the breaking in the mind of the Lodger, unable to see the truth while falling in pieces.
The Invisible One
A very peculiar and dangerous Guest, who is almost invisible. The creature will slowly walk in a straight line around the house, leaving only hand-prints on the walls as sign of its passage. Each movement of the creature is highlighted by a squishy sound, like if its hands are dirty or wet. Another strong example of loss of identity, since in this case the entity is completely invisible, not simply headless.
The Sad Tree
This is one of the most mysterious and bizarre Guests, and also one of the most rare to encounter. It looks like a sack imitating a tree, including the roots, with also a sad face stitched in its body. A big tear is also falling from its eye, highlighting again the sadness behind this stationary creature. The Forest is sad because the Lodger is not able to find the truth. The Lodger is avoiding to explore the forest, while imprisoning in his house to forget his past. The forest is sending him messages thought the Sad Tree, to remind him where the truth is to be searched.
The Hidden Stone
During the last nights, the searching for the missing identity will take a drastic change. If before the majority of the creatures were bodies missing a face, now it will become exactly the opposite: faces surrounded by bizarre bodies. The Lodger’s replicate face has crazy wide opened eyes, while all its body is composed by a mass of dark stones. The Forest is not creating a body for the head of the Lodger, combining the two elements.
Other Guests followed the same idea of the Hidden Stone, but are made of leaves. The face of the Lodger appears inside a mass of leaves, with the same exalted expression as for the stones. In another occasion, his face will be instead supported by a small spider-like body made of leaves. For how bizarre the design could be, their symbolism is the same as for the Hidden Stone.
The streets of Pathologic are a cryptic place with their own rules driven by ancient traditions. While an eldritch plague rampages in this mysterious town in the middle of the steppe, the inhabitants will continue to follow their believes. Between ancient rituals, strong familiar feuds and taboos, not even the children are simply normal citizen in the Town. All the contrary, because the kids of the Town are a very peculiar and unique social group. Seriously, you will never see more mysterious, alien and peculiar children in any videogame. In the following analysis I will write about the believes, the traditional games and the real role of the kids in Pathologic HD. Especially in the last part there will be heavy SPOILERS of the main plot of Pathologic HD/Classic.
In the social net of the Town, the kids act like a sort of hidden cult, or a self-established social class that unofficially exists in the underground of the folklore of the Town. They are gears outside of the machinery of the city, but part of a even more complex artefact. The kids also share strong traditions, specifically rooted in complex games, often of questionable morality. The majority of the normal kids are wandering the streets during the day, with void faces like if they were sleepwalkers. They usually have sad stories to tell, regarding their lives during the plague, or also fake bizarre tales like the Transparent Cat. This invisible cat only appears at night: myth or reality?
One of the most strange things regarding the interaction with the kids is related to bartering. The kids are strangely one of the best source for ammunitions in the Town. It is very unclear how kids could access to bullets, but it is probably due to the fact that the Town almost rejects or ignores guns, worshipping instead blades and knives. The laws of the Town forbid to children to use anything that is sharp or pointy. This transforms common items like needles or hooks into treasures for the kids, which will easily trade even bullets for them. If this could be only a normal parental precaution, on the other hand the idea that the adults of the Town could be scared by children possessing knives opens a more uncanny and creepy scenario. For example, in the Town there are several gangs of children, and they usually kill each other using knives. Probably accessing to sharp objects could be also a way to enter in these gangs.
The Dogheads are one of the most creepy and scary gangs of children in the Town. The members wear a hood with the face of a dog, which covers all their faces, with two big and void stuffed eyes in the middle. There is a lot of mystery surrounding the Dogheads. For example, there are different stories regarding why they wear this hood, the straight one is of course to protect their identities, but also to “bounces the wearer’s thoughts back into his head.” There are mysterious information regarding the cult of the Dogheads. For example, a Doghead reveals that to become a Doghead you should kill one of them. They are difficult to see around the city, usually assigned to complex secret tasks. A group of them is always defending the Polyhedron, headquarter of the children and a place where the imagination has a tangible power.
