The “Cognition Filter” in Lobotomy Corporation: How censorship saves your mind

Lobotomy Corporation is probably the closest example to a SCP game, without being exactly based on any SCP. The Korean game is a management simulation where the player is in charge of developing and maintaining an electric company. However, there is only a small caveat in this job: the company generates energy from imprisoned anomalies. From abnormal fairytales to grotesque abominations, the facility has more than 70 different creatures to work with. And the more incomprehensible and dangerous an anomaly is, the higher the energy produced. Lobotomy Corporation is a game imbued with lore, where every anomaly has tons of information to unlock by understanding and interacting more with them. However, the smallest error could lead to catastrophic reactions since the anomalies can breach their cell to bring havoc in the facility. And we are not talking of normal attacks, but of a multitude of devastating events, from a bird-like creature judging with a scale and hanging all the sinners to a grotesque “Santa Klaus” throwing guts and organs around as gifts while sending insane the workers.

As manager of this company, the AI helping you will immediately tell you to not get attached to the employees. They are disposable, and a lot of them will brutally die, committing suicide after a panic attack or being brutally ripped by a breached anomaly. Between all this madness, indifference, and brutality, how will the manager survive? Of course thanks to the Cognition Filter. If you see any screenshots of Lobotomy Corporation, you realize how the style is far more cuter than creepy. The employees look like cute dolls, and also several abnormalities are far more adorable than they should be. Sure, the game can get quite violent, brutal, and disturbing, but while still featuring this cute art-style.

The Cognition Filter enters at this point. During one of the many cutscenes, the player (or manager) will suddenly see a far more brutal image of dead employees, with more realistic art. The AI suddenly apologizes, explaining how there was a glitch in the filter. So here lies the absolutely shocking truth of Lobotomy Corporation, a brilliant twist changing the entire view of the game. Even the manager inside the game sees the employees only as cute dolls on their screen, and this is because of the Cognition Filter. The cartoonish style is not a simple tool, but the application of the Cognition Filter focused on protecting and “de-sensitizing” the manager, and with them the player. Instead of seeing real employees brutally killed every single day, the manager will only see those dolls dying. But this is only a construct of the AIs to make the employees feel even more disposable, a construct to “protect” the sanity of the manager, which will mind less every death. This also implies that the violence and brutality of the game, including several disturbing ways for the anomalies to kill, is far less shocking than reality. Meaning that deaths are far more brutal than how they appear.

The Cognition Filter is in effect for everything, not only the employees but especially the anomalies. So if their true appearance is filtered to be less disturbing, which is the real form of disturbing beings able to send the weak employees insane just by looking at them, such as Nothing There or the Mountain of Smiling Bodies? This thinking goes both ways, not only to imagine the even more disturbing look of the most grotesque abominations, but also to think if the “cute” anomalies such as Laetitia or the Queen of Hatred have indeed that appearance. With a very brief description, the Cognition Filter created infinite possibilities for reimagining the game, making the player question what they saw till now. This reminds me of Silent Hill 3, specifically the famous Vincent’s quote “Are they monsters to you?” that still haunts players. With a very simple sentence, Vincent makes the player question the entire game, where probably they were killing people and not monsters.

Sometimes, in the disturbing world of Lobotomy Corporation, even the Cognition Filter is not enough to protect the manager’s mind. For this reason, other forms of safety measures are in use, including redacting texts and images. An example is Nothing There, a terrifying and grotesque abomination made of random body parts stitched together. Oh, and this without considering how the creature can literally wear the skin of the killed people, and transform its body into an even more grotesque humanoid form when breaching out of containment. Even in its disturbing appearance, the Cognition Filter is still able to provide a “cuter” version of this abomination. However, when checking the information sheet of Nothing There, the portrait in the encyclopedia, usually a close-in of the creature, is absent. Instead, an empty image saying “DO NOT OPEN, this [REDACTED]” replaces it. This could probably imply that even the Cognition Filter is not strong enough to shield the manager’s mind from a close-up of the grotesque creature.

Another small example, this time focused on redacting the text, is about Laetitia. This anomaly takes the appearance of a little girl dressed in Gothic clothes. She is always happy and doesn’t want to escape. However, she is constantly talking about how she likes to give gifts to her friends, and how everybody likes her. She is really obsessed with giving her gifts to people. However, when reading the guidelines about Laetitia, the information about her gift or friend is always redacted. But when the guidelines say about a XXX that burst out of somebody’s body, you surely know why her gift got redacted. In fact, people gifted by Laetitia will have a grotesque spider full of eyes bursting out of their bodies, in an unexpected and grotesque scene.

However, I left the most direct and disturbing example of an ineffective Cognition Filter for last. CENSORED is an abnormality so disturbing that even the Cognition Filter is not enough to keep the mind of the manager intact. For this reason, cameras recording CENSORED have an extra filter, and the body of the creature is never shown. Instead, a group of censored bars cover the creature’s body, hiding the abomination but still shaping its body to provide an extra layer of forbidden knowledge. Only the toughest employee can survive the sight of the creature without going insane, and it is implied that several managers didn’t survive the view of the creature before applying the censored bars. When CENSORED breaches out, it will assume a more four-legged anatomy. When it kills an employee, the scene is so brutal that it is also completely censored, with only an explosion of guts and blood visible. After that, a smaller CENSORED creature is generated. The most disturbing detail? It is implied that during the killing, CENSORED is breeding/reproducing using the victims… definitively something that no Cognition Filter can shield you from.

