@yeso Oh, I didn’t want to mean it has nothing to do with those games, it is totally in that tradition, but where the creepiness and suffocating atmosphere of Quake was more of a happy accident in most ways, this game takes all that heritage and uses it in a vastly superior and deliberate way.
But I won’t deny maybe it requires some appreciation for its arcade nature to see the meaning and symbolic value of what it does. I do think it pushes beyond its nature as an artifact of “fun”.
@JoJoestar I don’t disagree just had not thought of a game with shooting as a primary verb as fitting the bill. Just had thought of more deliberative and meditative experiences, but that’s probably just my limited imagination
And another one for the topic:
King Of Dragon Pass
kodp is a bronze age tribe management game in which the ultimate goal 1) survival, and 2) uniting enough neighboring tribes to form a clan
There are a number of variables to manage including farming, hunting/foraging, diplomatic relations, trade, etc., but the core mechanic of the game is an extremely detailed system of ritual and worship related to the game’s invented cosmology
that row of portraits at the bottom of the above screenshot is your tribal ring - a group of appointed counselors who all have their own personalities, religious affiliations, and imperfect insights into the spiritual concerns that heavily mediate your tribe’s fortunes
One of the most detailed and important components of the game are a series of mystical quests members of your tribe must embark upon that basically involve astral projection.
However success depends on first acquiring mystical knowledge and close interpretation of myth and scripture.
you begin with limited descriptions of myths and rituals, and have to conduct sacrifices and divination that add detail to these narratives as you successfully conduct them.
Once on the astral plane, the game turns into an esoteric choose your own adventure thing. You make choices based on interpreting the myth texts, which is why it’s important to divine as much info as possible about them
Don’t fuck up on the astral plane, the consequences can be harsh
Kind of a unique game (apart from 9 ages, its belated sequel), and the closest comparison in my mind is edutainment software like oregon trail or that polynesian tribe simulator they had on apple II
@yeso KODP is in my top 5 favorite games of all time! Absolutely love this gem and it’s successor Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind. Glad to see someone else appreciating this game!
yes indeed up there for me as well. I can’t find my old cd so am stuck with the lesser mobile->steam version. Still great though
Basically everything by Kitty Horrorshow fits into this category for me.
Chyrza in particular gets to me in a way the I love. If you haven’t played it before, it’s very short and I highly recommend it.
Middens is an extremely weird game that seems to fit this thread as well. I haven’t played all the way through it, but the world it portrays is bizarre and unsettling in the beat of ways.
yes KHS is excellent great recommendation.
ALso have another one:
Dark Messiah/Hellnight
This is more of a horror game but I think belongs because of the game’s direct portrayal of a hidden world (there are 3 layers of “reality” in this game), and because it’s “gameness” is minimal. There isn’t much for you to do besides run around and collect/use items. It’s a lean and mean game that emphasizes the esoteric/occult experience in a way that, in my opinion, silent hill transmutes into “gameplay”
The player is involved in a subway derailment who, in attempting to return to the surface, must navigate an enormous underground complex called “the tokyo mesh.” The mesh was built for some secret unit 731 shit by the japanese imperial military
and adding to the uncanny vibe are the truly odd character renders
And as mentioned the narrative really goes places. It’s a short and focused game, well worth playing I think. Might want to use a walkthrough to minimize some not great backtracking. It’s about the audiovisuals and atmosphere anyway so you’re not shortchanging yourself
Hellnight came up in our horror podcast but unfortunately none of us had played it. I got intrigued, but then found out how much it costs!!!
If we’re bringing up late 90s FMV (adjacent) games, then I might as well bring up Kowloon’s Gate, the game in which you, an agent of the Hong Kong Yin-Yang Society (to provide a very rough translation of 香港最高風水会議), must infiltrate a revived Kowloon to send it back to the world of Yin and restore spiritual harmony to our world. It’s a literalily dense, ambitious work that probes the idea of Kowloon to its absolute furthest reaches.
@[deleted] awesome, and this is from the hellnight people, correct? Fan translators need to get to this asap (after linda cube)
Yes indeed, and it seems like the cd-rom boom is a rich vein for games of this type
yikes it’s a cool game but not $100+ cool. The jp prices are 1/4 of that and there’s not much text in the game
Hellnight made me remember Garage: Bad Dream Adventure, a surreal japanese PC adventure obsessed with automatons and the mechanical that was somewhat popular but remained untranslated until actually just a couple of weeks ago.
