I was raised by punks, so I’ve known about this little adage for ages, but the idea goes like this. If you’re at a bar and sitting at a table, and three Nazis walk in and are allowed to stay… that’s a Nazi bar now. And if you are sitting at the table with them and do not get up and leave, that’s four Nazis at a table. And you might be like “hey Anna isn’t that a little extreme,” and the answer is yes. But we aren’t the ones bringing the extremism. The Nazis are. And there’s no reasoning or “hearing out” Nazis. They’re Nazis.

Substack thinks we should “hear out” the Nazis.

I disagree.

And while it’s taken me a lot longer than I’d like considering that things have been a bit wild for me professionally the in 2025, not counting everything else that’s going on, I’m not going to stay in a Nazi bar. I suggest you don’t either.

So what does this mean for you as a subscriber of Resident Anna? Nothing, really! The migration to Ghost.io will be handled entirely on my end, and all that will change is the email address from which you get updates. That’s all! If you’re one of our paid subscribers (thank you!) you may receive an email saying that payment has otherwise been stopped on this account, or you may receive a refund. I appreciate your willingness to support me, and Ghost.io has a similar function if you would once again like to sign up. I also understand that it has been a while since I have updated consistently and we have a recession inbound, so absolutely no worries if you decide not to re-subscribe. Things are tough out here!

I do hope to get back to writing on this blog at some point. My freelancing work has really taken off again, and while I’m so grateful for that, it also means that I have less bandwidth to yap about horror games on the internet.

Thanks for sticking around. This isn’t goodbye - talk soon!

Content warning: this article discusses gambling, how it works within the brain, and contains mention of compulsive gambling (gambling addiction). Some of the imagery in this game (and the others made by the same creator) are disturbing in an uncanny fashion (especially concerning faces) which some people may find upsetting.

It’s the classic gambit: do you walk away with what you’ve got? Take the money and run? Or do you risk taking a loss for the chance of walking away with even more than you started with?

Gambling is so old that it predates written human history, and I’ll come right out and say it: I don’t understand its appeal as a recreational activity. Maybe I’m just too stingy to risk it with my money. Being a permalancer will do that to you, I suppose.

But I do know that gambling holds an almost supernatural power. For the majority of people, gambling is a fun, somewhat glamorous way to spend an evening, score some NeoPoints, or get the skin or cosmetic you wanted for your favorite character in a video game. But for others, it becomes compulsive, all-consuming, and even pathological, resulting in catastrophic damage to interpersonal relationships, personal finances, and even so-called “deaths of despair.” Another reason I don’t understand the appeal, I suppose.

And yet, the power that gambling holds seems almost improbable in itself: how can something as unassuming as a slot machine or betting on your favorite sports team on an app lead people to lose their entire life savings? How can playing a little game of chance turn into a diagnosable addiction?

There has to be something almost intoxicating about gambling. There has to be something in its makeup to cause people to throw all self-preservation and logic to the wind. What’s in this thing that is so dangerous that it’s banned in many US states, entire countries, and in the codes of many world religions?

…And how can it be used in horror?

The Neurobiology of Gambling

As it turns out, the gigantic “supernatural power” of gambling ironically comes down to something almost imperceptibly small: neurotransmitters. For the unfamiliar, neurotransmitters are a class of chemicals within the brain and greater nervous system that act as messengers between special nerve cells called neurons.

Each neuron “fires” the appropriate neurotransmitter across the synaptic cleft, the small distance between one neuron and the next. Once the neurotransmitter arrives in its associated receptor on the opposite side of the cleft, that marks “message received.” Then, the next neuron can “fire” the same neurotransmitter to pass the message forward like a baton in a relay race. This little network of chemicals and signals is the language of the human nervous system: both incredibly complex yet somewhat rudimentary at the same time. And it happens constantly.

And as advancements in technology and medical imaging allow us to have a better understanding of neurobiology, it’s become clear that the act of gambling ignites an absolute firestorm of neurotransmitters in the human brain. You know those memes about what modern food would kill a medieval peasant? That’s literally what modern gambling is doing to our nervous systems.

Because the nervous system is old. The common nervous system structure associated with bilaterian (symmetrical) mammals is believed to have developed during the Ediacaran Period, over 550 million years ago. A modern slot machine or sports betting app is virtually identical to that decadently-seasoned Dorito as far as our nervous systems are concerned.

Because for all our technology has advanced, our nervous systems are essentially running on pretty primitive hardware. This is why when you’re stressed out, opening an email might feel akin to facing down a hungry lion. The human nervous system is only able to speak in a language that was appropriate for our early ancestors who didn’t know what “influencers” were. God I wish that were me.

Not only is the “language” of the nervous system out of sync with our modern reality, the set number of neurotransmitters means that they are also speaking with a pretty limited vocabulary. However, don’t be lulled into thinking that “limited” is synonymous with “unsophisticated.” So let’s get acquainted with some of the key players of the neurotransmitter world so you can see what I mean.

Norepinephrine - Alertness

Norepinephrine (also called noradrenaline in some dialects of English) is a major player in the neurobiology of gambling. This neurotransmitter functions as an “activator” within the body, and is sometimes referred to colloquially as the “rage hormone.” Its levels rapidly increase during the fight-or-flight response, and it’s the primary neurotransmitter of the sympathetic nervous system: meaning it can control things like heart-rate, respiration, sweating, and muscle tightening. When you physically “feel” stressed? That’s norepinephrine, baby.

But norepinephrine isn’t a “bad” thing by any means. When you aren’t stressed and its levels are normalized, it’s what allows us to get up in the morning, focus in on school or work, and otherwise allow us to take care of business. Alertness can look like this, too. You need some level of alertness, otherwise activity in the brain decreases, leading to symptoms often associated with clinical depression.

Functional MRI (fMRI) imaging conducted by Yale indicated that in people with “problem gambling behaviors, there is both an increased presence of norepinephrine and its metabolites” (the things that breaks a neurotransmitter down over time). This could indicate that people who struggle with gambling feel the “rush” of this neurotransmitter - but are also subject to a much faster comedown than the general population. This could easily create a cycle wherein an individual feels like they are eternally chasing a norepinephrine high.

Dopamine - Reward

This neurotransmitter has caught a lot of flack on the internet in the past year or so, as it has been branded a key aspect of brainrot. Seriously, people are advocating for undergoing “dopamine fasts” (spoiler alert: that’s not real/they don’t work). But perhaps the trepidation around this neurotransmitter is somewhat warranted, because it is indeed quite powerful. Dopamine is colloquially known as the “reward hormone,” but that somewhat oversimplifies its many functions.

Sure, dopamine is grouped in with “pleasure chemicals,” but it’s got quite a few jobs! Rewards are an important aspect of the learning process, meaning that dopamine contributes towards the overall processing, learning, and memory capabilities of the brain. In fact, there’s evidence to suggest that schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders have a correlation with altered levels of dopamine. Additionally, dopamine appears to play an important role in movement and muscle control, as Parkinson’s disease is believed to be caused by a degeneration of dopamine secreting neurons.

That same study conducted by Yale indicated that in people with problem gambling behavior, dopamine levels are elevated - and it’s no real question why. When a person is within the “gameplay loop” of gambling, the anticipation of the outcome is a pure dopamine rush. That dopamine doesn’t just instantly disappear once they step away from the slot machine.

Serotonin - Impulse Control

Sometimes known as the “happy chemical,” serotonin is the workhorse of the neurobiology world. While it’s most commonly known for its capacity to regulate mood, it’s responsible for a complex variety of functions in the body: everything from regulating your digestive system, to blood clotting, appetite, sleep, and even sexual desire. She’s the MVP - and this is why SSRIs are some of the most commonly prescribed medications. They treat a lot of things!

But when it comes to gambling, serotonin is the sleeper-hit for a very important neurological function: impulse control. Most notably, serotonin is associated with behavioral inhibition, the process in which humans realize they shouldn’t do something because of a predictably poor outcome. Remember when I said I don’t understand the appeal of gambling because it never seems to lead anywhere good? That’s classic behavioral inhibition.

fMRI indicates that in people with problem gambling behaviors, this aspect of inhibition is, well, inhibited, due to lower serotonergic activity within the brain. Gambling appears to be able to quiet that little voice that says “hey, maybe it’s not a good idea to do this,” which is the key to both self-preservation and the ability to stop. It seems like serotonin is the reason why some people can get so hooked by the act of gambling: our brain’s built-in “off” switch has been disabled.

It’s at this point that you’re probably like: alright Anna, enough background on neurotransmitters, let’s cut to the good stuff.

So I’ll ask you one very important question…

Over? Or Under?

Surrealist 2024 indie-horror game Flathead by solo developer Tim Oxton, published by DreadXP, absolutely knocked it out of the park as far as neurotransmitters are concerned. Flathead has an incredibly simple gameplay loop under the hood, with a basic guessing game of probability dressed up to the indie-horror nines.

Akin to the demo for his upcoming similarly-surrealist horror title The Silkbulb Test, Oxton presents a deviously simple setup. You, the protagonist are placed into a chamber as if you are some kind of lab rat. A screen beside you instructs you to “pay what you owe,” and gives you a numerical standard of credits you need to meet. Essentially: this is the minimum threshold where you can “cash out” and get out of the chamber alive.

…Because oh yeah, if you lose too many times, a strange interdimensional creature comes to get you :)

To get these credits, you need to win rounds of the aforementioned “over or under” probability game facilitated by the analog console shown above. You’re shown a single number with a value from 1 to 20. Then, based on what the first number is, you have to guess if the second number will be greater or lesser in value - over or under.

That’s it. That’s the game.

You only have a few other switches at your disposal. The player can turn to their left and activate a cartoonish electric switch labeled “LIGHTS.” It allows the player to look behind them for only a few seconds to peek down a long hallway where something is lurking… and growing closer all the time… There’s also a small switch called “Make Your Own Luck,” which eliminates numbers on the board to help the player make their decision - but beware, the thing behind you approaches much more quickly when you use this option. And then there’s the Wheel of Fate - a strange alternate wheel that can give (or take) various boons: such as awarding credits, removing credits, giving you additional uses to the light box, etc.

Now all of this might sound confusing when laid out in text - so it might be better if you see a couple rounds for yourself to understand it.

Flathead’s Use of Casino Design Fundamentals… to Scare You?

Much like a slot machine, Flathead itself is delightfully tactile. From the levers to the big, chunky buttons, spinning wheels, and flashing lights - there’s no doubt that Flathead employs many of the same tools of the trade as casinos. The difference, of course, is that usually things aren’t going to eat you in a casino (unless you’re a member of the White Glove Society in New Vegas, I suppose).

The physical design of gambling spaces has implications in the psychology and neurobiology of gambling, too. In fact, the design principles most commonly associated with modern casinos were written by a former gambling addict. No, I’m not making this up.

Rather than recover and fight the predatory gambling industry, Bill Friedman (who fascinatingly does not have a Wikipedia page…) instead chose to study the methods casinos use to hook patrons. He’d then go on to then become a casino manager and consultant. …Not what I’d do, but the guy got results.

Here are some of the psychological tricks The House plays… and Flathead uses.

Disorienting Spaces

Whereas casinos might be of labyrinthine construction with no windows to keep you disoriented to trap you into staying longer, Flathead follows this design principle’s lead. The primary room where the gameplay occurs is almost devoid of an interior, with nothing but shadows and the console in front of you. It’s impossible to know where you are, what time of day it is, or even how long you have been in there. In casinos they want you to stay, but all the players of Flathead want to do is leave.

The Machines Are The Decor

Used in combination with the above, there are no real decorations or art within casinos, as the machines are meant to be the sole thing for patrons to engage with. Flathead similarly embraces this… except for the four TV screens to the player’s left which show the face of the lady from The Silkbulb Test as she displays uncanny facial expressions (which is kinda her whole deal as far as I can tell).

Sensory Overload

Flashing lights, spinning wheels… if you’ve ever been overwhelmed at the concept of a casino, know that this is deliberate. Overstimulation is meant to disorient and otherwise exhaust an individual mentally, which might lower their inhibitions… and of course cause them to stay and gamble longer. Flathead uses this sparingly, but it’s such a stark contrast with the otherwise empty expanse of the game that when you do get a brief whimsical glimpse of flashing lights or spinning wheels… it almost feels like it’s mocking you. This was supposed to be fun, right? :)

But there’s one other grand trick that Flathead uses to really scare its audience.

Doubling Down

Flathead really thrives on a concept derived from the game of blackjack: doubling down. At a blackjack table, doubling down means that you are doubling your initial bet (but you can only draw one extra card). But instead of doubling down on cards and chips, Flathead succeeds in doubling down on certain neural pathways, intensifying the reaction from the player.

Remember our friend norepinephrine? The “alertness” neurotransmitter? You may have noticed that beneath it’s “profile” above, I name-dropped a connected system that we frequently discuss on Resident Anna: the fight-or-flight response.

Because norepinephrine’s primary function is that of activation, it’s heavily implicated in both excitement and terror - all domain of the fight-or-flight response/the sympathetic nervous system. Just look at all of those reactions in the diagram above: those are all norepinephrine-controlled!

There’s a peculiar adage that I’ve heard from various health professionals in the past, that “anxiety and excitement are the same word in different fonts” as far as the nervous system is concerned. Since both are communicated through the sympathetic nervous system via the same neurotransmitter, it can sometimes be difficult for our minds parse the difference between the two. Nervousness and excitement feel very similar somatically, and it’s the emotional information from the frontal lobe and contextual stimuli from the world around us that help us infer which of these two emotions we’re experiencing.

But with Flathead, the mixture of these sensations is the point. The player is designed to feel both simultaneously: the excitement of gambling… and the fear of a horror game where something is creeping up in that long hallway behind you. Flathead is doubling down on the effects of norepinephrine within the player, heightening the intensity of its excitatory and anxiety-inducing features in a way that I’m not sure would be as successful if either element had existed in isolation. Throw in some uncanny facial expressions in there and you’re golden!

The connection between anxiety and excitement is ancient but has only become understood in recent decades. Making a horror game that capitalizes off of this connection is nothing short of genius from a psychological perspective, essentially making the player’s own nervous system an extension of the game. And the general strangeness of the experience has me left with even more questions. Just what is that entity behind us? Who’s running this weird laboratory? And why does that Silkbulb Test lady keep making weird faces at me?

Truthfully, I’m really looking forward to the future of Oxton’s work in both a stylistic and design capacity. Because if he’s shown he can do one thing, it’s always have an ace up his sleeve.

Thanks for tuning in to another Resident Anna. This one was pretty neuroscience heavy compared to last month’s more opinion and culture-based article, so I hope you found it interesting!

If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, just know that there is help. The National Problem Gambling Hotline is available here in the United States for anyone who wants to take the first step getting help. They can connect you to local resources to assist you in starting your journey. Their website also contains educational information about compulsive gambling, questionnaires, and links to additional resources. Compulsive gambling is real behavioral addiction and can (and should!) be treated as such. Resources are out there and you are worth it.

Catch ya in the next one!

RESIDENT ANNA IS BACK, BABY.

Thanks so much to everyone who has read in the past, are just joining us now… just thanks for being here. :)

Content Warnings: this article discusses the historical and current struggles and resilience of Native American people, meaning that there will be mentions of colonization, genocide, and ethnic cleansing. There is also mention of cannibalism and death(s) of minors (and miners!).

This game also includes spoilers for Until Dawn (2015, 2024).

Overview

2015 was truly a simpler time. It was a time of Vine, of matte cream lipsticks in every shade and hue, and of Joanna Newsom’s third studio album Divers. It was officially the halfway point of the 2010s, so linear horror games were O-U-T out: it was the era of the Dear Esthers, the Amnesias, and of games with a whopping 256 possible outcomes.

Yes, you read that correctly. 256.