Horror games inspired by the work and style of Junji Ito [Updated]

Junji Ito is one of the undisputed masters of horror comics, creating the most creepy and disturbing horror manga since 1987. Comprising several short stories and longer issues, such as Uzumaki and Gyo, Junji Ito created a world where Japanese mundanity meets unexpected horrors. His short stories are pure nightmares, often lacking a conventional explanation of how the ordinary suddenly gets shredded by pure horror. The Japanese countryside is one of the favourite places to set his disturbing stories.

The grotesque and disgust are common elements in the aesthetic and atmosphere of his works, with shocking images full of revolting fluids. This also reflects on the creatures part of these nightmarish worlds, a set of demented, uncanny, and utterly disturbing humanoid monsters, or even more eldritch beings. If you want to know more about the creatures from Junji Ito’s works, you can check my two-part bestiary: PART1 and PART2.

The art-style is another striking and easy-to-recognise trait of the horror master, with an intense black-and-white technique with insane attention to detail, especially when portraying the disturbing or the grotesque.

In the following article, I will analyse games inspired by Junji Ito, from official games to more indie releases. I will focus especially on games with strong inspiration for art-style or atmosphere, not simply small references, but the entire essence of the game should look like a Junji Ito story. Especially for atmosphere, the games must be focused on the ordinary broken by the grotesque, with a peculiar nightmarish setting intruding inside the life of everyday characters. And of course, if a game is specifically inspired by a Junji Ito story, even better.

As for other articles before, this one will also be constantly updated when new and fitting title release.

Uzumaki Official Games

Let’s start this list with the official Uzumaki games. Yes, you read right, at some point official Junji Ito’s games were released. But we have to go back to the 2000 and the portable console Wonderswan. Moreover, an even bigger surprise is that there is not only an official Uzumaki game, but two of them. Sadly, they released only in Japan. The first Uzumaki game is a visual novel following the comic, with nice art for the hardware, especially in the colorful cover. However, it doesn’t have many twists, but it offers some branches and a different way to experience the famous manga.

The second game released shortly after, Noroi Simulation, is far more obscure but also far more interesting. Because if the first game adds very few to Uzumaki, the second one shows a very peculiar side. In fact, in this game, you don’t play as a human being, but as the “spiral entity” in charge of cursing the town. As this entity, you move around the map cursing people and collecting items to increase the haunting level of the deadly curse. The city will be your playground, and even the protagonist of the manga could become victim of your powers. The game has strategic elements and, together with the unique view of playing as an evil entity from Junji Ito’s work, it is definitively an interesting discovery for every fan. Sadly, few is known about both games, since they are quite old and rare, both for the released console and to be only in Japanese.

World of Horror

Probably the most famous indie horror game directly influenced by Junji Ito, both for art-style and atmosphere. World of Horror is an adventure with RPG elements and a roguelike component. In the beginning, the player select between many characters, common people not prepared for what they will face. Moreover, in the beginning the player will also select which eldritch entity is trying to awake, with the aim of stopping it. The art is especially amazing, looking like a proper transposition of Junji Ito works, painted pixel by pixel using MS paint. The world is also breathing from Junji Ito’s atmosphere, a silent rural Japan full of mysteries and forbidden traditions. The references to Junji Ito’s works are all everywhere around, from backgrounds to the grotesque monsters and the inspired stories. For example, there is a gigantic entity known as Oetaru that resembles the spiral creature in the end of Uzumaki, while a mannequin missing the head or a deadly puppet are clearly inspired by The Headless Sculptor and the creepy Jean Pierre. However, if you want to find more about the grotesque creatures infesting the game and their references to Junji Ito, check my analysis on Dark RPGs: https://darkrpgs.home.blog/2020/06/11/the-most-disturbing-eldritch-creatures-from-the-bestiary-of-world-of-horror/.

The player will roam around a rural Japanese town, around the 80s or 90s, solving mysteries and fighting grotesque creatures and cultists. Each case opens an independent story with multiple possibilities, locations, and endings. The stories are mainly inspired by Junji Ito and Japanese urban legends, including the Slit-Mouthed Woman or Aka Manto. By solving enough mysteries, the player can access the lighthouse to stop the summoning of the selected entity. But of course, the doom clock is always moving, and if it reaches 100, the creature will awake causing a peculiar and apocalyptic game over. However, World of Horror is a roguelike game with replayability set at its core, with multiple endings and random events for each scenario and hidden monsters to face and discover.

Ghost in the Pool

Even in this case, just by looking at the images, you can see strong influences from Junji Ito. However, the game is instead officially inspired by a Chinese comic, but I still think that the references to the horror mangaka are there. Ghost in the Pool is a simple visual novel with a great art-style. The plot is set around urban legends, especially related to a school environment. And, as you can imagine from the title, the main one is around a haunted pool and a disturbing drowning ghost. From the setting inspired by urban legends to the striking style, Ghost in The Pool clearly shows strong inspiration from Junji Ito’s works and art.