And since I am already writing this, last week learned about Nemuru Mayu (Sleeping Coccoon), another dungeon crawler with bizarre atmosphere in the vein of the recently discussed Baroque. It is also a game that attempts to evoke a feeling of otherwordlyness and dwelling with the occult through its obscure and complicated game systems and anomalous ui design.
Melos Han-Tani, developer of Anodyne, All our asias and other cool games wrote about it in his blog.
deSPIRIA, I forgot about this one!! Yet another weird but probably mediocre oddball atlus release that costs $80+ on ebay. Heck. I reckon this is one I could find in japan in some dusty shop for much cheaper.
bumpin the thread bc maybe a couple of brave, intelligent, and physically gorgeous people are playing pathologic 2
So we can discuss it here if anyone is inclined.
There has been some notably good writing on both the original pathologic and recently on 2
Would advise against reading the essays on 2 until you have completed the game. I’m normally spoiler-agnostic but I think a “pure” run through Pathologic 2 is critical to its themes and design**
I’m going to grab it soon when I have a chance
Book Review: The Spell of the Sensuous – The Spiritual Naturalist Society
This is my favorite non-fiction book. I perceived the world differently for like two weeks after reading it. I was playing pathologic 2 today, replaying it actually (i reset at day 3) restarting from day one.
And I orginally was doing the replay on some in built TV monitor speakers. But would get frustrated when looking for herbs. Because when you’re near them they sound like buzzing flies. And you have to triangulate, aurally. Because you can find them through stereo sound clues.
So the game trained me to put in headphones and start listening to various nature sounds as being actually important and meaningful. And I’ve been doing that for a few hours.
And then I go for a break. And I’m smoking a cigarette. And 20 feet away my ears hear the sound of leaves rustling around the next door parking lot.
And it activates a neuron in my brain because of this “pay attention to nature” tool I’ve been playing. Making me to listen to the sounds of my environment around me.
Really incredible stuff.
I would describe pathologic 2 as thief + deadly premonition + kentuky route zero
And I’m not even halfway through it yet
The kentuky route zero comparison is clear in the way you eventually realize your conversational choices dont really matter (but also way more than that. Kentuky route zero is one of the few games I would describe as “literature” and this has that same feeling).
It reminds me a lot of “sleep no more” where they put on a staging of Macbeth inside a large 4 story building. I went to it once in the before times. They make you wear a plastic mask, to identify you as a audience member, to both to other audience members and yourself. You will never see every part of “sleep no more” in one viewing . The actors split of into 8 or whatever storylines and its up to you which one to follow.
(The masks even have a bit of a plauge doctor beak to them)
(In pathologic 2, it’s the “actors” that wear white masks.)
But sleep no more is an interactive set. Where you’re welcome to open every book or drawer and explore what you find in it, pathologic feels inspired by the same sense
It’s insane how much of a piece of THEATER this feels like, even down to things like the lighting.
I’ve made my own personal adjustments to the difficult slider. Like reducing hunger drain by 30%. The difficuly sliders are numerous and robust and you should feel no shame in customizing your experience.
@Moon yes the decision-making in Pathologic 2 is done more through player action and guided by which plot threads they choose to follow rather than dialogue choices.
I think another point of comparison is The Last Express, in that plot events move forward with or without the player even being aware, but the flow can be diverted by player intervention. At least that was my impression.
also some similarity w TLE wrt emphasis on intuiting character motives and ideologies
Memory of a Broken Dimension
It’s going for some sort of well worn “cyber” aesthetic but in its devotion to inscrutability, the entire package achieves a sort of holistic, hermetic perfection that is both enthralling and entirely frustrating. It’s like trying to describe a strange object you can only feel in the darkness. Feels like a dream from the future transmitted to the present via Tachyon particles (cf. Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness). In development for 8 years, the dev sometimes streams his process on Twitch.
Resurrecting this thread to show you all this fragment of videogame insanity:
this one was definitely a heebie jeebie inducer.
I should get posting again in this thread. We had a few people mention playing pathologic 2…they should post in here and validate my opinions….
I’d rather not say anything about this game, because I feel the trailer communicates well everything important/interesting about it.