An even creepier group of renegade Dogheads is called “Soul-and-a-Halves”, and of course the members are in a constant war against the Dogheads. This other gang embraces even more the tribal connection with dogs, not only at an aesthetic level, but as a deep connection of souls between humans and animals. They claim to share their souls with totemic animals, that of course in the majority of the cases are dogs.
The creepiness of the children is even more reflected in the traditional games that they play. Like an abnormal microcosm, the kids absorb the bizarre traditions and the behaviours of the adults, and they twist them with their own views. The most famous example is the “Plague game”. The children were probably terrible affected by the spreading of the first plague. Entire families got ripped by the disease, while the adults and the doctors tried everything possible to fight the disease. Probably the children also wanted to help, trying to create their panacea by mixing together all the medicines they found. In some rare cases this had a positive effect, but in general, the majority of the “patients” died. With time, this evolved into a game, a sort of challenge to create the best homemade medicine. Of course multiple children got severely intoxicated and the adults are fighting to stop this traditional game.
A more traditional and “safe” game is related with walnuts and peanuts. Nuts are another incredible valuable item to exchange with children. Such as with hooks and needles, also in this case the rarity of this merchandise is rooted into the taboos and the traditions of the kids. In the past, each kid had his own nut. This personalised item was believed to preserve inside the experienced adventures, like a tape recorded with the best memories. Children brought their nut to all sort of risky and crazy adventures, imagining that will be conserved forever inside the nut. In this way every nut was not a simple snack, but a record of the most amazing adventures. At some point, adults forbade the nuts, since the children were risking their lives for the most risky trips. For this reason, right now, every kind of nut is a precious treasure for every children, soaked with the most mysterious and dangerous adventures.
Other questionable games include betting on races of infected rats, or a really creepy version of hide-and-seek. In this version there are hunters and hunted. The bigger difference with standard hide-and-seek is that the hunter, which is the one searching, should kill whoever is discovered. Kids can be really creepy in the twisted world of Pathologic.
In the Town of Pathologic, some kids have even crucial positions of political power, being totally integrated into the complex social mechanism of the Town. For example, Khan is the leader of the Dogheads, a young general and the son of one of the most powerful man in the city, now hiding inside the Polyhedron. Other important kids work as oracles, grave diggers, or leaders of other institutions, well connected with the traditions of the Town. Taya for example is the Mother Superior of the Apiary, the leader of all the workers of the meat factory. A 5 years old child is the boss of a giant factory, supervising like a cult leader all the workers, and this is something completely normal for the Town. These powerful children are gathered together in the main intro of the game. In this scene, the kids are preparing the funeral of a giant stuffed doll, which will be buried in the ground. The meaning of this new game is hidden, but probably heavily connected with the birth of the Sand Plague (as you can read in my other article Pathologic – the Sand Plague: the evolution and the meaning of an eldritch sentient disease). Why the kids are able to access to such powerful positions? What is their true role in the society, behind their weird games? This is related to the fact that the kids are the real Deus ex Machina of the game.
The children hide an incredible mystery, a power that can shape the fundamentals of the reality. The kids are not simple secondary characters, but a definitive creative force so strong that can challenge the Plague itself. The true power of the children is connected with the mysterious existence of the Polyhedron, a building that challenges the fundamental rules of physics. The building is not only peculiar in its external design, but it is even more complex in its interior, where the true secrets are hidden. The Polyhedron is the kingdom of the children, a place where the imagination gets real, where the walls are made of paper and big origami float without gravity. Hidden in an infinity of inner chambers and twisted stairs, groups of children are using their imagination to create complexes and alive worlds. If these should be realms of happiness, joy and games, the mind of wounded children could instead build dark and sad realities.
The children are not only a cult-like institution, with ancient traditions encoded in twisted games, but they also posses a unique power in the entire Town. Using the power of their imagination, kids can shape the reality to create worlds, like if they were demiurge Gods. Here comes the biggest plot twist of Pathologic HD. Since the beginning of the game, while interacting with bizarre mimes wearing masks, it is clear that the games often breaks the 4th wall. Also during the mime spectacles at the theatre, or during other dialogues, often Pathologic jumps into the meta-narrative breaking the 4th wall with the player.