The game is a short visual novel with multiple endings, and a peculiar way to convey terror by shacking and altering the screen during some tough choices. Moreover, in some specific sections, the player must also interact with items and explore to proceed. The plot is simple but enough entertaining, with 3 endings, but the great art is what truly captures the attention of the player, willing on seeing new panels and scenes.

Nami

Often if you think of games inspired by Junji Ito, the majority of the references are from Uzumaki. Very few games take inspiration, for example, from the manga Gyo, where fishes come out of the water on weird legs to attack the human population as a swarming army. The Brazilian game Nami is an exception, and it is in fact based on Gyo and the terrors coming from the sea. However, this time the terror is set on the sunny beach of a small town in Brazil. Even if the art-style style is quite far from Junji Ito’s work, the inspiration is clearly there, plus a pinch of Lovecraft’s Innsmouth. The people in the town range from plainly weird to aggressively psychotic, plus, deranged marine abominations are nesting in the city. The weirdest thing? Everybody in the city is obsessed with waves, just to throw also a nice Uzumaki reference.

Nami is a classic RPG adventure divided into small sections, like a sort of fragmented nightmares. The main character must roam around the town while solving puzzles to access the next area. She will also quickly find a gun, with infinite bullets but very slow reloading, which must be used to defeat both insane townspeople and grotesque marine wildlife. The monsters are tough, variegated, and with well-designed battles. For example, cut a rope from a ship, and be ready to shoot down the gigantic crab abomination that will come after you. Other enemies need more strategy to be defeated, such as damaging only a grotesque static body while its shadow hunts for you. Other battles are instead optional, especially in the underwater nightmare events. Nami is still in Early Access, but it is already showing clever ideas and good potential. However, at the moment of the writing, the game is only available in Brazilian Portuguese.

From Next Door

A short free adventure available on itch, this game is a love letter to one of the creepiest Junji Ito’s stories: The Window Next Door. From Next Door is an adventure game completely inspired by Junji Ito both for style and gameplay. The protagonist of the game discovers a mysterious locked room in her new house, with a nailed window. And even more suspicious is that this window opens on the only window of a completely sealed neighboring house. After a slow beginning, the game will get more and more creepy, using a daily-based routine to convey the unexpected more subtly. The feeling of dread will increase every day, with new clues about a possible intruder. When something will come out of that window?

Gameplay-wise, the game is a straightforward adventure with multiple endings, small puzzles, and tasks to do. Especially toward the end, there are different approaches on how to “solve” the problem coming out of the window. Graphic and sound make their job of creating a creepy atmosphere so typical of Junji Ito’s manga. In general, the game is well-able to convey curiosity, stress, and then anxiety through a slow-burning pace and a simple but effective graphic, especially during the cutscenes. There are some challenging chasing sequences toward the end where it is possible to die, especially since getting cornered by the creatures is a common occurrence.

Mycorrhiza

Weird, surreal, and bizarre, Mycorrhiza is a visual novel deeply rooted in Junji Ito’s references. This is very clear in the art-style, with strong black and white colours resembling the works of the famous mangaka. In general, the characters are more anime-looking, but instead, the disturbing and grotesque monsters, with their twisted and demented faces, are a clear recall of the circus of monstrosities from Junji Ito’s works. The game has such strong references that, even when you simply select a chapter to play from the main menu, there is a comic book opening with really inspiring horror art. Yes, for sure Mycorrhiza wins the most “Junji Ito accurate” main menu price. And if you are a fan of Junji Ito, you will feel at home with some references, including images resembling Uzumaki or the grotesque model appearing in many stories. But be aware, Mycorrhiza is not a simple copy and paste, but a work with its own world and identity.

The game is composed of three small chapters to be played in any order, nightmarish scenarios full of surreal elements, multiple paths, and recurring characters. The main character will wander through different sides of a mysterious town, where the people are getting obsessed with creating new pets, or with competing for the most “funny” face. And if you play some specific paths in each story, it will be like truly playing an interactive Junji Ito story. The creatures are terrifying and grotesque beings, from a humanized dog with a creepy and dumb-looking expression, to a jester with many heads stitched together. There are also some surprises while playing, including some tough decisions where the mouse will try to move alone toward the “game over” choice, and the player must actually fight against this force to peek the correct one. Even in its short length, the game has many secrets and paths, including some cryptic rules to unlock a mysterious hidden mode called Pengembara.