Until Dawn (2015) by Supermassive Games wasn’t shy about flexing its reactivity from the jump. Built from the chaos-theory concept of the “butterfly effect,” the game was designed to provide a breadth of potential outcomes for extensive replay value. This, coupled with the classic “teen slasher flick” horror setup and celebrity stunt casting to boot, would prove to be a hell of a formula that would establish this title as horror game cult-hit royalty.

Until Dawn takes place in the fictitious location of Blackwood Mountain, located somewhere in the province of Alberta, Canada, on the ancestral territory of the Cree (Néhinaw) First Nation. The mountain is both treacherous and craggy, and the only reliable way to get on or off of it comes in the form of a rickety cable car. The mountain also has a rather tragic and unlucky reputation historically. Apart from housing the crumbling remains of a sanitarium (I’m from the Appalachian mountains, I get it) and many abandoned mineshafts equally-tinged with tragedy: a pair of sisters disappeared about a year ago.

The Washingtons practically owned that mountain, and although the local population dried up alongside the mining industry following an accident, the family still has a lodge there. The game surrounds a group of friends who take an annual winter trip together to get away from everything and bask in the splendor of Canadian rich-kid-dom. But when a prank goes wrong and sends twin sisters Hannah and Beth Washington running into the woods… no one ever saw them again. Due to the rugged terrain, search parties were unable to locate the Washington twins, and they quickly went from being missing persons… to assumed dead. Their bodies were never recovered.

Fast forward a year, and Josh Washington, the brother of the two missing girls, invites the group back to the lodge. Everyone feels weird about it considering what happened last time, but eventually they accept. But there’s no way to go back to “normal” again after something so tragic, no matter how hard you may try for the sake of appearances.

But that’s not the only hint that something is very, very wrong on that mountain.

An Insatiable Hunger

The English word “w*ndigo” (I will be censoring the word out of respect for the traditional Omàmiwininì/Algonquin taboo that its name is not to be spoken for risk of drawing its attention), is believed to be a transliteration of its word from the Ojibwe language. This particular spirit is one of the most reviled in the folklore of Algonquin-speaking Nations, as it is characterized by its insatiable hunger to the extent that it makes those possessed consume other humans.

If you’re familiar with Until Dawn, you know that these creatures take a rather large role in the plot. And if you’re a horror-or-otherwise-video-game-enjoyer in general, you likely have already come across this creature in another piece of media. Just to name a few…

As depicted in Hannibal above: you’ve likely seen an artistic depiction of a w*ndigo as having antlers of some variety (be they deer, elk, etc). And while that’s a bold artistic choice, it’s actually completely devoid of folkloric basis. The addition of horns is believed to have originated from the novella The W*ndigo by Algernon Blackwood, which was published all the way back in 1910. Fun fact: the author of this famous novel also gives the mountain in Until Dawn its name.

Blackwood was a English novelist renowned for his “weird” fiction, and if there’s one thing English people love, it’s colonizing things that aren’t theirs. The w*ndigo is ancient and formidable in Algonquin folklore for good reason - it’s understandable that those beyond that identity draw an interest in it. But when the culture it belongs to has been colonized, systemically oppressed, and has withstood ongoing genocide, the ethics of further colonizing this creature by non-Natives for a scary story (or AAA video game for that matter) become much more murky.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s take a look at how w*ndigo manifest in Until Dawn.

What Big Teeth You Have

W*ndigo aren’t the only monsters on that mountain (no full spoilers here), but they are certainly the more supernatural of the bunch. The known origin of these creatures on Blackwood Mountain goes back to the mines in the area - or rather, they can be linked to a mining disaster which occurred in the 1950s. The collapse of a tunnel due to a structural failure trapped 30 workers deep within the mines. The game says that there were 30 men said to be working in the area, but by the time they were rescued, there were only about 12. The implication of course is that they resulted to cannibalism in order to survive.

Indigenous legends vary about the exact mechanism of how a w*ndigo comes to be, but according to Cree legend within the game, individual humans are able to be overcome by the spirit and “transform” into a w*ndigo with the consumption of human flesh. The game also says that the band of Cree who lived on the mountain left long before thee accident, primarily driven away by the expansion of the mining industry and destruction of their land. The Cree warned that the settlers and their mines have disgraced the mountain and subsequently unleashed a curse. So it would seem.

Since it was the 2010s and unarmed horror protagonists were en-vogue, there’s no way to “fight” w*ndigos in Until Dawn even when they do make their presence known. But due to their relatively poor eyesight, all the player can do is try to hold perfectly still during an encounter and hope that the creature doesn’t perceive them.

And this brings us back to the Washingtons.

Hannah and Beth’s bodies were never recovered because the two girls fell into an open mineshaft. Fortunately (or, perhaps, unfortunately), Hannah survived the fall. Her sister Beth, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky. Now hopelessly trapped with nothing but her sisters’ corpse to keep her company, Hannah faces a terrifying prospect: she has to wait to be found. Luckily, she knew that her friends saw her run into the forest, so hopefully someone will find her soon… right?

Only, much like those miners once trapped within that same mountain, help doesn’t come in a reasonable amount of time. Or in Hannah’s case: ever. Desperate to hold out as long as she can, Hannah is driven to do the unthinkable in order to survive. As indicated by the pages of her journal, it’s unclear how much of her decision to consume her sister’s body was purely organic or spurred on by “Makkapitew” (Algonquin for “one who has big teeth”), believed to be the strongest/fiercest of the w*ndigo.

Regardless of the mechanism, Hannah has committed the associated sin, and thus her own transformation into a w*ndigo is cemented. When she appears in this form in-game, she indeed larger and stronger than the others of her kind, believed to be from Makkapitew’s influence. In this new state, Hannah hardly appears like she used to with her elongated limbs, grey skin, and emaciated silhouette, but we can tell that it’s her because of the thematically-apt butterfly tattoo she sports on her right shoulder.

Once the characters realize that the largest of these terrifying creatures is their friend, it’s almost hard not to feel some degree of empathy for what was once Hannah even as she stalks you across the mountain. These friends (who are, honestly, pretty terrible friends) are the entire reason that she ended up like this in the first place. And now they have to deal with not only the consequences of their own actions, but the consequences of the entire history of the Washington family and the destruction that their colonization wrought upon the area.

And it’s with this in mind that we consider the gravity of this creature in this context.

Decolonizing the Genre One Monster at a Time

And you might be like: OK, Anna. But you said so yourself. You’re not Native. And you’re right. I’m not. But quite frankly? This is a conversation that us White horror writers need to be having. I called this article Unspoken for multiple reasons! White horror creators need to be asking: when is it okay to utilize folklore elements from historically marginalized groups when you are a White creator?

From research into the Surrey-based team that made Until Dawn, I was unable to tell if the team consulted with (or even just completely hired) Cree or greater-Algonquin people to work on this game. There are many “special thanks” listed within the credits, however I do not see anyone listed as a consultant, and was unable to find any press or interviews which detail the extent to which the studio may have collaborated with Algonquin people on the project. And unfortunately, there are some telltale signs that this might not have been the case: primarily manifesting as a strange mishmash of Native American cultural elements from across the continent which do not align with the Cree setting.

However, it’s clear throughout their depictions of the w*ndigos that they did their due diligence on research, as evident by their emaciated bodies and lack of horns. But research, while critical and a gesture of good faith, pales in comparison to the rich context that comes with lived experience, and full understanding of the associated taboos and motifs that accompany these often highly-complicated facets of culture.

However, the issue arises that if the team themselves are not Native, but are utilizing a facet of Native folklore in order to develop (and most importantly: profit) a video game, at what point do developers play a role in the ongoing colonization of Native people? At what point do we as White video game developers need to consider if we are the Washingtons on that mountain?

And more importantly: what do we do about it?

Solution A:

In January 2024’s State of Play, it was announced that Until Dawn would be getting a remaster alongside the announcement of a live-action movie adaptation. Remasters and remakes are fine and good, but my initial reaction to the movie was “I hope it’s being made with actual assistance from Algonquin people.”

Solution A to the “but I want to make something using a w*ndigo or sk******er” is: hire Native people. And I can speak on this from experience working previously on a Western. It was the act of working with Native contributors to the project that ultimately helped it find its direction in a very troubled genre.

And it’s easy for White horror creators to brush off the input of their indigenous contemporaries due to the false but unfortunately common idea that Native American people simply do not live here anymore. In fact, a study from the Reclaiming Native Truth Project, an advocacy group wanting to dispel common misconceptions and incorrect narratives about Native people, found some wild statistics.

Results of the study as reported by the Great Falls Tribune:

• 40% of survey respondents did not believe Native Americans still exist.

• 59% agreed the United States committed genocide against Native Americans.

• 36% of people believe Native Americans experience significant discrimination. 

Native people of North America are still here, and it’s my firm opinion that if folklore from a marginalized group is going to be utilized for the development of a commercial product - which, unfortunately, video games are both art and a commercial product - the people that the figure “belongs” to should not only be consulted but paid for their involvement.

I hope that the upcoming Until Dawn film adaptation does involve Native contributors, as it’s a huge gesture to do right by the culture which has faced exploitation: from their land to their tradition. There are many talented Native writers, directors, actors, and game developers out there - hire them. Pay them well for their expertise. Let them lead. Listen to them. It’s that easy.

Solution B:

If you are not working in a setting where the creature or monster you want to make the antagonist doesn’t need to be of a marginalized culture that yourself or members of your dev team are not apart of… consider an alternative creature. There are terrifying creatures all over the world, from all other cultures.

I’m from the Appalachian mountains for pete’s sake, we’ve got weirdos for days. Go further back in time and I’m Gaelic. Again: weirdos for days. I can and have written about creatures from these backgrounds within my own work as a horror writer, and I’ve had the Nuckelavee on deck for months now. When there are already so many weird little creatures from every culture all over the world… why appropriate someone else’s?

Conclusion

Until Dawn is undeniably a great horror game. While it’s definitely got more of a cult-hit status, it was and is still well-received by casual and dedicated horror fans alike. With the upcoming remake (which is out this Friday) and a movie in the near future, I just can’t help but wonder what, if anything, was done in an attempt to authenticate the representation. And if the strong anti-Roma sentiment in Supermassive’s 2022 spiritual successor The Quarry is anything to go by, I unfortunately don’t have my hopes up.

As I’ve spoken about many times on this blog, horror as a genre provides us with opportunities to confront the very real atrocities and anxieties of our world. The genre is built upon ethical considerations, speaking truth to power, and exploring that which otherwise makes us want to cover our eyes and ears with our hands. Not taking the opportunity to hire Native developers to help tell this story and provide the sort of depth that only lived experience can provide… just feels like a missed opportunity.

I will absolutely be checking out the remaster of Until Dawn. But I hope that Supermassive acknowledges the areas they could have improved and did so in good faith. Because unfortunately: the past is beyond our control.

Thanks for reading! Did you know that November is Native American Heritage Month here in the United States? Want to learn more but not sure where to start? I gotchu.

• Find out whose land you’re on! This interactive map shows a list of all known Native people in the Americas and beyond. Learn about those who lived here long before us - see if there are any ways you can support them in your local area: with your time, money, or otherwise.

• Learn about the LANDBACK movement. There’s a growing movement of Natives and allies banding together to advocate for the returning of traditional Native lands back to Native stewardship to restore sovereignty. Check out their manifesto and see if there’s anything you can do to help in your local area!

We gotta look out for each other out here. Welcome back, Resident Anna fam.

Greetings, Fellow Mortals…

As you can see by the title, Resident Anna is going to take a few months off from our monthly Posting so I can focus on shipping my personal game project Redjackets, which (pending no disasters, knock-on-wood), will release as part of the 20204 Interactive Fiction Competition (IFComp) on September 1st.

The articles that I’ve been posting on the first of each month for more than the past year have been such a joy to write, but they do take a considerable amount of time and brainpower that, on top of my day job working as a video game writer, I fear I will need to put on hold until I get Redjackets out the door.

Redjackets is a Twine-based interactive fiction project, focusing on 3 protagonists. The game is designed to be played three times from the characters’ three different perspectives - but beware, choices you make in your previous playthroughs will radiate into the other two protagonist’s paths should you go back and play theirs later.

Redjackets takes place in the inner workings of a rather unusual vampire hunting firm of the same name. It’s usual because the “hunters” are much more interested in finding solutions so that humans and vampires and humans can successfully coexist. The Redjackets themselves are comprised of a staff of human and vampire members, who seek creative solutions surrounding conflict resolution, mediation, restorative/transformative justice, establishing diplomacy channels, and the like.

…And yes, they do wear red jackets. The vampire members of the team do, anyway. It’s a long story.

…Did I mention it’s huge.

I have completely written 2 of the 3 acts, and it’s currently over 200 passages. It is, quite frankly, entirely too big. So when it comes to working a day job and trying to finish this… I hope you understand why the articles are going on the backburner for the next couple of months.

I of course know that there are some of you who choose to support me via paid subscription (thank you!), so I completely understand should you choose to remove your paid subscription for the time being, if not indefinitely. Listen, the economy is rough out there and you gotta do what you gotta do!

In the meantime, thank you, as always, for reading Resident Anna. This isn’t goodbye, I’ll be back soon!

Content Warning: this article discusses “averse childhood experiences,” which include things like abuse and neglect. As always, I try to discuss this at a very high level and in a scholarly fashion to prevent things from being triggering to anyone who has experienced them, but please use your own discretion upon reading.

This article also contains spoilers for Little Misfortune (2019).

Overview

For many people, childhood is associated with feelings of warmth. Of safety. Of feeling free to grow, learn, and make mistakes. Free from the obligations and anxieties of adulthood. And for others: not so much. Childhood is a critical time in the development of an individual: physically, emotionally, and socially. As children grow and interact with the world around them, their brain and nervous systems take in critical information: what is my place in this world? Is it safe to be in this world? Am I loved, cared for, and part of a community? The answers to these foundational questions have the potential to shape a child's entire life from the get-go. And when things go as planned, the lasting impact of a childhood well-spent is a positive one. But that's not always the case.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)

Adverse Childhood Experiences (or ACEs) are a category of potentially traumatic experiences studied and catalogued in the field of psychology. By categorizing the wide variety of negative childhood experiences into several quantifiable buckets, it essentially allows psychologists and sociologists to have more data for tracking, treatment, and prevention of abuse and neglect.

Now, of course, as the ACE system is, in short, a measure of how difficult one's childhood was, you can imagine that there already needs to be 10,000 disclaimers. There is no "objective" way to measure negative, traumatic experiences or their impact as we have previously discussed on this blog. An event which was traumatic to one individual might not be considered as such for another person. The reasons for this are not completely understood, but factors such as temperament, emotional support, and childhood experiences leading up to the potentially-traumatic incident are thought to play a role. That's why ACEs are considered potentially traumatic, not inherently traumatic.  However, data indicates that the larger in number that you’ve experienced, something colloquially called your "ACE score," the likelihood of them becoming traumatic increases. 

One's ACE score is determined by a self-administered quiz based on a series of yes or no questions. For every "yes" response, you receive one point. It's these points that drive the data behind the system and make it quantifiable.

According to the Center for Disease Control 61% of adults have at least once ACE: whether that was getting bullied in school or your parents undergoing a divorce. Even one or two points can leave a lasting impression on a person, but it's when these points start to stack up that startling, long-term trends begin to appear in regards to the health, happiness, and longevity of the individual… and 16% of adults were found to have 4 or more.

(Source for the above infographic, which goes further into detail, can be found here.)

Neglect

When we think of child maltreatment or endangerment, the concepts that usually come to mind first are "active" ones. That is: an adult is actively exhibiting behavior towards a child that is harmful, unacceptable, or abusive in nature. These are actions which take intention - they take effort on the part of the abuser. But what if I told you that the most common form of child abuse is actually "passive"? Although data regarding child maltreatment is notoriously difficult to quantify due to lack of reporting, numbers consistently detail that the most common form of abuse is actually its quieter cousin: neglect. 