But the biggest surprise will come at the end, when the “Power that Be” is revealed. During the majority of the game, one of the main characters, the Bachelor, will receive letters from this mysterious entity, which seems to know everything regarding what is happening in the Town. In a secret cut-scene, inside a room in the Polyhedron, the “Power that Be” is revealed to be just two kids, with an abstract scale model of the Town made with sand. It is revealed that probably all the game is instead a proper “game” itself, something created by the damaged mind of two kids who lost someone due to a plague. They know that the plague is an invincible enemy, for this reason they created the complex story of a doctor trying to find a cure. A modern hero facing an impossible enemy. The player is just playing their game as main character, while the other characters are simple artefacts, toys or dolls.
Kids are a crucial force in the Town, something ancient and mysterious, but also able to change all the believes and to shape the reality itself. Games are not only a part of these traditions, but are a metaphor to integrate and to control a greater power with the folklore and the everyday life of the Town.
With the recent release of the Pathologic 2, will the role of the children be the same in this new remake/sequel?
Pathologic (developed by Ice Pick Lodge) is a mysterious game that explores the life of three characters, trying to survive 12 days in a town in the middle of a steppe enriched in ancient and obscure traditions. Even if any citizen of the city is also mysterious, hermetic and cryptic, the real antagonist of Pathologic is a devastating disease: the Sand Plague. In the following article I will describe in details the mysterious plague and its evolution, also providing theories and explanations to understand its meaning. The article is also available as YouTube video on the “Surreal and Creepy Games” channel: https://youtu.be/uJzOc0fv5Fk
The terrible disease has a mysterious origin and an incredible bizarre behaviour. Soon the peaceful city will become a huge outbreak of infection, with everyday more districts afflicted by the plague. Crossing the infected districts will be very dangerous for the player, who should avoid contact with the disease and the infected people. Since there is not a cure for the Sand Plague, contracting the disease will make surviving the 12 days really challenging, becoming addicted to antibiotics and immune-boosters just to stay alive.
The most important objective during your stay in the mysterious town will be to understand and to cure the cryptic disease. With time, what it looks just an obscure disease, will take the shape of something more complex and malignant, something with a mind and a specific behaviour, as it is also written in the intro of the game.
During the days, the plague will change and evolve, becoming more lethal and difficult to avoid.
The First Stage: the filth on the walls
At the beginning, the disease strangely affects the houses, instead of the people. The building will start to rotten, with greasy stains on the external walls, similar to fleshy growths. These houses are called by the people the Silent Houses. Thanks to such peculiar activity, it is easy to quarantine the areas of the town affected by the plague, also knowing which family is marked for death by the illness.
The infected building will soon turn in a mysterious hell. Mold and miasma will grow in the inside, transforming a domestic environment in an alien landscape. For mysterious reasons, the interior of the houses are in an unbelievable disorder, like if a tornado was created inside the building itself. All the furniture will be scattered around in a complete mess, without any logical explanation. The sick people will be lying in the floor for the pain, motionless, so what caused this alien mess? Could the pestilential whispers of the disease be so strong to affect inanimate objects?
The Second Stage: the infected and the carriers
The behaviours of the infected people are really different. If some people will be just lying on the ground, motionless for the extreme pain, others would have a more peculiar behaviour.
At the first stage of the sickness, the infected will start to rave. They will feel an incredible hotness and will start to talk without a logic. For example, they will claim to listen the crying of a baby, intense and ominous. The most creepy thing is that it will be quite usual for the player to also listen the crying of an infant in the infected districts. This happens even if the character is not affected by the disease, like if the baby crying is a physical manifestation of the Sand Plague. This sickness is not a simple germ or a virus, but something more complex.
After the nonsensical raving, the infected will crawl toward uninfected people, slowly trying to hug them. This stage is really creepy and disturbing, an abnormal behaviour in the mind of the infected, which, as members of a hive, would try to help the disease to spread faster. The infected at the final stage of the disease would go around the street of the city completely covered, like ghosts, but always trying to slowly walk toward the healthy people to infect them.