Evolution Straw Doll of Grudge

Evolution Straw Doll of Grudge and its prequel, Evolution Japan Doll of Grudge, really look like Junji Ito games. Available only in the Japanese store (at least for Android), the game is about evolving a straw doll… by making it devour moles and insects. The art is still really gorgeous, and this time the visual references to Junji Ito are even stronger, with some of the creatures being a mix between Uzumaki and Tomie. The background will also morph each time into a more deranged scenario, with a huge female face grinning behind, an insane creature recalling somehow Tomie. You can read more about these games, and other disturbing Japanese-only evolution games, in my other article: Welcome into the world of obscure and creepy Japanese pet/evolution games: when your Tamagotchi will evolve in something each time more disturbing and horror

This article is also available as a video in the official Surreal and Creepy YouTube channel, with slightly different games. Have a look at the video here:

Do not make that puppet angry: what happens when you break the night curfew in “Smile For Me”

A place where everybody just wants to be happy set in a world of colours: Habitat is the name of a mysterious community where sad people go to try to discover again how to smile, a sort of surreal rehab for unhappy people. The player must help different characters, including kids, a photographer, or a clown, to be happy again. So why the place looks like hiding a creepy secret? Maybe because the doctor in charge only shows himself to people as a puppet? The world of Smile for Me is full of secrets, weird characters, and small creepy details. You can check more in the big article about towns with a dark secret here: Towns with a Dark Secret: the most hermetic, cryptic, and bizarre communities at the core of open-world games [Updated October 2021].

Smile for Me also feature a day/night cycle, where you can help people during the day and must run back to bed during the night. In fact, this is because the mad doctor established a curfew for everybody on the island. When night approaches, the screen will get more and more distorted, and the sound more muffled. Since that, the player has around one minute to go back to bed to wake up the next day. Failing to do that will have very uncomfortable consequences.

Every time you miss the curfew, a very creepy video will play. They are always real videos, of low quality, where somebody is just recording dark and disturbing places. Sometimes it is just a corridor engulfed in darkness, while other times a forest at night or a dirty hole in the wall. The doctor will silently speak to the player through writing above the videos. Often, the messages have no connection with the creepy video behind them. In the beginning, the doctor will just warn you not to break the curfew, but later on, his warnings will get far more creepy. For example, the doctor will point at something in the darkness as if you are not alone. Can you truly see something through the darkness? However, the most disturbing detail is when the pissed doctor will remind you about how you come back at night after breaking the curfew. Who is bringing you home and tucking you in bed?

The disturbing videos playing at night add another layer of surreal uneasiness. Plus, the mysterious atmosphere is enhanced by the intentional lack of information regarding hidden gameplay elements, which will definitively worry the player. How many times can I break the curfew before something really bad happens? What will happen after breaking the curfew for the last time? Because if it is true that by sleeping late, you will also wake up later, having less time to solve quests, on the other hand, it is unclear what the long-term effect is.

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. I will not spoil more about what will happen after breaking too many curfews, but if you are curious, you can check the following video on the Surreal and Creepy YouTube channel:

Bandits looking for a fixed narrative following a divine Play: the Travelling Players from the surreal Clash Artifacts of Chaos

Clash Artifacts of Chaos is a spin-off/ prequel of the Zeno Clash saga, set in the same surreal and insane primitive world. However, this time the game is not a first-person brawler but a third-person martial-arts-based Souls-like, full of unique and bizarre mechanics. The twisted and colorful world is a pleasure to explore, a place enriched with unmovable rules, violent rituals, and a set of weird and unique characters. The world extends from cold mountains to mosquitoes-infested swamps, always offering something new to discover. But in all this madness, what for me truly shined are the Travelling Players and its actors.

The Travelling Players is a group of aggressive bandits living in the mountains, busy raiding villages and brainwashing people to join their ranks. If till here is nothing new, I forgot to mention that the Travelling Players are obsessed with following a sort of holy script, a fore-sighting spectacle in which they can never go out of character. The actors/bandits are constantly acting following the divine script, avoiding any form of individuality, finding their place in a predetermined role and embracing a fixed routine.

Worth to specify that the Travelling Players are also extremely creepy-looking in their appearance and fighting mechanics. They are usually dressed as hooded figures somehow resembling scarecrows, with body and face completely hidden. This is probably due to the necessity for the actors to hide any individuality and peculiarity, becoming only generic pawns following the Play. Interestingly, Travelling Players can also appear in other parts of the world where fixed battles previously occurred, replacing the fight with an unexpected new battle. There are three different types of Travelling Players: a normal one, an obese one, and a sort of bird-like creature. All the enemies have extremely weird and bizarre fighting styles, with unexpected moves. The most normal-looking actor is a martial-art expert, surprising the player with acrobatic moves and weird kicks, moving almost as if he has very few bones in his body. Moreover, he can use tricky colorful petards to unexpectedly attack the player. The fat actor is quicker than he looks, able to fold his body into deadly jumps and rolls. He will literally try to smash the player using his body in any possible way. The bird-like actor is the most disturbing of the trio, with only a long beak going out from the hood. This actor moves weirdly, and he can surprise the player with deadly grasps and long-range attacks, using the beak as the main weapon.

The Travelling Players’ main hideout is at the top of a cold mountain. The base resembles a Greek theater, with an amphitheater as main social location, including ritual battles, and mysterious carvings decorating the rock. For example, the tragedian and comedian masks from Greek theater, or modified version of them, are carved at the main entrance. Other Greek-inspired giant heads are sculpted all around the hideout, resembling philosophers and ancient statues, in a way, to provide credibility to the actors and their unquestionable play. More subtle and creepy environmental details hide around the base, including creepy masks with sparkling eyes located into semi-collapsed corridors.