Like abuse, neglect comes in many forms. At the core of this behavior is paradoxically a lack of behavior: neglect is characterized by a failure of being cared for. And when you take into consideration the myriad of ways that a child requires care, you begin to see the intricacies and many unfortunate forms that this particular mode of abuse can take.

One particularly common form of neglect is "emotional neglect," wherein a parent is unable to tend to the emotional needs of their child. While this seems like it may be benign on the surface, emotional neglect can be dramatically harmful to a child's proper development, which relies partially on "attachment" to their primary caregiver. As we noted in our article about The Path, the Erikson stages of development begin from the moment a child is birthed into the world. The very first "challenge" or "crisis" of the first stage, is to merely understand that their needs will be met. If a baby is hungry and it cries - will its mother feed it? If they're cold, will someone swaddle them? If they're tired, will someone put them down for a little nap?

Understanding that there is someone who is caring for them is critical for the survival of the individual, and if they come into the world with the immediate understanding that this is not the case, and that they are not being looked after, the developmental damage can cascade for a lifetime if not treated. Emotional neglect is also the "sneakiest" form of neglect, as it can be happening without anyone outside of the family aware of it. That's not the case for the other most common kind of neglect: physical.

Physical neglect can be sneaky, too, but it's much harder when a child is younger and cannot care for themselves. Physical neglect also takes many forms: perhaps a child is not given the proper basics for survival - adequate food/nutrition, clothing, or even shelter. Perhaps the child has the basics of survival, but nothing more, and is left to their own devices without proper parental supervision for hours or potentially even days at a time. While this is direct abuse, it's also child endangerment, as a kid could end up in a dangerous situation without a parent to assist them should they get hurt or get into trouble.

As exhibited by the ACE scoring criteria, merely exposing your child to criminal activity and domestic violence is also a form of neglect, as a child does not need to be directly the victim of abuse to be impacted by it. Children are looking to the world around them to learn about themselves and how they fit into it. What is a child to believe when the world is giving them feedback that it’s a scary place, and potentially even that they aren't wanted here? 

...And then what if someone made a game about it? 

Who Names Their Kid Misfortune???

Little Misfortune (2019) by Killmonday Games might look somewhat familiar to you if you're either an indie horror girlie like myself or a reader of this publication. Made by the same team that made Fran Bow, Little Misfortune tells the story of a young girl whose name is literally Misfortune as she makes her way in the world. Based on a Telltale Games-style "choices will be remembered” mechanic, Little Misfortune is a cinematic experience that can be played in one sitting in just under three hours (ask me how I know). But much like with its predecessor and ACEs in general, it will leave a lasting impact on the player.

Despite what her name might imply, Misfortune is a cheerful young girl who is highly enthusiastic about the same sorts of things most girls are: including glitter. From the very start of the game, the player is told by the velvet-voiced narrator that Misfortune is a lovely little girl... who is going to die today. Misfortune immediately balks at this and the narrator is surprised that she can actually hear him. Misfortune aptly dubs the narrator Mr. Voice, and Mr. Voice has a proposition for her. He's quite fond of playing games, and if she is able to complete the game, she will receive a fantastic prize: everlasting happiness. Sounds pretty good, right? 

Misfortune tells Mr. Voice that she wants to play - but not to claim the prize for herself. Instead, she wants to win the game and give the prize of everlasting happiness... to her mother. While we can infer that Misfortune is closer with her mother than father (who we never see at all), the figure of her mother appears very distant. Most notably, alongside all other adults in Openfields, the small town where Misfortune lives, she wears a mask. The masks are simple, white ovals which have rudimentary faces drawn on them in a manner which reminds me of decorating paper plates in elementary school.

Children do not wear these masks in this world, but no adult (with one exception, no spoilers here) is ever seen without them. The symbolism here isn't subtle: the adults are hiding their real faces, instead opting for placid looking faces doodled on a two-dimensional mask. We can infer that this is emblematic of a shunning of the self: refusing to acknowledge one's own emotions that are so often written on our faces. Misfortune takes things upon herself as neglected children are often forced to do, and sprinkles glitter on her less than pleasant surroundings, using her imagination to make them into something that they're not.

This is Misfortune's quiet power among the scores of masked adults: she uses her imagination to express her emotions in the unique way that children can. But the adults of Openfields operate differently - from a place of hiding. And sure, hiding is an easy way to exist, but strikes me as a terrible way to live. The adults of Openfields aren't just neglecting the community's children, they're neglecting themselves, too. 

Danger Looms… But Who Even Notices?

Beyond the masks, Openfields is a strange community. Recently, several children have gone missing. As Misfortune walks around the environment of her city (without supervision save for Mr. Voice, mind you), we see their missing persons fliers posted frequently. Usually, if several children in the same community had vanished without a trace, a near state of emergency would be called. Children would rarely be let out of their parents' sight for fear of some sort of serial kidnapper, murderer, or human trafficker. Yet in Openfields... no one really seems to care. The faces of the children in the posters stare out at the viewer, hoping that someone, anyone, will care enough to find them. Even Misfortune pays them little mind. And as we walk through her community and interact with the various objects around her, Misfortune tells us stories about her memories associated with them. 

And let's just say... they're often a little bit shocking.

In the clip below, from 1:06 - 2:24 showcases two of Misfortune’s anecdotes that leave the streamer a little… concerned.

Watching streamers play this game is always hilarious, especially when they have a camera on themselves to capture their expressions.

In truth, the banality of Misfortune's delivery is part of what's so shocking. Her mother did what while she what? But Misfortune hardly appears to even clock that this behavior is abnormal, let alone harmful -as unfortunately children may not know that what they’re experiencing is unacceptable. However, it’s important to note the response of Mr. Voice. Though subtle, we quickly begin to get the idea that even though he is surely leading her astray, even he is shocked at her experiences. Not enough to prevent him from trying to eat her soul or whatever, but enough that his "oh... I see..."s carry some weight.

We can so easily see how the adults of her life have failed her, setting her up to be the perfect target for such a malevolent creature to take advantage of her and her unmet needs. But Mr. Voice, though we get the feeling that he's clearly not behaving out of altruism, is a bit more complicated than he seems. After hearing that Misfortune has experienced so many, well, misfortunate things in her life, it appears as though he extends her a bit of compassion before eating her soul.

One of my favorite portions of the game is when Mr. Voice has clearly been paying attention to what Misfortune has expressed wanting to do (unlike the other adults in her life), one of which includes attending a Halloween festival in town that day called Phantasmogoria.

Using his magic, Mr. Voice is able to get her a ticket, granting her one last night of fun before she... well... dies. It's difficult to determine how much of this can be interpreted as genuine care, if not pity. Perhaps he really feels she deserves at least one day of fun. Perhaps that's not the case at all, and he merely thinks that if he is kind to her, she will be more willing to follow him to the end of his "game." This is left to the player to speculate on in a way that's really narratively compelling to me.

Of course, the antidote to this whole thing comes in a rather unusual shape as well.

A fox.

Care: the Antidote to Neglect

Misfortune tells Mr. Voice early in the game that she has been seeing a cute, red fox outside her window and has taken to calling him Benjamin, although it's impossible to know if that's truly his name (or indeed, if foxes have names at all).

Benjamin is an enigmatic figure over the course of the game, appearing aloof and disinterested in Misfortune (much like everyone else in her life). Mr. Voice also addresses him with a disdain that hints that the two may have crossed paths in the past - and that they aren't exactly big fans of each other. Despite how Misfortune tries to draw his eye, Benjamin is frequently shown immediately fleeing every time she gets close, an act that she interprets as hurtful.

But something shifts around the second half of the game. Misfortune finds some of Benjamin’s documents containing detailed instructions, one of which being: do not contact or engage in any way with whoever is the host of the parasite. It turns out, Benjamin does care about Misfortune in a way that no one else ever has. Neglect got her into this terrifying situation. Care and companionship will get her out. 

I won’t tell you exactly how, however. You can’t expect me to give everything away!

Final Thoughts

Examining the relationship that neglect and horror have in Little Misfortune leads to more questions than answers. But it makes sense that at the center of it: children, and all people in general, are just looking for someone to care.

At the end of the line, when all hell is breaking loose, all they want is for someone to tell them that it's alright. That they'll be kept safe, like they were supposed to have been all this time. My Resident Evil obsessed self immediately thinks of Sherry Birkin in Resident Evil 2, who was only a child but was searching the zombie-infested Raccoon City for her mother at Umbrella's headquarters. At the end of the day: all she wanted was her mom. And Misfortune is much the same. She goes through all of this, for one purpose and one purpose only: to give the prize of eternal happiness to her mother. To make her mother's life easier.

And while there's likely some degree of "parentification" in Misfortune's life, to the extent that she always refers to herself as being a "little lady," part of me wonders how much the desire for her mother to have the eternal happiness is ultimately still in service of herself. If her mother was happy, if her mother didn't worry so much, if her mother didn't have to fight with her father or "hug strangers behind the dumpster" for money, if she was happy... she might have more time and energy to give that joy to Misfortune, too. 

As is the case with both games released by Killmonday, the number of ACEs experienced by the protagonists (by my count, Misfortune has 5) has no bearing on how other characters in the game (such as Benjamin or Itward) treat them. The enduring thesis is that "you are not the things that have happened to you," and that your ACE points have little bearing on how happy your life can be, even if the odds are stacked against you.

The possibility of a happy ending always remains, even if the beginning was less than favorable. At the end of the day: just because someone was not able to love you the way you deserved, and even thought that might have put you in some perilous situations involving demons trying to eat your soul, doesn't mean you aren't deserving of love. 

Thanks as always for reading. I’ve wanted to talk about this game for a while, but wasn’t sure how to approach it. But I hope I’ve done Misfortune justice. And if I haven’t? Yikes forever!!!

See you in the next one! <3

Content Warning: this article is very design-focused, so there’s very little in terms of sensitive content addressed in this one. However, there are some images of zombie designs, so if you’re not a big zombie-enjoyer, this one might not be for you.

Overview (and Disclaimer)

Let's be honest. There's been a lot of discussion about AI in the past year. And all of it is garbage. Seriously.

"AI" as it's been discussed in the mainstream media is specifically referring to generative AI. That is: tools that are fed "scraped" (read: stolen) data of everything from art, to photography, to text, with the intention that the program would be able to replicate or otherwise "spit back" generated material. Shills for this technology heralded it as some kind of innovation that could potentially put the entire art and games sector out of work (except it can't), will save the world (except it won't), and even spur on scientific discoveries in some kind of technologically-driven renaissance (except it literally cannot conduct its own research you guys it requires existing stuff to be fed into it, it's not capable of its own thoughts). Anyway.

Generative AI is a funhouse mirror. It spits back ill-formed versions of the authentic. It's not interested in genuine composition or artistic intent. The only people who are excited about this possibility are the execs who can use it to dazzle shareholders and dilettantes unwilling to learn to draw or write, themselves. But what we're going to cover in this article is, in itself, a form of artificial intelligence - however the phrase "AI" has been overtaken by the aforementioned shills who don't understand why humans make art in the first place.

In truth, artificial intelligence is just a category of machine learning, which has been utilized in many aspects of the arts and sciences for decades. Video games use AI all the time! Think about enemies and their behaviors: how they move, how they attack - all of that is an AI package. If you're playing one of those "map coloring simulator" strategy games, and you notice that two countries nearby on the map are having a war - that's AI at work. Procedurally generated narrative, or levels, or any of that... that's AI. But it's not generative AI. That's the difference.

So for the purposes of this article, I want to be very clear what I mean when I say “AI,” because I am in no way referring to the generative stuff. But discussing legitimate applications of this already-existing tech feels weird now. Because the AI bros took that from us. Ok? Ok.

Machine Learning In Horror Games

The horror game scene in the 2020s is experiencing a golden age. We have absolutely no shortage of incredible games to play: from indie to AAA and everywhere in-between. Like many genres, horror experiences a natural ebb and flow in its media production. And like most media industries post-2008-financial-crisis (the way this keeps coming up in my articles is weird and makes me kinda angry ngl), there was a natural slowdown in production (even though video games have previously been considered "recession-proof").

While all genres interact with whatever the general public is facing at the time of creation, this goes doubly for horror. Since the genre is characterized by confronting that which we find uncomfortable, shameful, or frightening, the genre also develops natural ebbs and flows in terms of its content. And in horror games, this is also influenced by the technological advances of the era. When new technology allows for a new mechanic to be supported, everyone naturally wonders: who is going to do it first? Who is going to do it best? And this often requires a certain degree of experimentation. 

So post-2008-financial-crisis, horror games knew that they would have to do something pretty bold in order to receive funding and make it onto the shelves (back when there were literal shelves).

And with new technology that was coming online, there was a trend surrounding a new convention: what if a game was able to learn your playstyle or fears and was able to respond in real time? This mini-era in the 2010s was full of experimental titles that attempted learning your behavior as a player, what you were afraid of, and modulate itself accordingly in order to meet those needs. And you might say: that sounds like a tall order. And it was! But that's the thing about video games. They so frequently like to push things forward. 

Titles of this era which boasted “the game plays you” technology:

• Until Dawn (2015, 2024 remake) - I want to do an entire dedicated analysis on this one, so watch this space. When will this happen? Who knows.

• Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (2009) - this lesser-known entry in the iconic franchise used a “psychological profiling” system to determine what horrors await the player.

• Anna: Extended Edition (2013) - naturally I played this one at release because it’s my namesake, but I was never entirely convinced the game was that responsive. It’s about a witch named Anna though, so, tbh, same.

• Nevermind (2015) - this title claimed to utilize biofeedback to learn and exploit your fears. Considering the available tech during this era, I’m curious how successful it was. If you’ve played this one, sound off your thoughts below - I wanna know!

And you might be like “Anna… you missed one. Or, two, rather. The two which arguably did it best. To which I say: what do you think the article’s about, silly?

I was originally going to do a snapshot of a couple of the games listed above, but I fell so deep down a rabbit hole researching one specific aspect of this franchise that I decided to dedicate the entire article to it. That’s how much I love your games, Valve.

The Left 4 Dead Series and its “Director”

The first time I really learned about machine learning and artificial intelligence in a horror setting was in Valve Software's Left 4 Dead franchise, which is comprised of two installments: Left 4 Dead (2008), and Left 4 Dead 2 (2009).

The backbone of this squad-based zombie-shooter was a system known as The AI Director, often just referred to as "The Director" or "AID" for short. The Director was present in both installments, however it had a beefier and more nuanced set of supported features in the sequel due to continued iteration and upkeep, as it was clear to Valve that they had a smash hit on their hands.

The AI Director allows the game to constantly modulate itself to squads of more (or less) experienced players. Variety of weapons, enemies, and consumables kept the game feeling fresh on replay, and it’s my opinion that it’s one of the reasons this franchise has aged so well. Playing Left 4 Dead 2 in 2024 is just as satisfying as it was at launch. And once I started looking into it, I learned there were things the Director was doing that even I, a dedicated Ellis-main and Left 4 Dead veteran, was unaware of. So let’s take a look!

Zombies and Enemy Spawning

Perhaps the most commonly-known feature of the AI Director is its ability to determine the number and variety of zombies that the squad will encounter. Doing well? Not taking so much damage? More zombies - and zombies in trickier places (such as close-quarters)! Struggling a bit? It’ll toss you fewer zombies and mostly in less challenging places (such as sticking to wide-open portions of the map)! The constant variety of location and variation of enemy spawning makes the relatively small number of playable maps (at least compared to modern titles) feel fresh round after round.

However, the Left 4 Dead franchise pioneered the introduction of specialized zombie varieties that go beyond your typical shuffling corpses. Known as the “Special Infected,” this class each has a unique set of behaviors: such as pouncing from above on one member of the group, or spitting pools of noxious acid.