Also rats are a determinant gear in the spreading mechanism of the Sand Plague. As relentless carriers, they hunt down uninfected people, passing them the disease by biting their ankles.
The Third Stage: sentient miasma
If the bizarre host-control mechanism, used by the disease to spread, is something that could be also found in some parasites, the next step in the evolution of the disease will definitely take a mystical path.
The Sand Plague will get completely alive and sentient, able to take a form visible to people. The illness will manifest in the world as a cloud made of twisted faces. The sentient miasma can be both static and dynamic, rushing toward healthy people like a screaming ectoplasm of dead people. The sentient miasma is stronger inside the buildings, probably due to the sick molded environment.
This evolution shows how the Sand Plague is a sentient being, an eldritch entity able not only to control people, but to take a physical form. In this way the Sand Plague can easily spread and kill on its own also outside the walls of the afflicted houses, without needing a host.
The Fourth Stage: the angel of death
The ghastly cloud will continue to evolve toward the final manifestation of the plague: the angel of death. New brown clouds will appear in the city, only in the open spaces. The brown shapes clearly resemble a blurred angel, final stage of the apocalyptic disease. The angels of death are a totally sentient being, who would wait for a healthy person to pass by, before manifesting and attacking him/her.
Not only the clouds are faster than the previous form, but they will actively follow the people, leaving less degree of freedom to escape from the infection. This last evolution of the Sand Plague is able to haunt for the few survivors in open spaces, infecting them faster and without escape ways. If people were able to survive to the slow movements of the previous spreading mechanisms, they have no chances against this fast, relentless and almost invisible form of infection.
The Sand Plague reaches its final stage of evolution, a sentient angel of death spreading sickness and despair among humans.
The origin of the Sand Plague is puzzling and mysterious, without a clear and direct explanation. However, this veil of uncertainty contributes to create the peculiar surreal and dreamlike atmosphere of Pathologic. I will try to explain now few details about the origin of the plague, also providing my personal interpretation. For this reason, it will be SPOILERS regarding the plot of Pathologic.
After finishing the game with each character, there will be different explanations about what the Sand Plague truly is. During the Bachelor playthrough, the plague born to contrast the building of the Polyhedron, a structure with an impossible physics supported by huge foundation going deeply in the ground. However, in the Haruspex playthrough, the fault of creating the plague is not on the Polyhedron, but on another building connected with the meat production, the Termitary, responsible of dumping blood directly in a hole going into the belly of the earth.
The inhabitants of the town don’t understand the origin of the plague, which is rooted in superstitions and traditions. The true meaning of the plague is hidden behind multiple theories, each of them more abstract and peculiar. Many citizens even believe in the existence of a mystical infector, the Shabnak-Adyr, a female creature born from the earth to spread the disease among the humans. Well, this could be partially true since there are several bizarre creatures hidden in the cold steppe. But this is another story for another article.
There is one thing that is in common between the many possible explanations: the Earth, or more specifically the soil. In the folklore of the town, the earth is something holy that should not be violated. Respecting the ground, the environment and the traditions is something deeply important for this isolated community. A fundamental rule of an independent microcosm. Recently, people are violating the holiness of the soil, breaking not only the traditions, but also damaging the environment. The Abattoir and the Termitary are relentlessly killing bulls with an industrial procedure, infecting the ground with blood and bones. The Polyhedron raped the ground with its huge foundation, also altering the environment with its colossal shape, like a proper echo-monster, altering the natural landscape with its manmade shape. Both the environment and the traditions of the town-microcosm are broken at the same time by the citizens themselves, which are not able to keep their vows. The Sand Plague is the answer of the Earth to a call for help, a punishment for the broken traditions emerging from the deepness of the ground to annihilate the unclean. The disease is a folkloric immune system, a hive mind that is avenging what was destroyed or broken by human hands. The Sand Plague has a mind rooted in the traditions of the town, and is targeting people that, according to its judgment, deserve to die for their actions.
Of course there could be many other interpretations for what the plague truly is, since Pathologic is a really complex and hermetic game. Especially taking in consideration the children of the town, the cryptic “Powers That Be” and hints of metagaming, the answer to “what is the Sand Plague?” could change. But this is another story for another time.