The boss of the Travelling Players is, of course, called the Director. The creature is completely dressed in a complex suite, behaving like a sort of Messiah that comprehends the future. He is the one writing the Play, providing the scripts to all the Players, fixing them in his own narrative. The Players do everything the Director writes for them, since they believe in his diving figure. However, the Director is mainly a fraud, tricking the enemies by falling inside his narrative-plan, and, as result, appearing to the masses as a prophetic figure. The Director wears an sumptuous orange costume that looks almost with bird-like features. According to the official artbook, the Director wears this extravagant outfit to differentiate even more from his actors, which instead appears as generic and peculiarity-less scarecrows. Because the Director is the star of the Travelling Players, and he knows it. During the battle, the Director tricks the opponents into drinking poison from an ancient artifacts, thus already incapacitating their powers. Moreover, the Director will not fight alone but together with his actors, and he will keep the distance while mining the amphitheater with colorful smoking bombs.

The Travelling Players are a brilliant piece of storytelling and world-building, fitting perfectly into Zeno Clash’s world, but also striking going outside of it, resonating with more complex social and philosophical concepts. In fact, they are indeed bloodthirsty bandits but also inhabitants of a chaotic world, which prefer to renounce any responsibility and decision-power in front of a holy script. Whichever brutality committed is not their fault, because they are only playing a role assigned by a higher being. They don’t need to think or question their own actions, because the Play will do it for them. Do you see any similarity with our society?

But if the struggle against the social-moral compass could be too much of a stretch, the Travelling Players show other interesting traits. For example, there are many references on how the Travelling Players combine theater and live role-playing game in their narrative, achieving an amazing extrapolation for breaking the fourth wall. Sometimes, actors will forget their own script, asking advice to the others and breaking their own narrative. But the insane detail is that the Travelling Players are indeed NPCs inside a videogame that love to be scripted NPCs, somehow celebrating their digital existence. Because if you think at it, the mind-twist of characters inside a fictional world that want to exist as scripted beings, but are in fact scripted NPCs inside a videogame, is a brilliant piece of meta-gaming.

Clash Artifacts of Chaos is a beautifully crafted souls-like set in an insane and colorful world, where the Travelling Players are the cherry on top this extravagant setting, playing with standard gaming rules and breaking the fourth wall in an unexpected way. And all this without losing their creepiness as scarecrows-like bandits fighting with bizarre and alien styles.

Surreal and Creepy YouTube channel: Exploring the forgotten city of Nott Longa, a cryptic adventure based on Italian folklore

The YouTube channel of Surreal and Creepy Games, including materials coming from here and also from Dark RPGs, is finally up. If you like my articles, suggestions, and analysis, please consider following this channel for future videos.

Meanwhile, welcome to the first video of Surreal and Creepy YouTube channel! Today we will have a look at the city where Nott Longa, an indie game based on Italian folklore, is set. Have a look at the mysterious characters inhabiting this cursed town, from the Bessabova, a giant sea snake associated with storms, to the terrifying swamp witch Borda. A dark world where forgotten beings speaking in dialect from Ravenna are waiting the end of this eternal night.

Interview with Vikintor, the Brazilian developer behind the nightmarish puzzle-game Tamashii

Tamashii is a game difficult to define inside a specific box. If it is true that the game is mainly a platformer with complex puzzles based on creating clones, the combination of a disturbing atmosphere and intended glitches creates a unique and hermetic product. Tamashii is full of secrets, easter eggs, and scary surprises hidden as fake glitches and bugs. Every room is hiding something, every scene can have a coded message or a subliminal image, in a game where even the game folder itself is hiding old prototypes and files protected with passwords.

The bosses are one of the most interesting points of Tamashii, huge abominations that will need effort and different strategies to be defeated. One can be a puzzle, another a chase for your life, or even transforming the game in a “shmup”, each battle is a different scenario. Worth also to specify that the bosses are a cluster of symbolism, biblical quotes, and hidden references, not only before the fight, but also after being defeated, when a religious quote will flash on the screen for a split second. Moreover, if you are curious to read more about these creatures, you can also check my article: The Bosses of Tamashii: behind the religious symbolism of glitchy abominations of flesh.

Vikintor is the game developer from Brazil behind the surreal insanity of Tamashii. Vikintor created several games, including the free Estigma, a nightmarish combination of Pacman and Q-bert. Teocida is instead the upcoming prequel/sequel of Tamashii, another cryptic and mysterious puzzle-game defined as “Metaphysical Aptitude Program”.

While waiting for the release of Teocida, I had the opportunity to talk with Vikintor about his career, Tamashii’s secrets, and his future directions. If you are curious to know more about the most hidden secrets of Tamashii, its symbolism, and cut secrets, the following interview will satisfy your curiosity.

Tamashii boss that transforms the game in a classic “shmup”.

Q1: Thank you Vikintor for the opportunity. I am curious to know: how your career as solo developer started and how Tamashii was born?