These special infected often target individual players who have wandered off from the group. This also shapes gameplay, as sticking together and working collaboratively become the best protection from these weird little guys. But, for example, if your squad is very good at sticking together and taking down the undead, the Director may throw more Chargers, Jockeys, and Smokers at you - specials whose attack behaviors attempt to isolate one member of the group, allowing them to be “picked off.”

Sometimes, when the Director is feeling particularly sadistic toward an experienced squad, it may place a Witch (a deadly special infected that will only attack when you get close), in the middle of a narrow hallway, making her unavoidable. Or alternatively, another common technique, toss a Boomer at you right around a corner, making it so their explosive hoard-calling abilities are unpreventable. But all’s fair in love and zombies.

Health, Weapons, and Consumables

But it’s worth noting that The Director is not an entirely adversarial entity. It’s “listening” to the amount of damage done, but also the amount of damage taken. While most consumables and weapons are auto-populated from a dataset on load, if players are consistently at low health-levels, the Director may choose to provide more pain pills in the first-aid boxes throughout the map.

First aid items vary in usefulness and application: from providing a temporary, non-substantial boost to bringing a deceased/fallen squad member back from the dead. But increased frequency and swapping more substantial items can help players make it to the next Safe House, where there’s usually more substantial consumables available.

Level Traversal

This is what surprised me the most. Only available in Left 4 Dead 2, The Director can literally choose to make changes to the map in accordance with how well the players are progressing throughout the chapter. These changes vary in how much they will differentiate the player experience: from switching the location of spawn points to entirely altering the player’s path.

For example, in The Cemetery portion of The Parish, the graves/mausoleums themselves are dynamic, meaning that the AI Director could force the players to take a longer, less direct route if they need a bit more of a challenge. This may also be coupled with spawning more zombies or special infected to really up the ante.

Or, there’s my personal favorite map, Dark Carnival, where the game may spawn a fence along the main path, providing an extra layer of protection between zombie and player should the player needs a little assistance.

And in most people’s least favorite map, Hard Rain, the torrential downpours which completely drown out the sounds of your fellow squamates and obstruct your vision are controlled by the AI Director. May it have mercy on our rain-drenched souls.

Gameplay Flow and States

The gameplay flow of the franchise is unmatched, and that also comes down to the “state system” managed by the AI Director. This system is predicated on the players’ “Intensity level” which is a variable calculated by how frequently they are taking (and doling out) damage to/from enemies at close-range. The Director is keeping close tabs on the individual and collective Intensity levels in order to determine when to throw another wave of the undead your way.

There are three states in total:

Build Up: from the moment the players spawn into the map, Build Up mode begins. This is the “onramp” for Intensity, and is the closest to what you can probably determine “normal” spawning patterns for both regular and special infected. The goal is to slowly raise Intensity level until you hit…

Peak: when all players are at Maximum Intensity - the electronic-sounding attack music is blaring, your screen is covered with blood, and you’re genuinely not sure if you’re going to make it out of this one alive… the Director actually stops spawning new infected, allowing the player to clear out the rest of the zombies and feel a great sense of satisfaction to boot.

Relax: after Peak comes the Relax phase, wherein no new enemies will spawn (except for some random one-off zombies called Wanderers in L4D2, who don’t really pose that much of a threat). This unassuming state in the triad is actually critical: it allows players to take a moment to breathe, maybe use some health items, and return back to a lower level of Intensity. It’s this part of the process that actually allows for there to be a real feel of “flow” in the game, rather than the player just getting overstimulated by nonstop flailing limbs. I gave an entire talk about “quiet moments” at PAX 2020, and am considering converting it into an article here. These “cool down” periods are actually the most important, IMO.

But there’s actually one more phase that isn’t commonly covered in various talks and YouTube videos about the architecture of this franchise’s Director: it can be shut off.

At the end of each campaign is a “finale” phase (such as The Boathouse, seen above). These chapters have their own specific patterns of waves and scripted events independent of the state system mentioned above. As such, the AI Director is switched off to save on performance (finales are already pretty resource-heavy, having the AI Director running in the background could cause framerates to dip), and otherwise to prevent bugs and friction. The ability to switch it off is as genius a feature as anything.

Conclusion

Truly, the enduring legacy of this series is how it often makes me get a lil mad at how slick it’s designed. Since the era of the Left 4 Deads, many other games have utilized complex AI Director systems to make enemies more intelligent or have more sophisticated behaviors in service of delivering a good scare. See: Alien Isolation, or the Resident Evil remakes.

But when it comes to a game that really plays you as much as you play it, I haven’t found a single one that can touch this franchise. And I truly think that’s one of the reasons it has remained such a titan in the multiplayer world.

…In fact, I might just have to reinstall it and jump back in.

Thanks so much for reading. The Left 4 Dead series was already a few years old by the time I got to it, but it became such an integral part of my high school experience - and later the pandemic when my friends and I got into it again. It’s like the comfort food of zombie media (don’t tell Resident Evil I said that).

As mentioned above: have you played any other games with cool AI Direction? Let me know! And as always, I’ll catch you in the next one!

Content Warnings: This article discusses a psychological horror game, and as such reviews a wide variety of topics associated with, but not necessarily limited to: trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, gender dysphoria, dubious consent and sexual assault, child abuse, and general discussions of childhood development. As always, I try to keep it very high-level and scholarly to prevent language which may be upsetting, but please read at your own discretion.

This article also contains some spoilers for The Path (2008).

Overview

The Path (2009) is a psychological horror game from now-defunct two-person Belgian developer Tale of Tales. American artist Auriea Harvey and Belgian creator Michaël Samyn wanted to bridge the gap between interactive art pieces and video games. Despite most of their games being deemed commercial failures: The Path remains a juggernaut cult-hit of the indie horror scene. Adored by fans for its surrealist yet brutal interpretation of the various developmental stages of femme adolescence, it’s safe to say I’ve thought about The Path pretty frequently since I first played it at age 16.

The setup of the game is deceptively simple. Mirroring the old European fairytale of Little Red Riding Hood, you have only one objective: go to Grandmother’s house. It’s just down the way through the thick, old-growth forest. But of course, as Mother always told you, to avoid danger: Stay. On. The path.

…But where’s the fun in that?

Gameplay Loop

Accompanying the deceptively straightforward narrative setup is a gameplay loop that seems almost too rudimentary - something which could be written down on a sitcky-note or napkin couldn’t possibly be enough of a framework for a mindbending indie darling. Right?

The design is as follows:

Step 1: Select your character.

Step 2: Go to Grandmother’s house.

Step 3: Repeat with each of the rest of the sisters.

…Seems almost too easy.

The player begins each playthrough by viewing the interior of a simplistically-decorated red room in order to select their character. There are six options in total for the “Sisters Red,” who range in age from 9 to 19. It doesn’t matter what order you play them in, however the game will only complete once you have played as them all.

Based on their wide variety of ages and the way they appear to each be in their own little world, we can infer that they are likely not particularly close with each other. Though there is only a 10 year span between the ages of 9 and 19, the developmental and social leaps and bounds that are made within that time among women and femmes is quite frankly staggering. This will become a lynchpin in each girl’s story - but more on that later.

The player progresses through the game by uncovering the story of each girl. After completing one sister’s story, they return to this red interior in order to make their next selection. Once a sister has been played, she no longer appears in this odd red room. There’s an eerie void left by each one as they slowly dwindle down… until there is only one left, accompanied only by the endless but astute, methodical ticking of a clock.

But with a simple task at hand, how strange or difficult could each girl’s story possibly be? What kind of horrors can these young ladies possibly experience by simply going to Grandmother’s house?

You have no idea.

…Or, if you are (or were raised as) a woman or femme… you likely have a very, very good idea.

Developmental Psychology and The Etymology of “Trauma”

While it is an objective win that society in general is becoming more aware of the devastating impacts of things like trauma, I also want to issue a word of caution and clarify what I mean going forward. Pop-psychology and TikTokers in recent years have begun to adopt language which was developed in clinical settings: eventually the phrases "trauma," "trauma response," and "nervous system regulation,” which are getting used with such frequency and in a wide variety of applications that these words began to lose all originally-established meanings.

However, trauma is subjective - who is to say what is traumatic and what isn't form person to person. So in psychological spaces, there has been some attempt to delineate between "little t" and "big T" traumas, however even this practice has been criticized by others in the field as being too vague as opposed to more data-driven criteria like the ACE score (more on this in a future article, watch this space).

So-called "little t" traumas are things which are upsetting and leave a lasting impact on someone. This can be everything from being bullied in school, to having your parents divorce, having a nasty breakup, and the like. These are stressors which are demonstrably considered "everyday," however their lasting emotional impact could allow them to be categorized as "traumatic." Alternatively, "Big T" Traumas are things which threaten the physical safety or survival of an individual: such as acts or threats of violence, severe neglect, physical or sexual assault, and the like. This framework of "little t"/"Big T" traumas can be somewhat helpful, but isn't without its criticisms and pitfalls. 

But all of this is to say: not everything is trauma, and what is has a wide spectrum. No matter what someone online might tell you about how someone being rude to you one time counts as trauma - that doesn't make it true. We need to be careful about determining what is actually considered trauma in order to preserve the integrity of the concept.

In The Path, we have events which are "little t," "Big T," and some which are not trauma at all, but a normal part of life and human development. This is not to say that they are an important memory which may leave a lasting effect on a person, but that does not make it inherently traumatic. I want to be very deliberate and intentional about when I use the words "trauma" and "traumatic" in discussing the different Wolves and aspects of the Sisters Red.

A Wolf By Any Other Name

In the off chance you aren’t familiar with the folktale: Little Red Riding Hood meets a wolf (sometimes described as a literal quadruped wolf, other times described as more of a bipedal wolfman/werewolf sort) along her journey to Grandmother’s house. Sensing her innocence about the world, the wolf becomes determined to trick her into getting close enough to him so that he may devour her. However, Little Red has been warned about the dangers of the forest by her mother, and as such, is not too keen to let this happen. The Wolf resorts to trickery in order to dupe the young woman into letting her guard down before he wolfs her down (pun intended).

The Wolf is a figure that is malicious and predatory: searching for that which is vulnerable - that which it can easily devour. In this way, the wolf is depicted as both dedicated and lazy/opportunistic, a duality which also rears its head in the variety of Wolves present in The Path.

It’s important to note that the “Wolves” in The Path are almost entirely non-lupine. That is to say, only one takes the literal form of a wolf. Wolves can be everything from people to abstract concepts, but the core is the same: it is something which the Sisters Red encounter, often pleasant, unassuming, or even seductive in nature, which intends to steal some degree of innocence or otherwise forever change the girl’s comprehension about the world’s fundamentals. Things such as the nature of the world and their own relationship with it. Sometimes these beings are dedicated: seeking them out with motivations of their own. Sometimes these things are just facts of life, the lazy/opportunistic wolf, who has no real malice - they just are.

So if a girl is fated to walk through the woods and encounter a wolf… what determines what that wolf is?

Erikson Stages

We here at Resident Anna are a staunchly anti-Freud publication, however there is one (arguably two considering that his wife is his often-uncredited collaborator but that's a whole other conversation) individual who came out of the school of psychoanalysis that really stands out given this topic of discussion: Erik (and his wife Joan) Erikson. You may be familiar with that name because of the Erikson Stages of Development (or otherwise the Happy Leif Erikson Day gag from that episode of Spongebob). Erikson was primarily interested in the phases of childhood development, especially in the context of greater sociological theory. By studying trends and behaviors, the Eriksons were able to create a framework of 8 "life stages" within which a person progresses - all the way from birth to death.

The concept of childhood and personality development as "ending" once an individual reached adulthood was old hat to the Eriksons, who instead proposed that all humans are constantly learning and growing in the face of new life challenges which make themselves evident at different points in a person's life. The Path emulates the Erikson stages on a more micro-level, specifically zeroing in on the child/adolescent development of young girls. While the Sisters Red only embody some of Erikson's 8 stages, Tale of Tales paints a picture of each of the girls in a very different place developmentally. However, the concept of The Wolf exhibits one distinctive feature of each of the stages: the psychosocial crisis/task. 

Erikson proposed that in order to successfully pass through one of the stages, they must grapple with a distinct psychosocial task (sometimes resulting in what's referred to as a "crisis" in psychoanalysis - they are honestly so dramatic for no reason). This task is illustrated as two opposing concepts (trust vs. mistrust for example, or integrity vs. despair). A successful handling of this conceptual task results in achieving the stage's associated "virtue" - a life lesson which simultaneously equips the person with the required skills to take on the next stage. Think of it as leveling-up. 

In The Path, the Wolf represents such a crisis: a moment where the developmental associations of each sister's life stage are called into question. The fascinating part of The Path is that we do not ultimately see the end result: that is, we don't know how well each of the girls may have dealt with their individual "crises.” We as the player only see the crisis unfold, holding space for the emotions that may arise from both the sister and ourselves as we revel in the catharsis of the experience via Grandmother's House: the place where all the girls end up after completing their encounter with the Wolf. And oh my god does it get trippy in there.

And so at this point you're probably like: ok, Anna. You've talked a lot of theory. What kind of weird stuff are we even talking about here. :) 

The Girls And Their Wolves

Obviously, I don't want to spoil all of the stories of the Sisters Red, so I'm going to go over a couple that range in concepts. You'll just have to play the game (or watch a playthrough on YouTube because it appears to no longer be available on any gaming platforms - more on that later) to see for yourself. 

Robin, age 9 - Mortality

Most notably, the youngest of the Sisters Red is the only one to have a physical wolf Wolf. Her experience walking around the woods is very lighthearted and innocent, seeing only the beautiful and possible, paying no attention to the dangers that lurk around every root and stump. The Wolf that she encounters is just that: a wolf! But to Robin's idealistic young eyes that haven't yet been able to grasp the concept of danger or her own mortality view such a creature, she may see nothing more than a doggy. She attempts to climb onto its back and ride it like it's a horse. As you might expect, it doesn't take too kindly to this and takes off at a run. Ruby does her best to hold on for a time, however she ultimately is bucked off the back of the Wolf.

Thankfully, she lands on the ground unharmed, and thankfully, the Wolf appears to have no interest in going back for her. But at this point in time, the damage has already been done: Robin has realized that the creature did not want her to ride it, and had a will of its own - and that will meant that she could have gotten hurt. Possibly worse. The concept of death is often difficult for children to understand as it requires a certain amount of abstract thinking (the concept of “permenance,” for example) that kids aren't able to developmentally comprehend until a certain age. But Robin has experienced the first taste of her mortality. And at her age: what could be more frightening than that?

Ginger, age 13 - gender and body dysmorphia

Ginger is the most unusual in appearance of the sisters: wearing pants instead of a dress or skirt, wearing her hair in a bob, and otherwise having a rather boyish figure. She appears to be disinterested in typical "girly" things, and we can assume that she is much more akin to a "tomboy," if not experiencing gender dysphoria entirely. However, it’s unclear if this is the case, or if she is merely experimenting with ways she can stand out from her sisters or find her own personhood. Alternatively, she could be experiencing internalized misogyny, which is reflected in her attitudes. Ginger isn't exactly the verbose type, either, preferring to “hide, so it's not like she is going to tell us. 

Ginger's Wolf is one of the much more abstract than that of her sisters. While people still debate the meaning of this exact experience on message boards to this day, most people believe that it is symbolic of menarche: or, the first onset of menstruation. Anyone who menstruates can keenly remember the first time it happened. Because quite frankly: it's kinda scary. The presence of blood and potential pain is one thing, but the idea that you are now entering a new life phase (sometimes officially referred to is "womanhood" which is laughable and most people who menstruate will experience menarche between the ages of 11-14 - extremely far from womanhood, IMO) and it is entirely beyond your control is terrifying.