Few games created an enemy so complex, mysterious and ephemeral such as the Sand Plague in Pathologic, a sentient, symbolic and eldritch disease.
“What you see before you is not exactly what one would call a game. It is more like an interactive meditation, reenacted from scattered evidence, that happened to fall into our hands.”
This sentence explains perfectly the nature of Knock-Knock, an independent videogames made like a found footage. If you are curious about the gameplay and more general info about Knock-Knock, you can check my previous article (An insomnia simulator in an Escherian nightmare).
The game is playing with the mind and the reality of the player. What is real? What is based on common knowledge and what is totally invented? There is a constant and mysterious flow of information that the game feeds to the player in the form of questions and dialogues directed addressed to him, pages of a diary, random scattered information and mysterious rules of games to play at night.
The last feature is one of the most interesting example of meta-gaming. At the end of each night, the player will receive a mysterious letter with the description and the rules of a creepy game to play during the night. These games are somehow related with the plot and the mythology of Knock-Knock, but totally unconnected with the expressive form of the videogames. They are more like urban legends, creepy-pastas or folkloric rituals, something to try to experience outside the videogame. They are ancient games hidden inside a videogame. The interesting thing is that they truly look believable, maybe based on real Russian traditions (the software house Ice Pick Lodge came from Russia), but at the same time they fit inside the mythology and the atmosphere of the videogame Knock-Knock.
Who inspired who?
One of the common topics of these “games inside the game” are the Guests, mysterious things that live in the night and in the darkness. Some of the games allow you to take contact with these entities.
Who created the games to play at night? Are they based on true folklore? Are they totally invented for Knock-Knock?
In a direct question to Ice Pick Lodge about the existence of “the games to be played at night”, the answer is cryptic and in line with the atmosphere of the game: “It’s a big secret, no one knows.”
The only sure thing is that the games to be played at night are a perfect executed concept to expand the creepiness of a horror game beyond the limits of the interactive fourth wall. When reading the rules of these cryptic games I found myself scared and at the same time intrigued, asking myself about the origin of the games and if I am enough brave to truly play them in the real life.
I will post now the descriptions of almost all the games to play at night. The images carry the original descriptions of the games as they appear in Knock-Knock, so read them carefully if you want to understand the rules.
Will you be enough brave to play them? These are games to be played in the dark.
The face of a new guest
There is something truly and deeply scary in the concept of explore all your house while putting all the lights on. The last sentence is particularly chilling “If you imagine a face, that being will come to live in your home”. Seriously, not sure if this is something I would like.
A guest outside the window
Watching outside of the window in the complete darkness is always an action able to trigger an uncomfortable response in every human being. Playing this game will also allow to “something” to watch at you through the darkness.
Resettlement
An easy wishing game to play 1 hour before dawn. But what will happen if the door is not more closed? Whatever thing should enter, the player is no longer the Living. Literally or metaphorically?
A home on the edge
Easy to play and less creepy than the other games. However, the consequences of “A home on the edge” are more serious than the player could imagine. See the next games to understand the dangers of continue to play these games.
A dinner with the Invisible
The explanation of the table and the Guests is too detailed to be believable, but the game itself is creepy and intriguing. Imagine to turn off all the lights and open all the doors, then imagine to wait in the darkness that something will shut one of the doors… chills all over the back.
Welcome the Guests
Starting from this point the games to be played at night start to be less potentially folkloric and more integrated into the dynamic and the setting of the videogame. The idea to imagine the Guests at a mysterious table is anyway an interesting and disturbing concept.
Everything is alive
So you made all the games and now you can play with the Guests that you invited. Was it a good choice? This game can explain what is happening in Knock-Knock, giving one possible interpretation to its surreal plot.
The Guests want to play a game
Now it is the turn of the player to experience the games of the Guests, a dangerous and deadly game almost impossible to win. Is this Knock-Knock?
If you are still reading I have some questions for you. Which game to play at night is the scariest? Did you ever play or listen to one of these games? Would you play to one of them?
Surreal and Creepy 