A1: I worked on a factory while programming Tamashii in my spare time. At the time I had only the basic gameplay elements, but I didn’t had expectations or an aesthetic for it. I spent a lot of time trying to find an aesthetic that I liked, and playing some obscure old games helped me to get inspiration.

As I am an enthusiastic person about esotericism, I had the idea of creating an identity that mixed video games with esotericism in a subversive perspective. But I decided to take gamedev a bit more seriously after re-playing Paranoiascape, which helped me with the aesthetics, mostly because It was the first obscure game I’ve played as kid. It was an unlabeled disc that my father bought in a market when people trade pirated games copies and sell every kind of stuff, like broken televisions, used toys, porn and probably stolen stuff.

Q2: Which were the most important references, both for movies and games, for the development of Tamashii?

A2: Besides ParanoiaScape, I was inspired by games like Garage Bad Dream Adventure, Kowai Shashin, Spider the videogame (PS1) and Yume Nikki, and movies like Tetsuo The Iron Man, Society, When Black Birds Fly and Eraserhead. For the game esoteric references, I only cared about classic books that I own physically, I’m not a big fan of reading about that stuff in the internet.

Q3: Tamashii is a game full of surprises, secrets, hidden messages, symbolism, and intended glitches. Why did you decide to use this formula for Tamashii?

A3: My intention was to create something that achieves the same felling I had when I was a young gamer discovering an obscure game for the first time. And because I’m a huge easter egg hunting fan, I tried to make a game that always seems to be hiding something.

Q4: Hidden Biblical quotes and religious symbolism are an important part of Tamashii’s atmosphere. Why did you use this symbolism to define the world-building and the atmosphere?

A4: I tried to find a balance between sacred and profane, making something that sounds and seems alienish, edgy, weirdly erotic and esoteric at the same time. Also, Tamashii characters were mostly inspired by Gnostic mythology and symbolism.
Second; I also aimed to make the game fells like a religious propaganda. For that I was heavily inspired by pretentious old PC and NES educational videogames, making Tamashii the more preachy I could at the time, but with an anarchic approach to its content.

Religious symbolism and dialogues are central elements of Tamashii.

Q5: Between the many cryptic secrets, a scene with a video of a quite creepy “live streaming” got quite famous. Could you tell us more about it?

A5: I don’t remember where the idea came from, but I was planning to add some events to the Live Streaming segment, but I never did. The game actually checks if the computer has an active Internet connection and, if not, displays an error message.
The room in the video was actually my own room at that time. I still thinking about implement the same thing on more games, but I have to take a time to at least prepare something cooler for it.

Q6: Was there something cut from the final release, like a boss battle or a really creepy glitch?

A6: The game has a bunch of cut content that still inside the game. There’s some beta and unfinished puzzles rooms and some boss’s layout variants, A fake install screen that can be found only on version 1.0 (It was an error), also an unreachable test room with all movement mechanics from Estigma. There is also a room with a windmill that works depending of player score on levels.

Q7: Tamashii is a game full of secrets, including coded messages and hidden files in the game folder. Do you think there is still something that the players didn’t discover? If yes, could you tell us some clues about it?

A7: I remember about hiding a visual signature to an audio in the game (that only can be seem using a spectrogram) and some visual that can be noticed with different brightness settings, but I can’t remember much more.

The super-hidden Windmill room (thanks to Vikintor for sharing it).

Q8: Other than Tamashii you also recently released Estigma, a horror puzzle with a similar disturbing atmosphere. You are also working on other projects, but I am curious, which is your “dream project”, the game that you would like to develop one day?

A8: A dream project for me is creating something that I can consider weird even by my standards, because I don’t believe my games is weird as much I like them to be.

Q9: Teocida is the upcoming sequel of Tamashii, which is also set in the same universe. Teocida is described as a “Metaphysical Aptitude Program”. Could you provide some details about this definition?

A9: In addition to the esoteric theme, with Teocida I also wanted to bring the game a little closer to parapsychology. As if the game were a succession of tests, including the Zener cards used for clairvoyance studies.

Q10: Could you give us some information about Teocida and how will it be connected to Tamashii? When will it be a possible release window for Teocida?

A10: I decided not to name Teocida as Tamashii2 because of the changes in direction compared to the first game. While in the first game we control a character who is new to that world, in Teocida we follow the story from the perspective of the Matriarch, a character who knows that reality very well. Also the game can be played before or after Tamashii, and I thought that a number on the tittle could implies the opposite.
I don’t have a release date yet, however the story is done, now I’m just absorbing content and getting inspired to prepare the secret content.

Image from the upcoming Teocida, showing a potential connection with Tamashii.

Final remarks:

I would like to thank Vikintor for his time, the interesting answers, and for sharing hidden images of Tamashii. His amazing horror puzzle was a true surprise full of secrets and unexpected events, and I am really looking forward for the release of Teocida. While waiting, if you still didn’t play Tamashii, it is available on STEAM, PS4, and Switch.