By getting her first period, Ginger is given a stark reminder of a milestone traditionally associated with her gender assigned at birth, which is likely scary and confusing to her. She may feel trapped or otherwise forced into this new chapter of her life when she wasn't done being a kid yet. Why is her body disagreeing with her overall temperament and mind? This eerie field of red flowers and the girl in the red dress is further echoed in her version of Grandmother's house, which is bathed in a red which feels inescapable and oppressive. And perhaps to Ginger: it truly is.

Carmen, age 17 - sexuality and consent

At age 17, Carmen is flirty and in the mood for love. Her name is likely a nod to the titular operatic character of Carmen, who is often depicted as wearing red. In the opera, Carmen works at a cigarette factory, but appears far more interested in seducing various soldiers around her home in southern Spain than making an honest living. At the time, her sexual advances toward male characters were very bold and groundbreaking, and the character of Carmen in The Path appears to break a similar mold in her own life. Carmen seems very interested in things like fashion and accessories in ways that might make her more attractive to others. Part of me wonders if this is purely out of some sort of teenage self-absorption, or if she is being so flirtatious in order to cover up some other sort of internal insecurity. Who's to say?

Her Wolf is actually a nod to another character sometimes seen in the traditional folktale of Little Red Riding Hood: the lumberjack. In many versions of the story, the lumberjack actually saves Little Red from the wolf. But in this retelling, he is the Wolf. Carmen can be seen flirting with him where he sits on a log at his campsite, drinking what appears to be alcohol. We can infer by her very trippy version of Grandmother's house, which features the sound of someone sawing through wood and a woman moaning, that Carmen has sex with the lumberjack, potentially even losing her virginity to him.

The final room of Grandmother's house shows a four-poster bed, through which a strong oak tree has grown directly through the center, hardly subtle imagery. There has been great debate online whether or not what Carmen's Wolf entails can be considered sexual assault, but to many players (myself included) the vagueness of what happens is intentional, and the point. Carmen has found her way into adult womanhood, unsure if she truly wanted what she thought she wanted. In many ways, this is what leaves her story so haunting.

Scarlet, age 19 - perfectionism and expectation

As a former musician/performer in a past life, this one hits me like a ton of bricks. At 19, Scarlet is a bona-fide adult. She's no longer interested in children's things, and is instead ready to feast upon the refined bounty of her new life-stage. She also appears to be very interested in music and performance, and appears desperate for this aspect of her life to take her seriously. No longer a child merely taking piano lessons to please their parents, Scarlet wants to clearly begin her career as an adult artist. However, the only other characters that she's associated with up to this point are younger than her. Where is she to turn when she needs mentorship? Her Wolf is a bit more unorthodox, known on the back end as the Fae Wolf. It takes place on an overgrown stage in the middle of the forest, where there is a piano. Waiting. She approaches, and begins playing.

Then a person with long, silver hair, approaches from out of the forest. They stand in gentle attendance just over Scarlet's shoulder as she plays. An instructor. A mentor. Eyes watching her fingers intently. By allowing herself to come under the watchful eye of the Fae Wolf, she is making a dangerous trade. Fae are known for their tricky deals that are difficult to wiggle out of and will ultimately only benefit them. Scarlet, whether she knows it or not, may have just fallen victim: by seeking out the knowledge of a mentor, she also opens herself up to scrutiny. Whereas children are allowed to make mistakes and have little upon them in terms of expectation, Scarlet has opened herself up to the gutting potential of perfectionism. And if she can reach that impossibly high threshold: she knows that the riches and notoriety will be great. Unfortunately, if she fails... it could destroy her. To become an adult is to begin to shoulder the concept of societal norms. Of expectation. Of perfectionism. And the most we can do is hope that the Fae aren't vengeful when we fail. 

The Seventh Girl: The Girl In White

One of the most discussed elements of the narrative lies in the character of the Girl in White, a free-spirited young girl who appears with the leitmotif of the modular soundtrack. There's no way to properly predict when she will show up when she's out on a romp, as the world map itself is somewhat unreliable in nature, giving the forest an almost liminal feel. It's so easy to feel lost in those woods, even when you come upon a landmark intended for another Sister and her story. But right when you think all hope may be lost: there she is. The Girl in White. If the player encounters her in the woods, she calmly takes them by the hand and leads them back to the path. Then she goes on her merry way, her duty having been fulfilled. She almost appears to have no allegiance to anyone or anything but adventuring in the forest. Only when she comes upon the player does she pay them any mind.  

The plain, white nature of her dress additionally feels significant. While interpretation of color varies from culture to culture (a whole other topic that is incredibly interesting in its own rite), white has a few oddly-opposing concepts associated with it. In Europe there is the association of witness with purity (another whole other can of worms, yikes) and its connection with marriage. In many Western European cultures, brides traditionally wear white when getting married. However, in many cultures around the world, particularly in East Asia, some Slavic cultures, and parts of Africa, white is associated with death and mourning. Regardless of the interpretation, the associations with the color are often these more metaphysical concepts rather than an emotion or feeling like many other colors. Her style of dress also feels significant in its rarity. The forest all around is dark and gloomy, reminiscent of something you might find in the Pacific Northwest or the Smokey Mountains, and the Sisters Red area dressed entirely in hues of red and black. So this girl in white immediately stands out, no matter who she is standing next to (if anyone). 

There is only one instance where she will reliably appear: in the scene with the Wolf. She often is not directly involved, though she may be nearby, playing with some element of the "setpiece." She often seems disinterested in the Wolf itself, and these are the only times when she will not guide the player away. It's almost as if something is forcing her hand. Surely, if she was so concerned with bringing the Sisters back to the path, she would want them to stay away from the Wolves at all costs. Yet when that moment of meeting happens, she almost seems... disinterested? 

...Or is it fate? There are many interpretations of the significance of The Girl In White. But to me: she's chance. Happenstance. Maybe even fate. She's those strange synchronicities of the universe. She's a lucky break. She's waking up 1 minute before your alarm goes off when you thought you might have overslept. She's being at the right (or wrong) place and the right (or wrong) time. That's why she doesn't interfere. She can't. She is blessed with much freedom, but little agency. The Sisters Red are the ones with the agency. She's pure chance.

Impact and the Intersection of Media Preservation

I think about The Path like... pretty often. As a young woman who was interested in the intersection of theater, games, and also lived in the middle of the woods? This was A+ material. I purchased it on a Steam sale in 2012 or so, and still have it in my library. However, if you're looking to play it today... you'll likely run into some issues. Namely, much like the previously Resident-Anna-featured title, Rule of Rose, the game is no longer distributed. 

EDIT: YES IT IS. Thanks to a tip, I learned can still find The Path on Tale of Tales’ itch.io account!

While this is more or less a footnote at the end of this article, I want it to leave you with a lasting impression. According to a 2023 study by the Video Game History Foundation (VGHF), a whopping 87% of video game releases before the year 2010 are inaccessible or unavailable. The degree to which is the case varies from decade to decade, but a combination of the sunsetting of technology once the particular platform or franchise is past its profit margin and outdated copyright law results in the same issue.

Archivists at the VGHF have expressed that though the Library of Congress has improved its measures to catalog digital media, red tape has prevented them from fully being able to preserve games in particular. Because the Entertainment Software Association (ESA, the largest video-game specific lobbying group in the US government right now, which is an insane sentence to type) was able to convince the US Copyright Office that everything in the industry is fine actually, groups like the VGHF aren't able to get the licensure exceptions they need to preserve these titles. Why does everything in the US always seem to come down to lobbying? You can view the entire study here.

This issue dovetails with general concerns about the evaporation of physical media in the games world: namely - are we seeing an end to physical media? Digital-only game offerings do have their upsides. They're convenient, cost less to produce, and allow for developers to consistently provide updates and patches over the course of the game's life. However, digital-only media is arguably never truly owned. By relying on additional platforms such as Steam, Xbox, or what will eventually become unsupported servers, the player arguably never truly owns the title, as it can disappear from steam libraries the second that the licensing agreement runs out. This doubles-down on the pre-existing issues with preservation of digital titles, as suddenly scarcity becomes an additional factor. If a player is effectively only renting the game (while paying the same full price, mind you), what hope do we have for preservation?

I'm very lucky that my copy of The Path was purchased in 2012 or so and lives on intact in my library. However for many players who want to experience the game for themselves, your best bet is either a "crack" of the game (an illegally distributed copy not requiring any sort of official 3rd party launcher) or merely watching a playthrough from a YouTuber lucky enough to have a copy. Perhaps now you can see why I decided to end here: on the importance of preservation. Art is carefully conserved. Manuscripts are archived. Video games are neither. And maybe that is the path forward. 

Thanks so much for reading this exceptionally long edition of Resident Anna. I’ve wanted to talk about The Path since I started this dang thing, and I’m glad I finally was able to put all my thoughts on “paper.”

Have you played this game? What was your experience with it? Do you have a favorite Sister? And do you prefer digital or physical games media?

Lots of questions as always, but few answers. But in the mean time, thank you for reading, and I’ll catch you in the next one!

Content Warning: though the genre analog horror is known for his restrained use of graphic or violent imagery, this article does show screenshots of uncanny or otherwise potentially frightening/disturbing imagery which may be uncomfortable for some readers. Otherwise this one is pretty tame.

This article also contains spoilers for Maple County and Home Safety Hotline (2024).

Author’s Note

As I’m typing this, we just reached over 200 subscribers on Resident Anna! Now, I know that in the grand scheme of things, this number is not considered particularly large, but the fact that 200 people are interested in my analysis work is genuinely so heartwarming. I could fill a room at GDC with that amount of people! Yowza!

We’re still a couple months out from the official one-year anniversary of this blog’s existence, but I really want to thank you for reading and coming along on this journey with me. I promise that Resident Anna will always continue to be a free/PWYW publication. As I’ve always said: I’m the first person who is willing to yell about horror online for FREE, so put that in your orb and ponder it!

Thanks again, and without further ado: let’s get into it.

Overview

In his 1996 collection of essays, diary entries, and miscellaneous ramblings viscerally titled A Year With Swollen Appendices, musician Brian Eno staked a bold yet highly poignant claim about the evolution of media.

“Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.”

- Brian Eno, A Year With Swollen Appendices

Though it’s not called this in any official capacity, from this moment forward, I’m going to be referring to this as “Eno’s Razor” (SHE SAID THE TITLE OF THE ARTICLE WHOOAAAA).

In the mid-1990s at the time of his writing, Brian Eno was living at the height of the VHS era. VHS (short for Video Home System), was a video-cassette-based system of film capture, and made watching recorded programs easier than ever before. Additionally with the invention of blank VHS tapes for "taping," a person could even pre-program their television to record broadcasts and save it for watch at a later date, if not indefinitely. I remember having done this with a specific episode of Avatar: the Last Airbender that I missed the premier of, and wanted to make sure I could still watch it the moment I got home from whatever surely important event had prevented elementary-school me from watching it in the first place.

At the time, VHS technology was the best option for watching anything. Entire franchises of rental stores such as Blockbuster and Hollywood Video populated urban sprawls and suburbs across the nation (if not the world), allowing for the closest thing to on-demand streaming that the time period could shoulder. And it was big business.

In retrospect, VHS was hardly the modern marvel that it had felt like at the time. Especially as they have aged, VHSes now appear grainy, are prone to skipping, and heaven forbid the tape gets uncoiled from its cassette. These days, they mostly can be found at Goodwills and garage sales. But the plastic squeak of opening a VHS case, the distinct hum of fast forwarding and rewinding, and even the way sound would distort on occasion have gone from an irritating annoyance to a fond memory. And with the return of "Y2K aesthetics" in the past few years, everything from VHSes to iPods are suddenly back en-vogue. People are finding them more endearing than the effortless, blemishless streamed-on-demand media of today.

In short: Brian Eno was right.

It’s Not A Phase, Mom!

Here at Resident Anna, we've talked pretty extensively about the indie horror scene in recent years. But one particular trend that we haven't addressed yet is colloquially referred to as "analog horror." (Hilariously, “Annalog Horror” was an alternate title I considered for this very blog, but was worried it might be too limiting.)

Similar to indie horror being reflective of "themes and variations" of current horror market trends, analog horror is the natural co-mingling of two existing trendy concepts of the 2000s-2010s: found-footage style horror content, and creepypastas.

The found footage film technique has been around for a while, but really cemented its place in the zeitgeist with 1999's The Blair Witch Project and subsequently Paranormal Activity in 2008. The way that these films mirrored the “home movies” of the era made the horror feel much more intimate, as though this wasn’t a million-dollar production, but instead something that someone down the street could have filmed in their everyday lives. Because million-dollar productions, they weren’t!

Found Footage horror movies really had their moment in 2008: a year of notorious financial upheaval the world-over. These films were relatively cheap and quick to film at a time when producers were looking for any way to cut corners. Found footage just made sense!

However, this genre’s primary filming technique known as “shaky-cam” (wherein a camera does not use a dolly, tripod, or any other stabilizing device) has been routinely criticized for its ability to induce motion sickness in some people, especially when combined with fast/jump-cuts from moment to moment. This creates a major accessibility concern.

Found footage movies naturally tended to gravitate toward supernatural forms of horror: from monsters, to witches, to zombies, and even demons. This is likely because these sorts of subjects can be easily conveyed with a lower production-value and practical effects, but it left a lot of viewers and critics dissatisfied. Many critics at the time said that these sorts of films were merely an adolescent media phase that we will likely just have to wait out.

And then the internet really took off.

Digital scary stories known as “creepypastas” (a portmenteau of “creepy” and “copypasta”) began to pop up on a specific host of message boards that will remain nameless on this particular blog. You can probably guess who it is.

These viral quips could be written and uploaded by anyone. Suddenly, bored teenagers and young adults around the world were logging on and telling scary stories around a digital campfire, illuminated by the light of their screens instead of flames. These internet urban legends often focused on a unique intersection of digital and supernatural elements, including bespoke creatures (such as the case with Marble Hornets and the Slender Man mythos), haunted or otherwise cursed pieces of technology (see Ben Drowned), or even old, forgotten, or abandoned media (see Candle Cove). And unlike how those film critics sneered back in the 2000s: this fixation on everything lowfi and supernatural was very much not a phase.

All of these combined with Eno’s razor would create an emerging genre that has reached a fever pitch since 2023: analog horror. As with its cousin mascot horror, this genre really took off thanks to YouTube. Since analog horror doesn't require much high-fidelity technology and can be uploaded by anyone online, it was a very approachable and accessible genre for anyone who wanted to try their hand at crafting a spooky, Y2K experience in their free time during the lockdown phase of the pandemic. The early 2020s gave us now-foundational analog horror series, such as Gemini Home Entertainment featured in the screenshot below, The Mandela Catalogue, and The Walten Files. 

And where YouTube goes, the indie game space often reacts.

So let's take a look at a couple indie games within this space, and see how they play with, or interact with the "ugly, uncomfortable" elements of yesteryear's technology to create compelling, modern horror experiences. 

Maple County

The Mandela Catalogue as mentioned above is a series of YouTube compilations made by filmmaker Alex Kister. They began primarily through a series of odd public service announcements, detailing an ongoing threat of something known as “alternates.” …And for some reason, they have emerged in Mandela County, Wisconsin.

Sure. Why not?

“Mandela” here is in reference to the social phenomenon of the Mandela Effect, where a large portion of the population has a false memory or false recollection of an event. It gets its name from the former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela, as the term originates with the popular false memory that he had passed away in the 1980s (when in reality, he didn’t die until 2013). Similar “glitch in the matrix” type viral posts, such as the Berenstain Bears thing tend to circulate quite frequently as “evidence” of the Mandela Effect - but that might give you a hint about these “alternates.”

Alternates appear to be similar to the folkloric tradition of having a supernatural double, often known by its German name: doppelgänger (literally “double-goer”). In various world folklores throughout history, these beings are not outright antagonistic. Sometimes they come bearing messages, as a premonition of the future, or a harbinger of death (as with the common superstition that if you and your double were to look at each other, one of you dies).

However, in The Mandela Catalog, alternates appear to be more of a Dostoyevsky sort of doppelgänger, wherein they are hostile and will seek out and kill the “original” and attempt to assume living their life. This short, An Unforseen Threat, is the first clip from The Mandela Catalogue Volume 1, and gives you a good overview of what alternates are and how they function in the series in just about sixty seconds.

The short indie game Maple County by Throne Baker is based around this Mandela Catalogue mythos, only alternates are threatening individuals of, where else: Maple County. While we don’t know for sure, we can infer that Maple likely borders Mandela County as they are experiencing a similar “threat.” Who knew Wisconsin was this cursed?

What makes Maple so engaging is the interactivity of the analog experience as opposed to the solely video-based Mandela Catalogue. The game is postured as a training module for staff of the Maple County Police department. It reminds me of those games or quizzes that would sometimes come on DVD “extras” menus, where you would use the play and pause buttons to make your selections. It’s the evocation of these nostalgic memories and the subversion of the almost childlike teaching that “the police are there to help you and always understand what’s going on” that makes this experience so unnerving.

A crackly recording of a man’s voice instructs the player to “select the image that is more unsettling” but to do so “on instinct alone.” Love when the police are told to act on instinct, am I right? :)

After a few rounds of this with increasingly uncanny/disturbing faces on the righthand side, the man’s recorded voice congratulates you - you completed the exercise! The player also gets a short lesson regarding “the threat,” which they are told is highly classified and has not yet been revealed by the media. Note the similarities to the information of An Unforseen Threat.

Cut intermittently with the phases of this module is the story of one young man, and how he believes that someone shady has broken into his home where he lives with his mother. We hear him calling the police and saying he believes someone is snooping around his house, and we see the cryptic text on the screen: I think there’s someone in my kitchen.

This game is very short, so I can’t give everything away, you know! You’ll just have to play (or watch) it for yourself!

Home Safety Hotline

If Maple County stood out because of its interactivity via a little quiz, 2024’s Home Safety Hotline by Night Signal Entertainment would take things to the next level. The premise is self-explanatory: you work for a (wait for it)… home safety hotline. Your job is pretty simple. People call in and give you information about what they are experiencing. Using your trusty database and deductive reasoning skills, the player must determine the nature of their concern and give the caller the associated information packet already drawn up for you. And it’s all done on a fun, Windows 95-esque interface! Easy enough, right?

The use of deductive reasoning, referring to documents, and requiring accuracy for things to progress is very reminiscent of the modern classic Papers Please (2013) by Lucas Pope. However, instead of trying to figure out the constantly-changing requirements for immigration and making difficult moral choices, Home Safety Hotline asks you to deal with… the public.

The household hazards that callers are concerned about will vary, and will become more complex as the nights go on. The first night, it’s a lot of everyday concerns as you can see on the left sidebar of the image above: bats, mold, mice, and carbon monoxide. Your accuracy identifying these concerns is what determines your ability to progress, but in a Five Nights at Freddy’s style arrangement, each subsequent night you’re on the shift presents new oddities for folks to call in about.

Home Safety Hotline really shines in its unique “bestiary.” Rather than build off of existing mythos like Maple County, many of the eerie creations of Home Safety Hotline run the gamut from cute and harmless to absolutely horrifying. Some of my favorites include the various hobbs, boggarts, cellar grottos, tea sprites, and false rose bushes. And although they aren’t strictly related to bestiary of course, I love all the prank callers and their unnerving character portraits (I won’t spoil it).

Similarly to how Maple County has bits of narrative cut between portions of the police training, Home Safety Hotline has some really excellent video reels that can be found on the player’s desktop. These are also added throughout the course of the game as the nights progress. And I know that this game takes place in the 1990s, but the zilennial in me wants to lie down on the floor when I see the price on this little house - and peep the nod in the emergency alert banner!

Some of these clips are stranger than others, but it doesn’t take long to begin realizing that something unusual is happening at the HSH. And we’re not just talking about the hobs and spriggans. The player also begins to receive strange emails in their inbox, appearing to come from a previous employee of the company. This employee is also named “Mike,” which could be a FNAF reference, but I’m not entirely convinced due to how common the name is. I digress.

The way the game’s simple user-interfaces emulate early PC operating systems is consistent with Eno’s razor. Sure, those operating systems were kind of clunky, didn’t offer much in terms of aesthetics, and were really only built to handle the fundamentals of computing at the time: databases, email inboxes, etc. And yet this style is so iconic in its plainness that we almost long for its simplicity in a world where everything is UIed but not necessary UXed to all hell. In our age of aesthetics over practicality, it’s easy to put on your nostalgia goggles and not see the mystery that’s unfolding right in front of you.

Because just what is the Home Safety Hotline? Where does their funding come from? How did you end up with this job, anyway? Are you even making minimum wage? Why are you told not to talk to Mike? And why does a guy named Buzz Goober keep calling??? Well, if you can stomach the Windows 95 interface, you’ll just have to clock in and find out.

Thanks for tuning in to another installment of Resident Anna! I’m really curious to see where the trend of analog horror goes from here, and how long it will remain in the spotlight. Or, if like its predecessor genres, will continue to grow, intersect, and transform into something else entirely?

What about you? Do you have a favorite analog horror game or YouTube Series?

Thanks again for reading (and for the 200+ subscribers), and we’ll catch’ya in the next one where things get a little… misfortunate.

Content Warnings: This article contains detailed discussion of addiction/substance use disorders, the opioid crisis, etc. Please be aware that this could be very upsetting if you or someone you know is in recovery.

This article also contains spoilers for The Mortuary Assistant (2022).

Overview

The expression “the hair of the dog” is often associated with alcohol consumption, but it’s a fallacy that can be applied to any habit-forming substance. The expression comes to us from an old wives’ tale associated with curing rabies, saying that placing a single hair of the rabid dog which bit you into the bite wound would be able to prevent rabies from taking hold. Of course, this is impossible, as rabies is one of the single most fatal illnesses known to mankind - but the concept of taking something from the very thing which hurt you as a “cure” has stuck. “Hair of the dog” might be another drink after a heavy night out to “cure” a hangover, or perhaps even stop withdrawals if a person partakes in a substance regularly. A moment of indulgence or escapism turns into always returning for that hair of the dog to prevent that devastating crash back to reality: it’s this feedback loop that becomes so dangerous.

Addiction, particularly that of opioids (such as heroin and narcotic painkillers), was officially declared a public health emergency in the United States by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2017. But according to many healthcare institutions, this was far too late. According to the CDC’s own data, more than a million Americans have died from some sort of drug overdose since 1999, yet the number of those deaths specifically attributed to opioids was a whopping ten times higher by the year 2021. Similarly by 2021’s data, overdoses involving opioids in general were responsible for the deaths of more than 80,000 people. A shocking 88% of those fatalities involved synthetic opioids like fentanyl which has infiltrated the market as it’s used as a cheap, powerful way to “cut” the product.

If you’re like me, you probably someone who has struggled with “Substance Use Disorder” (SUD - the official medical name for addiction) of some variety, whether that be drugs, alcohol, or even tobacco: if you haven’t struggled yourself. Yet despite how common this condition is, there’s something deeply taboo and stigmatized about its discussion, which can prevent a sufferer from getting help and thus result in worse outcomes.

A large body of research indicates that stigma is persistent, pervasive, and rooted in the belief that addiction is a personal choice reflecting a lack of willpower and a moral failing. Rates of stigma are extremely high both in the general public and within professions whose members interact with people with addiction, including the health care professions. Research demonstrates that stigma damages the health and well-being of people with substance use disorder and interferes with the quality of care they receive in clinical settings.

- Johns Hopkins University on “Reducing the Stigma of Addiction”

And it certainly doesn’t help when media outlets have been found to continually run sensationalist headlines which perpetuate stigma and fear surrounding those struggling with SUD and the substances that they use. This has gone to such an extreme that police officers have fainted when encountering synthetic opioids in the field, believed by healthcare professionals to be more a side effect of the moral panic surrounding the substance rather than the substance itself.

All this to say: us Americans in 2024 do not have a good relationship with substances, whether that be in our own lives, in the lives of our loved ones, or even in media.

That’s why, when the horror game The Mortuary Assistant (2022), developed by DarkStone Digital and published by Dread XP, explicitly included having a history of being in recovery from SUD as part of its narrative, I was intrigued. Horror as a genre is a way for us to confront that which is upsetting, othered, and taboo - so it felt like a golden opportunity to bear witness to this frightening aspect of so many people’s lives in a way that was both raw… and hopefully, compassionate.

I began to wonder if we as game developers, and artists/creators of media in general, might find a ethical framework by which we can display the reality of living with substance use disorder, while also not contributing to the stigma and sensationalism that tends to be coupled with it. I reached out to Brian Clarke, the primary developer of The Mortuary Assistant to ask him some questions about the protagonist of Rebecca, and he was kind enough to answer my questions about the inspiration, process, and reception surrounding this part of her story.

Meet Rebecca

Rebecca Owens is the protagonist of The Mortuary Assistant. She’s a young woman studying the mortuary arts who is nearly finished with her schooling, as she has become certified in embalming and has moved on to the internship/praxis phase. Her old professor, Raymond Delver, has offered her a job working for him at the River Hills Mortuary, and Rebecca has decided to accept.

But even before her foray into the mortuary world, Rebecca was no stranger to death. Her parents both struggled with addiction in her childhood, which would ultimately lead to her mother’s premature death via overdose. Through a traumatic flashback the player may see, we can assume that Rebecca was the one to have found her mother’s body. As is unfortunately consistent with the children of those struggling with addiction, Rebecca would go on to develop SUD herself as a young teen. Her father was able to secure his own recovery, but would perish in an accident years later when trying to rescue Rebecca from a perilous situation caused by her drug use. As she has had to bury both of her parents before even coming of age, we can understand why caring for the dead might be a deeply personal calling to her.

When I asked about this particular vocation for an otherwise pretty typical young lady like Rebecca, Clarke replied:

“Her desire to become a mortician stems from her feeling comfortable alone and was originally a step she took to move forward while still not fully dealing with her past. It is a more solitary career where the only people you really deal with are dead. It’s a stable step out of an unstable past while still staying withdrawn.”

“My goal was to have the character grow through the actions of the player so the endings would be more impactful as Rebecca has not only survived but become a better version of herself.”

By the time we begin the game, Rebecca has reached ten years of sobriety as is evident by the chip (a coin/token utilized by many 12-step programs that indicates how long a person has been sober/substance-free) that can be found in her apartment. This is a huge milestone, and from this we can already infer that Rebecca as a character is no stranger to hard work or facing the painful things in her own past, meaning that her potential for growth as a character has few limits. …But as tantalizing as a complete recovery may seem for story purposes, it doesn’t mean that she’ll ever be “over” the trauma which played a role in causing her to develop SUD in the first place. Some things, like trauma, have of more of a “you learn to manage/integrate it” sort of prognosis.

The Dual Intimacy of Death and Addiction

Perhaps one reason why people are often so loathe to discuss addiction/SUD is because of how deeply personal of a struggle it is. When we as a society can’t even manage to stomach the answer of “how’s it going” with anything other than “good", discussing the personal struggle between the psychological and physical that comes with addiction might feel completely beyond one’s grasp. Couple that with the general distaste for grappling with death and its looming sword of Damocles, and the Mortuary Assistant is a game that brings multiple societal taboos into the open in a way that is raw, harrowing, and yet oddly refreshing.

In the game, the player as Rebecca has the sacred duty of preparing and embalming various deceased persons prior to their burial. Their bodies are placid and uncanny, but the memento mori is tempered with the otherwise typical routine of work: such as clocking in, going down a checklist, and printing out paperwork.

The process is simultaneously very sterile and professional and very intimate: the player must drain each cadaver of their remaining blood, for example, or even wire their jaws shut. This kind of work would otherwise only be under the purview of someone like a surgeon - so few people are ever granted that kind of access to someone’s body, especially in such a vulnerable state. To be reminded that at the end of the line, our very bodies may be entrusted to some stranger is somehow disquieting.

And when supernatural things begin to occur in the funeral home when it was just supposed to be Rebecca and the bodies of the deceased? …Even more disquieting. In The Mortuary Assistant, that which is otherwise very private, becomes the main focus of the story through Rebecca.

“It’s also a very intimate game. The game is really Rebecca and the demon. This led me to push the idea that the main character needed a very difficult and unsettling past for the demon to exploit. Something that would allow for unsettling imagery and situations as well as a glimpse into why Rebecca may have chosen the path she has. The game is, essentially, all about the protagonist.”

Yeah. You read that right. A demon.

According to Abrahamic demonology, particularly that of the anonymously-published 17th century work The Lesser Key of Solomon, demonic entities may exploit or feed off of highly emotionally charged individuals in order to manifest. And as Rebecca tries to figure out what the heck is going on within this funeral home, it becomes very apparent that there is some element of demonic possession at play. Part of the gameplay requires identifying the demon that is attempting to manifest and which of the bodies it has attached itself to. Rebecca will need to follow all the given steps properly to cast the demon out. …Something tells me this wasn’t exactly within the initial job description. I wonder if she gets hazard pay?

Furthermore, typical Christian scripture and the writings of St. Augustine indicates that demons can begin to possess an individual without that person’s consent or even awareness. The way that demonic possession is able to “sneak up” on someone dovetails with conditions such as SUD, which may develop so slowly that the afflicted and their loved ones may not be able to understand what is going on until the addiction has already been formed. This parallel was not lost on Clarke:

“Drug addiction became a natural progression for me when writing her character because of the parallels I began to see through what I was creating for the possession process in the game. At first, Rebecca isn’t even aware it’s happening to her. She's being told it's happening, she knows it’s bad, she can tell something is different but she mostly ignores it until it’s influenced her so much that she isn’t even aware her choices aren't fully her own. Eventually, she is faced with either allowing it to go beyond her control or to take the new tools she’s gained and grow beyond it as she did with drugs. In the end, she isn’t really over it but rather learns to live with it. She’s not cured, she's stronger.”

This continuous nature of recovery is echoed throughout the various endings, wherein Rebecca feels called to continue her work (both as a mortuary assistant and now as a demon-hunter). We as the player have gotten a deeply intimate look at Rebecca’s life and her struggles alongside the sleeping dead - and as we resurface at daybreak alongside her, we know she is now even more equipped with tools to forge a new path ahead. But of course, it will never be easy.

Pitfalls

Of course, when it comes to the moment-to-moment story beats of depicting substance use, there are certainly ethical questions that come into play. For example: how explicit should depictions of this be? While some of this is moderated by various content boards such as the ESRB, explicit depictions of substance and its paraphernalia could be triggering to those who are currently experiencing or in recovery from SUD, or to those who have a family member who is. To depict substance use also runs the risk of glamorizing it, which is especially dangerous when it comes to younger, more impressionable audiences.

Yet simultaneously, the 2018 VICE documentary series Dopesick Nation was praised because of its unglamorous, explicit depictions of the front lines of the opioid crisis in the United States, particularly in Florida. Dopesick Nation approaches those with addiction with compassion and empathy, and it shines a light on the many intersecting issues with the opioid crisis, including homelessness, human trafficking, trauma, and organized crime.

The Mortuary Assistant is able to do so similarly, showing the casualties and collateral of a life of substance use through the environments Rebecca envisions in her flashbacks. The player may see abandoned houses and the interiors of hospitals, yet the game shows little of individuals actively partaking in substances of any kind. In The Mortuary Assistant this is very effective, but I’m not sure it would have been as effective in media such as Dopesick Nation. This kind of depiction is likely heavily contingent on a case-by-case basis.