Illbleed: after all, it’s just an amusement park. Meta-gaming and horror references in this classic survival-horror

Illbleed is not the most polished or famous survival-horror of the golden era, but for sure is one of the most innovative and original even now. Focusing on a more silly and campy atmosphere typical of American B-movies, with a lot of blood, nudity in impossible moments, and absurd monsters, Illbleed was able to portray an original and inspired survival-horror. The interesting idea behind Illbleed is that the game is set in an amusement park based on the works of a fictional and controversial horror movie director, and the different senses like smell and sight are needed to preventively identify traps before they activate. However, the park is not a place of amusement and death there is real and tangible, because for the survivors the reward is really high. In fact, whoever will be able to survive the deadly traps and the grotesque creatures will be rewarded with millions of dollars. And this is where freshly graduated students fans of horror movies will decide to join the challenge.

The amusement park setting is detailed and well-planned in every element, where everything is directly integrated with the gameplay. Upgrading your heartbeat to avoid being scared to death is due by finding a new heart ready for an organ transplant, the same for any other statistic. Or for example, the player will be able to save the game only in old but peculiar photo-boots, the best place to immortalise this gruesome holiday.

There are also a lot of statistics to balance, not only the heartbeat, but also bleeding, adrenaline, and of course health. Usually, an extreme loss of any attribute will lead to a brutal death, or will leave the player completely exposed to the deadly traps scattered around. For this reason, several items very well integrated into the setting will help to solve the situation. If of course bandages will stop bleeding, the adult magazine will instead increase the heart rate, for a rather funny but totally useless purpose.

The game is divided into thematic levels, each of them inspired by a fictional movie of the insane director, which of course is also a hidden reference to famous real horror movies. For example, it is impossible to not notice how the undead Banballow, disfigured by the fire in which he died and still haunting in revenge the teenagers responsible with a flamethrower, is a clear reference to Freddy Kruger. Another example is the second level, where a huge worm, grew by an old man as his daughter, is now haunting everybody walking on the ground. Did anybody say Tremors?

But the world of references associated with Illbleed goes totally insane in the official Japanese guide, where at the bottom of each page there is a reference to both horror classics and Z-movies, from The Exorcist and Omen to Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. This transforms the official guide in a hidden horror encyclopedia, but sadly with the problem of the language barrier. Here I can show you some examples of the references from the guide (roughly translated with Google):

• “The Manitou”: A 1978 American scary movie based on the concept “I’m pregnant of a non-human child!” A masterpiece that pregnant women should not watch alongside “Rosemary’s Baby” (page 60).
• “Attack of killer tomatoes”: A movie with tomatoes hitting people. A super Z-class movie that disappoints if you don’t watch it with the intention of enjoying the least. Still, it was so exciting that the “Kanbu version” was released.
• “Death Clouds”: Young people who come to an abandoned house for a vacation inadvertently play a cheap recording of a spell that awakens a dead child, and are attacked by dead electricians like a nightmare. This is messy and muddy (page 46).
• “The Burning”: An American movie from 1981 that was also the source of Illbleed’s “The Home Run of Death.” The murderer Cropsy kills the students who came to the campsite with a huge pair of scissors. (page 92).
• “Actress Award”: Both the scene that appears in the first half of the work and the one that appears in the final stage that director Hideo Nakata made before shooting “Ring” are deadly scary. It’s by far the scariest Japanese movie of the last few years (page 119).

Even more interesting, the game has a more straight direction toward meta-gaming, with peculiar and unique results. It is true that the player is facing horrible monsters and avoiding deadly traps, but, at the end of the day, this is all just an amusement park. Maybe you will not realise it immediately, but behind every disgusting monster there is an actor in a costume or a bloodthirsty programmed animatronic. For the entire first level, you will just have the brain off, thinking like “well another monster to kill, probably a mutant or a demon.” But then, the player will take conscience that everything around him is man-made. Many of the “creatures” killed with hatchets or axes are actors in a costume, but nobody will explicitly say so, it is something that will grow on the back of the head of the players. And this will get even more clear specially during the second fight with the “Krugerian” boss called Banballow.

The boss will transform into a gigantic abomination, a disfigured titan immune to any damage. The player can of course escape from the giant by jumping on some platforms in the water, but for how long? Then, a surprise will help to destroy this boss: the control room where the operator is controlling the creature. Because no matter which gigantic creature you will face, just keep in mind that are always robots or machines. The operator will note how this colossal machine is the state of the art of killing monsters, costing millions of dollars and employing top engineers. Breaking the console will surely stop the giant robot, but why go for it so easily? In an unexpected bloody scene, the main heroine will directly murder the operator, while the player will control her action, attacking the pacific man as if he was a normal monster. After the initial shock is dissolved, it is revealed that the operator is also a robot, but only after his head will pop out in a bloody scene revealing the spring below. An efficient way to break the fourth wall inside the fourth wall: if the enemies are only machines of an amusement park, maybe the operators are also robots. Well, this will probably make you feel a bit better about the gory rampage of the main character.