It feels to me that there is a delicate balance that must be struck in terms of both authenticity and sensitivity. I did a considerable amount of research to see if any sort of framework or guidelines were already existing, perhaps from nonprofits or even professional consultants - but unfortunately came up empty-handed.

One of the other risks for characters who engage with substance use is that they may be ultimately reduced to the confines of their condition. Having characterization be mostly comprised of details about a character’s past can play into stereotypes that people with addictions are their diagnosis. Clarke commented on this as well, saying:

“I think I would have liked to give a bit more insight into Rebecca as an individual in the present day. I feel I establish the core beats that matter for a game the length of Mortuary Assistant but there is so much focus on her past and trauma that there is only so much character building in the present. Even some small things around her apartment with more personal info. Maybe I can add it in some DLC.”

While I have no concrete solutions for any of these pitfalls, I hope that games like The Mortuary Assistant can start conversations within the gaming sphere. I’d love to see the inclusion of sensitivity consultants and even see games from those recovering from substance use disorders themselves. Much like all other arts, games can really help us understand what’s going on inside our own minds by putting it down on paper (or in this case, a screen).

As Always: Personal Stories Drive Game Narrative

For game developers, the games we make aren’t merely the byproduct of our dayjob or the equivalent of some sort of fancy toy: they are often driven by deeply personal inspirations. Much like professional artists (of which I would argue game developers are a subset, but I digress), devs are often influenced by what they may be experiencing in their personal lives and the world around them. This often (consciously or not) finds its way into design.

“A lot of Rebecca’s story and the story of addiction in general isn’t so much about the drugs themselves but the past that led to making the choices of escape. I have had personal experiences with depression…that have informed a lot of my choices not only in the story of Mortuary Assistant but my writing in general.”

Similarly, I might not be writing this article if I didn’t feel an emotional connection to the topics addressed in The Mortuary Assistant. Having had loved ones who struggled with substance use has made SUD a presence in my life. When you love someone who is either actively struggling with, or is in recovery from an addiction, you can feel so helpless. But recovery is possible, and there’s an entire community of people and resources out there dedicated to it.

So I was curious what players were saying, as I was certain that others likely found some element of connection with Rebecca. Clarke said that the response to this element of her story has been “rather surprising.”

“There have been people who have reached out who have recovered and said that Rebecca’s story really meant something to them. I’ve also had those who have lost loved ones who have said they felt a connection with Rebecca and her father. That the alternate ending with her father really meant something to them. It’s surreal. It means the world to me to know that something you created from nothing resonates with people. It’s a luxury I never imagined I’d be fortunate enough to experience.”

At the end of it all, humans are creatures wired for connection. We just want to know that we are not alone in the world - in our joys and in our struggles. And horror can take something which is considered taboo or even shameful and thrust it into the spotlight. When we are able to detangle it from expectation, judgment, and tradition, we may realize that at the heart of this spooky story is none other than a beating heart. A deeply human core which whispers: we were never truly alone to begin with.

Thank you for reading another installment of Resident Anna. This one is very personal to me, and I hope that games continue to have thoughtful discussions about these sorts of topics.

I’d like to give a huge thank you to Brian Clarke of DarkStone Digital and Dread XP for letting me interview him for this article. Please go check out The Mortuary Assistant!

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance use you are not alone. There is help available to you. If you are in the United States, you can contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) for free, confidential information about your options and finding treatment/resources. Their National Helpline is in services 24/7, 365 in both English and Spanish. If you are reading from outside the United States, similar resources may be available to you.

You matter.

Talk to you soon. <3

Content Warnings:

This article is pretty light-hearted, so it’s similarly pretty light on the content warnings - but please be aware this article discusses clowns, serial killers, and brief mention of a hostage situation.

Overview

Welcome to the first Resident Anna of 2024! From all of us at Resident Anna HQ (which consists of me, my cat, and whatever caffeinated beverage I have within arm’s reach), we send our warmest wishes to you and yours for a healthy, happy 2024! Now, 2023 was a banner year for me personally, but overall in the games industry it was disastrous in terms of labor. From mass layoffs to continued struggles with unionbusting, may 2024 be a year we make great strides in terms of working conditions and sustainability. It’s not just a want - it’s a need.

…Alright, soapbox over. Let’s get back to it. Let’s start off with something a bit more lighthearted to kick off the new year, shall we?

I think everyone has an experience of playing a game that they didn’t think was going to be spooky and coming across either a scary level, area, or plotline that seemed to come out of nowhere for no reason.

And although as unnerving or as out of place as it might have felt at the time, it was nothing if not memorable. As video games continue to increase in popularity and become more mainstream, we’ve seen them fall into a greater distribution of genre. For example: horror games, cozy games, FPSes, mystery… you name it. Much like literature, niches and sub-niches have continued to be filled out as time goes on.

This means that the random inclusion of a horror level, sequence, or component is often absent in modern games. However, in my opinion, this omission feels like as much of a missed opportunity as a relic of a bygone era. I’m mostly talking to my fellow developers here when making a case to include some horror elements (or at least some spooky vibes) in your next game regardless of the style, but I think players can appreciate it too. And if you enjoy this kind of thing, I might highlight some other spooky non-horror games in the future, too! Who knows!

One game (or rather, series) that is frequently included among “games that aren’t horror but are definitely creepy” is The Sims series. Particularly the Sims 1 and 2, which are filled with an unspoken emptiness and some pretty disturbing things “baked right in to the loaf” as Jenny Nicholson would say.

And in fact, from what I can see online (and in my own personal anecdotal experience), it’s the oddities, mystery, and eeriness of the franchise that has become its calling card. The things that have become totally iconic - the Bella Goths, if you will - are these things that are… well… kinda weird!

Before we look at the psychological reasons for why these eerie elements stick out in our minds, let’s take a look at some of the ways that the series (especially the early games), have snuck in a few spooky sprinkles.

The Sims

The game that started it all, The Sims (2000), was actually an unexpected smash hit. When Maxis co-founder and legendary game developer Will Wright pitched his concept of a “virtual doll house” as the follow-up to the popular Sim City franchise, people were… puzzled to say the least. Wright was inspired by his own experience with the deadly 1991 Oakland fire that destroyed his home, and how he became involved in the process of designing his new house and the life he would build there. It was a chance to expand upon the established systems of Sim City but on a much more granular level: building the individual homes and families that would populate such a locale.

Early games in the series also echoed Wright’s distaste for typical American consumerism, and this was evident in the feature known as the “build and buy catalogue.” Both in the snarky names and descriptions of items, but also the ways that the purchase of certain assets could have real impact on the gameplay (google “Sims guinea pig disease” if you want to learn more). The most famous (and creepy) instance of this, comes in the form of The Tragic Clown.

First introduced in The Sims: Livin’ Large expansion pack, Sunny the Tragic Clown is one heck of a nuisance. As a prerequisite for the following events to unfold, your Sims must have the “Tragic Clown” painting hanging somewhere on their lot.

If a Sim’s needs drop too low and they become “depressed,” an NPC named “Tragic Clown” will visit your lot in an attempt to cheer them up. Unfortunately, he’s really bad at his job, and mostly hysterically sobs, bothers your Sims, and makes everyone in general feel even worse. His eerie presence is oddly “sticky,” as he’s really hard to get rid of once he’s arrived on your lot. However, he also pops up as an NPC in various ways throughout the first game and its expansions: such as a backup dancer or even an “adult performer” that pops out of a cake (the original Sims was definitely aimed at an older audience).

There are various methods of ridding yourself of this specter, including setting Sunny and his portrait on fire. However, the only reliable way of doing so is for your sim to go to the phone and call the “Clown Catchers,” which causes some men-in-black types to show up on your lot and capture Sunny like some kind of SCP encounter - all for 500 Simoleans, of course. This can be seen from 8:55 onward in the video linked above. Sunny runs around, shrieking in terror and potential agony as he is eventually captured. The Clown Catchers also confiscate the original painting in question so that this sort of thing does not happen again. Who would have thought you had the Clown Catchers on speed dial?

But that’s not all when it comes to telephone-based oddities. A frequently denoted terrifying childhood experience is that of the “prank calls” from the first game. There’s no real rhyme or reason for when these will occur, as it appears to be a randomized world event. But some of the text displayed in the associated popup is seriously ominous, especially if you’re a newer player and didn’t realize prank calls were a feature.

Some of my personal favorites of the prank calls:

• You have been chosen. They will come soon.

• Your psychic advisor suggests that you keep your secrets well this month. There may be untrustworthy individuals in your environs.

• The drop off has been made. You've been warned.

• Your psychic advisor suggests that you plan your meetings very carefully this month because you may have some unexpected news.

• The end is near. Make preparations.

• The flashing light was just a test. You'll have plenty of warning next time.

• Your psychic advisor's head has just exploded. Be forewarned.

• They're coming soon. Maybe you should think twice about opening the door.

So if you were a small child and got one of these popups? Terrifying. In researching for this article, I cannot tell you how many comments I’ve seen on Reddit or YouTube about how they frightened someone as a child, the memory being irreparably inscribed on the hippocampus of young players everywhere - but more on that later. (Also, note to self: gotta use the word “environs” more.)

But if the weirdness in the original game was at a walk, we could consider the Sims 2 to be at a dead sprint.

The Sims 2

The Sims 2, released by EA Maxis in 2004, was the much-anticipated sequel to the unexpected smash-hit of the year 2000. Now a household name, The Sims series has changed some of its identity from one installment of the franchise to the next, but the Sims 2 is perhaps the series at its most iconic. And weird.

With the introduction of everything from ghosts, aliens, and additional “life states” like vampires, werewolves, and zombies, The Sims 2’s dedication to the supernatural far outpaced its predecessor. The extent to which the extrasensory and extraterrestrial are seamlessly woven into the everyday lives of the characters across the various neighborhoods gives this entry into the series its unique feel.

And perhaps there’s no better example of this than the neighborhood of Strangetown - and even more so, the Specter household. Strangetown, modeled after the red deserts of the American southwest, evokes imagery of Area 51 and Breaking Bad. There’s one family of human-alien hybrids (the Smiths) down the way, and even a family of mad scientists (The Beakers) on the ridge overlooking the giant crater.

The household containing Olive Specter and her niece Ophelia Nigmos (pictured above) live in one of those most iconic lots of the neighborhood. At the end of 13 Dead End Lane (in the bottom left of the topmost screenshot above) is a stone structure that resembles a mausoleum… especially considering that it’s opposite a graveyard.

The residents of this odd resting place (known in-game as “Olive’s Garden”) are a mixture of servicepeople townies (such as a maid, a pizza delivery person, repairman, etc), Olive’s previous husbands (of which there are several), and family. You can see all of the names and their associated graves in the image below - some of which are absolutely terrible puns.

One of these names, Lyla Grunt, is actually the deceased wife of another playable Sim in town: General Buzz Grunt. Why Lyla - or any of the other Sims for that matter - is deceased on Olive’s lot is anyone’s guess, but one common theory has emerged: Olive Specter is a serial killer. The way that Olive’s character bio says that she enjoys “sharpening sticks and excavating her yard” is definitely suspect, however how could this nice old lady be a killer?

The Sims 2 introduced an additional “Memories” feature, meaning that every time a notable event happened during the life of a Sim, they would have an entry in their memories portion of their character data. Now, Olive has memories of each and every Sim buried in her garden dying - meaning that she was on the lot and a member of the family when it happened. This is definitely disconcerting, though it’s perhaps a comfort to know that murder isn’t technically a gameplay feature in the Sims, although players have been lighting Sims on fire and deleting pool ladders like some kind of sadistic god-king since the first game launched. So perhaps all of this is meant to merely suggest that Olive was a serial killer… with a nice amount of plausible deniably which helps keep that “T” ESRB rating.

But what could drive a woman like Olive to kill? Well, another iconic staple of the series is the NPC of the Grim Reaper, who shows up to take Sims away when they die. But, uh… Olive has one very particular memory associated with the Grim Reaper.

Olive is the mother of a young man by the name of Nervous Subject, the test subject being held hostage by the Beaker family in town. While this may not be possible because Nervous has no memories associated with his mother and Olive’s “WooHoo with the Grim Reaper” memory occurred after Olive entered the life stage of “Elder,” we can only theorize that Nervous is the offspring of Olive’s unholy union with the series’ literal psychopomp. (I say unholy but honestly? Good for her, what a queen.)

One popular fan-theory about Olive’s potential career as a serial killer is that by killing other Sims, she is guaranteeing that her old flame will show up (and maybe spend some time with her). So. That’s romantic, I guess.

Honorable Mentions

There are quite frankly so many eerie features of this franchise that I could go on about it forever. However, I also understand that not everyone is willing to read 100,000 words about Sims world narrative… so I’ll just link you to the Creepy Things In The Sims Iceberg.

Why Does The Spooky Stand Out?

Have you ever wondered why you are so much more likely to remember the biting or mean things that someone has said, rather than the kind compliments? Or why you might remember a traumatic experience with greater clarity than what you might consider the best day of your life?

Turns out? Our brains are wired to do this! What’s commonly referred to as “Negativity Bias” in psychology has wide-reaching implications for the noted “positive-negative asymmetry” of how our brains process stimuli.

And this isn’t just your brain being mean to you: this phenomenon is believed to have stuck around because it’s evolutionarily advantageous. That is, when you remember something bad that has happened in the past: whether it’s criticism from a loved one or a traumatic experience, you are more likely to avoid it or navigate it better in the future, thus allowing you a greater chance of survival. Remembering that which is scary or otherwise off-putting serves a very similar function.

“Fear is an evolutionary tool that warns us about potential danger. We’re primed to remember the things that scare us… because you want to be able to avoid them the next time. If you don’t remember fearful environments and fearful situations that are happening, you’re not going to survive.”

- Tulane University Neuroscientist Jeffrey Tasker, senior author of Gq neuromodulation of BLA parvalbumin interneurons induces burst firing and mediates fear-associated network and behavioral state transition in mice

The above linked study (with its very verbose and jargon-filled title) is actually a very important one: memory is something that impacts everyone’s life on a day-to-day basis, but scientists are still trying to identify the exact mechanism of how it works within the brain. This would be the case even at the best of times, but especially when it comes to formation of memories under stressful circumstances such as those that might cause an individual to develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), even less is understood.

“We are particularly interested in the stress modulation of the memory process,” says Xin Fu, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the study’s lead author.

To learn about how brains react to fear, Fu, Tasker and their colleagues focused on norepinephrine, also called noradrenaline, a hormone released in stressful circumstances. They dosed mice with norepinephrine and then studied their brain activity. Researchers found that norepinephrine changed the pattern of electrical activity in the brain.

“Norepinephrine is a stress signal,” says Tasker. “It’s a modulatory signal that either increases or decreases circuit activation.”

In the case of norepinephrine, the researchers found that the neurotransmitter caused a bursting pattern of electrical impulses in the amygdala. Tasker says that they saw “clusters of these electrical discharges, and then separated by 30 seconds of silence, and then another cluster of electrical discharge,” a pattern that Fu describes as “very surprising.”

- Discover Magazine, “Why We’re Hard-Wired to Remember Things That Scare Us”

The brain is, for better or worse, a collection of electric switches and signals. Being able to replicate that stress modulators like cortisol and norepinephrine are able to intrinsically change the method by which those electrical signals fire is monumental to making concrete steps to understanding memory. These “bursts” could help facilitate the formation of new memories, with the extra jolt of electricity allowing the brain to catalogue more details about the specifics via neuron connections: all to help us with future threat evasion.

This is all to say: our brains are wired to jot down more details about that which scares us - and that’s evidently a feature, not a bug! Reading this study made me feel a lot less weird about how my brain always likes to pick out the strange, eerie details of whatever media or art I’ve been enjoying lately: and it especially makes me feel right at home when it comes to The Sims.