• 

• 

The third level has also a nice surprise at the very end. The stage is about a sort of hunting game between grotesque zombie lumberjacks and humans transformed into wood puppets. The puppets need to escape from a maze while avoiding the deadly axes of the hunters. The boss of this stage is a twisted tree with a human face, with tentacles-like branches and a giant mouth. After surviving the maze of deadly lumberjacks and regained the human form, the player will be ready to enter the boss lair. But instead of the gigantic boss, there will be an empty pit and two technicians at work. They will say that the boss is malfunctioning and not ready to fight. After different tries to make it work, the technicians will just give up, saying to the main character that can continue without facing the boss. Sadly, this brilliant meta-gaming moment will break when the boss will actually appear, killing the operators and starting the fight. But there is still one small detail to add: the boss is yet malfunctioning and will attack without saying a word. Instead, after being defeated, the giant creature will recover and will start its recorded speech about lore and background, but it is too late, and the creature will disappear in the pit without completing the “welcoming” speech.

• 

• 

If the first level was for sure a more brilliant and unexpected way of defeating a boss by using tropes and lore from the game setting, another interesting surprise will wait in one of the last levels. The movie inspiring this level is about a convenience store where a crazy promotion organized by the sadistic manager trapped several people in a murderous trap. After a carnivorous cockroach, a living cake looking for a severed head, a killing doll, and dozens of traps, the greedy manager can be finally challenged. The undead soul will assume the shape of a gigantic anthropomorphic spider, which also in this case will be impossible to damage. But again, the meta-gaming will help to defeat the abomination. In fact, by sneaking into the control room while the operator is distracted on the phone, it will be possible to steal the remote control of the spider. By using the device, the player will take direct control of the spider, and it will be easy to destroy the machine by repeatedly smashing it against the walls. At least this time, violence against the operator was not necessary. But again, an impossible fight was solved using a brilliant example of meta-gaming and the amusement park setting. The destruction of the spider will set the attraction on fire, and the operator will send an emergency ladder to evacuate the visitors. A different way to end the level.

• 

• 

But the cherry on the top of the meta-gaming cake goes to the Killerman level. Who is the Killerman? Basically a sort of bizarre combination between a Japanese superhero, a wrestler, and Pepsiman, which enjoys murdering people and leaving a star marked on its victims. What is genius about this level is that completely breaks all the previous rules. There are almost no traps around the level, and also no monsters. Why? Because the attraction is temporary on standby since a 20 million dollars Killerman’s outfit got stolen, and somebody is now murdering the staff of the park. Even before starting the level, it will be clear that something is odd. The usual newspaper describing the aim of each stage, in this case will have only a giant “KILL,” written only by using the letters K-I-L.

In this level, the main character will help technicians and operators in the park by tracking down the Killerman, while he will murder new victims. Every part of this stage will be “behind the camera.” The player will have access to storage rooms full of unused traps, costumes, robots, and pieces of machinery from the previous levels, all stored like in on a movie set. In this unique level, there will be also space for many dialogues with the operators and the technicians, discovering new secrets behind the park. Everything here is reversed, in a unique level that will brilliantly break any stereotype or routine from the previous stages. A particular area will also store all the costume models of the different monsters, including a menacing monster made of raw red flesh and bones, a zombie girl with the face ripped off, and the killer lumberjacks. Yes, all these monsters that were bleeding red blood when damaged (not green or oily like other monsters) were in fact actors wearing a costume, a disturbing truth is officially revealed.

The murder investigation will also have the key moment of deciding who the Killerman truly is, a question that will directly addressed to the player itself, a direct meta-gaming moment directly breaking the fourth wall. Moreover, between a list of suspects, including the Player itself: not the main character, but you that are suspiciously playing this game. And of course, the Killerman will be… the Killerman, no other explanation is necessary! The player will discover how deadly the Killerman can be during the final showdown, when the creature will use energetic beams, teleports, and other super-moves to kill the player.

• 

• 

• 

Other than an encyclopedia of horror references and a brilliant example of meta-gaming, Illbleed is also full of innovative ideas and surprises. I will just conclude with a brief description of how weird is to get the True ending in NG+. When starting the NG+, the objective will be to let all the main character’s friends die in each stage. Every time a level is completed without saving a character, the heroine will lose part of her clothes, till she will be practically naked. But only by accessing the last level almost naked, it will be possible to face the real final boss, which will not resist the main character’s beauty and will come out from its hideout. Gratuitous nudity to unlock a secret final boss: if this is not a homage to Z-movies, I don’t know what else could be.

Illbleed is a brilliant pot of innovative ideas and total insanity, which knows how to bend its own rules to create a unique experience, using not only meta-gaming strategies from its lore but also employing horror references from movies. And this is true not only for the game but also for the official Japanese guide, a whacky and colorful world where each page is a horror reference.

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

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

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

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

Tragedians

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

• Universal actors that could interpret any other character

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

• The inner Reflections of other characters

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

• Tragedians as Living Tutorial and early help for the player

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

• Tragedians as Living Signs

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

Executors

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

• Driving the plot by providing clues

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

• Close to dying characters

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

• Orderlies: normal men helping to fight the plague

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

• Talon and Beak

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

• Death itself

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

 

The cryptic Kids of Pathologic: dangerous games for children

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?