But if this data is any standard, it means that adding some eeriness or spookiness to whatever it is that you’re making could actually be an excellent option for allowing your game to stand out. Games are already known for literally capitalizing off of things like dopamine reward circuitry built into our brains, so putting something spooky into your next title isn’t any kind of “bio-hacking.” Even though that would be pretty cool.

As far as I’m concerned: including some spooky details to your game isn’t just an artistic choice - it’s a human one. The kind of choice that our ancestors evolved specifically to handle. The kind of choice that screams [yourName will remember that.]

Thanks for reading another installment of Resident Anna! As a kid who grew up in the early 2000s, The Sims series has such a special place in my heart. If you love learning about the greater world space and metanarrative of the Sims series, I really recommend checking out The Sims Lore channel on YouTube. She’s got all kinds of videos that span the entire series and even some let’s plays if you want some nostalgia.

I’m already really excited about February’s article, because it’s the first time I’ve officially interviewed someone for this publication! Who might it be, and about what? You’ll just have to subscribe and find out…

Catch ya on the flip side! Happy New Year!

Content Warning: this article discusses monsters, intergenerational trauma, and the fear of becoming your parents (oof). It also contains spoilers for Little Nightmares and Little Nightmares II.

…The past couple of articles have been pretty gnarly, so we can have a pretty chill one as a treat!

Welcome to Monster Masterclass

Greetings, fellow mortals. I wanted to try something a bit different with this installment of Resident Anna. As a game developer who primarily deals with narrative, one area that I have always been particularly dazzled by is creature design and tech art - namely: how do horror games think up, develop, and ultimately implement such gnarly monsters?

And I’m far from the only one who goes gaga for them. Monsters have fascinated humans since time immemorial, appearing in almost all world mythologies in some form or fashion. As you can imagine, a dedicated academic and artistic community has cropped up around these enigmatic beings.

The work Monster Culture (Seven Theses) emerged in the 1990s as a frontrunner for understanding the basic qualities that monsters have. The following are the seven thesis as the author Cohen describes - the TLDR in italic text beneath is mine.

1. The Monster Is A Cultural Body

   A monster is some sort of anxiety, event, or warning made flesh.

2. The Monster Always Escapes

   Even if defeated, the monster may come back or rise again.

3. The Monster is the Harbinger of Category Crisis

   It is a monster because we cannot fit it into a neat little box. Humans like to be able to put things in neat little boxes.

4. The Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference

   It is a monster because it’s an Other. Othering is dangerous from a survival standpoint.

5. The Monster Polices the Border of the Possible

   When the impossible is proven true, it makes us question our grip/control on reality. This makes humans deeply uncomfortable.

6. Fear of the Monster Is Really a Kind of Desire

   The monster is representative of the seductive taboo/forbidden practices.

7. The Monster Stands at the Threshold of Becoming

   We fear the monster because we see ourselves in it - and we know that there is always a risk that we may become it.

And while I think that these are 7 theses about the nature of monsters in many cultures around the world, I don’t think they are inherently the 7 theses. That is to say: I think there are likely more which are simply not included here, but for the purposes of this article/so it doesn’t become a proper dissertation, I think it would be wise to stick with these seven. This is only one of the many frameworks or lenses we can use to examine the monstrous - to say otherwise feels intellectually dishonest.

Monsters are as much a psychological phenomenon as they are a sociological one - a mirror as much as a sculpture: they are often representative of innate, deep fears (whether those are cultural or primal) that live within us. So it only seems right that they’re a mainstay in horror. But the forms these monsters take is an art unto itself - being able to craft a terrifying creature is a labor of love for the Othered, and monster and creature design is an artistic niche with a devout following (if artists like Trevor Henderson are the standard).

Using these seven theses, I wanted to do some analysis of some video game monsters. I thought for a while: what game or franchise would be best for this sort of thing? It would need to be something that has a pretty wide variety of monster designs that are all spectacular in their own unique way: for example, they can’t all be zombies and the like, despite my love for Resident Evil. I needed something that really got out of the box with it. Something so undeniably gnarly that it felt like they might come through the screen...

So naturally: it had to be Little Nightmares.

Overview: Little Nightmares

Little Nightmares is a 2.5D horror puzzle platformer series created by the Swedish game developer Tarsier Studios. Tarsier would partner with Bandai Namco to develop and publish the first two titles in the series, Little Nightmares (2017) and Little Nightmares II (2021). Much to my personal delight, a third entry, Little Nightmares III, was announced earlier this year at Gamescom. However, due to Tarsier’s acquisition by the Embracer Group in December of 2019, this third installment is going to be developed by Supermassive games of Until Dawn fame in conjunction with IP-holder Bandai Namco.

Regardless, I’m personally very excited for another Little Nightmares, and am very curious what Supermassive does for the next chapter.

The general premise of the series is that the player steps into the role of a small child: a young girl named Six in the first game, a lad named Mono (with Six as an AI companion) in the second. The series takes place in a dreamlike but hostile world, full of locations and creatures much larger (and much hungrier) than you.

It’s a pretty successful setup from a storytelling standpoint: everyone knows what it feels like to be a small, frightened child. Perspective for the purpose of immersion can be difficult to wrangle in horror, as some players will subjectively feel more connected with some points of view based on their personal identities and their associated intersections. But beginning a horror game from this universal touchstone of childhood is a great way to draw players in and instantly secure a personal connection… thus making it easier to get into your player’s head.

The art style of the game is gorgeous and markedly distinct. The almost claymation-like shapes and the sheer scale of the environments really highlight that the player is operating from the mind and eye-level of a child. Adults often appear grotesque and unfamiliar, whereas the shapes of your fellow children feel more identifiably like kin.

“We wanted to create a world that could almost have been reported by a child. If you listen to a kid recounting an event, it’s just full of energy and hyperbole, and things are always bigger, faster, stronger and larger-than-life.”

- Dave Mervik of Tarsier, in an interview with Gaming Bolt

Couple this with the gameplay being defensive in nature where the player cannot fight back against monsters with any sort of weaponry, and the sense of helplessness begins to mount. There’s not even any dialogue to call for help. And even if you did, it’s not like anyone would hear you. In fact, it would probably only give away your hiding place. Players can only hope to sneak, hide, and swiftly solve puzzles in order to get away.

The first game takes place in an iron ship known as The Maw - overseen by a masked woman in a kimono known only as “The Lady.” Onboard the ship, she appears to operate a restaurant where grotesque looking adults appear to be feasting upon small children. Six is merely attempting to escape and evade being cooked and consumed after the events of Little Nightmares II, which serves as a prequel. In this prequel-sequel, Six and Mono work together to traverse a place known as the Pale City, where they are also pursued by horrific adults (and taunted by other awful children), all while being haunted by a specter known only as “The Thin Man.”

The story is loose and very much open to interpretation, amplifying the dreamlike “nightmare” quality implied by the series’ title. Each chapter/area within the Maw and the Pale City has its own vibe, its own puzzle mechanics, and most importantly: its own threats. Now that you’re familiar with the series and its setup, let’s take a look at some of its frightening inhabitants.

The Janitor

A long-armed but very short-legged man known as “The Janitor” is the first monster you meet in the original Little Nightmares. Six is a very hungry girl, so she’s lured into a cage with an offering of food in what I can only describe as a Looney-Toons-esque fashion. Her captor is none other than the Janitor, who looks after many of the other children in cages. Once a child has been selected to be eaten, the Janitor takes them, wraps them in butcher paper, and sends them to the next area of the Maw, overseen by the Twin Chefs.

The Janitor’s appearance is strange: it doesn’t appear to be one of the adults, but it also does not appear to be a child. Its proportions are all wrong: its arms are far too long for its body in a way that does not look natural. Its head is huge, and its legs far too short. It’s dressed in a drab trench coat, and based on its odd gait - the way it sweeps the floor with its long arms as if trying to feel its way about the room, we begin to wonder if he can even see.

The Janitor is the perfect intro to the monsters of this series, which is why he’s up first in the game - and in this article. Because the Janitor introduces a concept that you will have to stare down in Little Nightmares: the uncanny.

Renowned weirdo and occasional-psychologist Sigmund Freud noted in his 1919 essay “The Uncanny” that in his native language, “uncanny” or “unheimlich", literally translates to “not belonging to the home.” The uncanny sits in a precarious position of being something which could feel safe and familiar, something like “home”… but for whatever reason, it does not appear to be. But it almost is. It’s the border between the fantastical and the realistic. The familiar and the unfamiliar. The uncanny sits in this blurry median. Like monster Thesis 3: it creates a category crisis. Because we cannot distinctly put it into a category of “safe” or “unsafe,” it creates a real conundrum. The human mind does not like it. …But why?

When something doesn’t line up with how we perceive natural/primal order to be, humans experience what Bulgarian-French theorist Julia Kristeva calls abjection: characterized by disgust, horror, fear, or maybe even… desire. In her book Powers of Horror; An Essay on Abjection, Kristeva explores the many ways that horror as a genre is built upon abjection: and how the phenomenon is actually greatly indicative of an affront to one’s own identity. For example: humans may be instinctually repulsed when confronted with a dead body - be that of an animal or another human. Why? Not because the body is in itself inherently disgusting, but because it exists as a reminder of our own mortality. Humans abject in order to preserve their own ego and sense of identity in a chaotic world… but being curious creatures, humans are also often intrigued by that which stands on the other side of the border. That which is supernatural. That which is disgusting, repulsive, or so “not of home.”

In the case of the Janitor, this further aligns with Thesis 5 of the Seven Theses: the monster polices the border of the possible. When confronted with the Janitor at the start of the game, Six is forced to realize that there are hostile, disgusting things happening within the Maw. When faced with the potential of being fed to guests as part of a feast, it makes sense that the creatures involved in the feast’s preparation are equally as abjectionable.

Yet to escape the Janitor, Six finds a way to essentially chop off his arms: the only vehicle by which he can navigate the world. Many players, myself included, feel a strange combination of relief and sadness as they hear his screaming from the next room over after the impromptu amputation. The Janitor may police the borders of the possible, he may present a category crisis, and he may be the gateway, the “mouth,” to getting eaten… but he’s still just a guy doing his job, potentially sustaining an on-the-job injury that would get him a seven-figure settlement in claims court. In some sense or another, he still feels like a guy being exploited by capitalism.

There is definitely a sense of tragedy about ol’ Spindly Armslong – he listlessly plays around with books and things lying on the ground as if he may have once understood their meaning, but it now eludes him. His dreary brown outfit, with its undersized homburg and oversized coat (his legs are so short that he almost resembles an upper body pulling itself around using only its arms), makes him look impoverished and desperate – if he wasn’t gigantic and murderous, you’d want to take him to the nearest hostel.

- Robert Zak for PCGamesN

He’s one of the many peculiar monsters belonging to the Little Nightmares pantheon - but far from the last. Just like the universality of childhood, there’s one omnipresent threat looming in the distance for almost everyone. One that has a unique combination of terrifying and validating qualities that psychologists have studied for decades. A monster we all must grapple with: becoming our parents.

The Lady and The Thin Man

Again - guy who was really weird about his mom and wanted to make it everyone else’s problem, Sigmund Freud, was slightly on to something, here. Slightly. That’s as much credit as we can reliably give him on the subject.

The nature of intergenerational trauma is an evolving area of study that has steadily made its way into pop-culture over the last decade. The terrifying event of origin can be everything from natural disasters, to domestic partner violence, to genocide. This type of interpersonal distress is often cyclical, passed down from parent to child in a distinct set of behaviors and worldviews - at least, until someone tries to break the cycle. The American Psychological Association defines “intergenerational trauma” as follows:

It’s believed that intergenerational trauma is a combination of both “nature” and “nurture,” as the emerging field of epigenetics studies the manner in which adverse environmental effects can actually cause individual genes to change how they express. This is relevant to the field of childhood/adolescent development, as younger, still-developing brains have been found to be more susceptible to epigenetic changes. This unfortunately can be partially to blame for the “stickiness” of intergenerational trauma, as it quite literally is passed on to descendants in their genetic code. All of this is believed to be evolutionarily advantageous, as parents can pass down knowledge of threats to their offspring with the hope that they can subsequently be avoided.

Intergenerational trauma and epigenetics align with Thesis 1 of the Seven Theses: the monster is a cultural body. The word “culture” is often used in a very broad sense, but within this context, it can be applied to the distinct culture within a specific family, community, or ethnicity. In short: it is some kind of representation of something horrific specific to an identity. Similar to how classic monsters like Gojiro/Godzilla is deeply rooted to the trauma of nuclear warfare in Japan during World War II, or how Dracula relates to the Wallachian Tepes family’s vicious warfare against the encroaching Ottoman Empire in the 15th century. But culture can be applied in a much smaller scale, too. For example: the nuclear family.

Six and The Lady in Little Nightmares (2017)

In the original Little Nightmares, Six first awakens after seeing a vision of a lady in a traditional Japanese kimono and a mask associated with Noh, a major form of Japanese classical theater. The masks are used to portray certain qualities, such as gender, age, social status, and general temperament: and The Lady’s is uncharacteristically blank.

The Lady is the proprietress of The Maw, and appears to want to keep it going at all costs.

With graceful restraint, The Lady casts the hypnotic spell that keeps the engine running. Amidst the chaos of the world outside, The Maw is the only place that makes sense, and now this rumor of an escaped child threatens everything. Nothing can be allowed to interfere. The guests must eat. The Maw must survive.

- Bandai Namco’s written description of The Lady

Her clear survival instinct clashes with Six’s - so it only feels inevitable that the two will go toe-to-toe at the end of the game.

The boss sequence is intriguing: there is no real combat in this series, but Six wields a strange weapon - a mirror. The Lady is seen earlier in her chambers sitting at a vanity: its mirror is broken, perhaps smashed by The Lady’s own hand. Between the broken mirror and the uncharacteristically blank mask, we get the idea that The Lady is hiding something, namely: her face. Whether this is an act of body dysmorphia, self-hatred, or an allusion to how she is unable to express her own emotions remains unclear. But Six immediately notices how important her appearance is to her… and uses that against her.

The boss sequence, shown in video below, is genuinely stunning. Eerie, brutal, and satisfying all at once. As Six approaches her chambers, we hear The Lady humming what’s known in the instrumentation as Six’s Theme, leading some to believe that The Lady is, in fact, Six’s mother. Or, at least in an abstract manner, The Lady is what Six is ultimately fated to become.

At the end of the boss fight, subdued by… shame? Fear? Disgust? Six in her insatiable hunger is able over to overwhelm The Lady and ultimately bits her in a vampiric manner, appearing to consume her powers entirely before the game concludes.

Has Six inherited her mother’s/archetype’s body dysmorphia? Will the cycle continue? Was there any other way this story could have gone? Six approaches a light at the end of the game - will she break the cycle? Is Six the hero? The villain?

Will this happen to us, too?

That is the danger of The Lady and The Thin Man: the seventh of the Seven Thesis - the monster stands at the threshold of becoming. The cycle continues… perhaps forever.

Mono and The Thin Man in Little Nightmares II (2021)

Mono and the monster that he fears becoming behave differently in the prequel-sequel Little Nightmares II. The Thin Man is not the final boss like The Lady, but rather a threat that is present throughout the majority of the game.

Clearly influenced by the 2010s online mythos of Slenderman, the Thin Man is a frightening tall, grey-skinned man wearing a suit. His head is always cocked to the side, giving him a peculiar and distinctive silhouette.

As the ever-present hum of The Transmission chokes the airwaves, The Thin Man continues his endless journey through this desolate place, haunting the shadows, searching for something…

- Bandai Namco’s written description of The Thin Man

Similar to the start of the first game, Mono wakes up in the forest outside the Pale City after having a frightening vision of the creature he fears becoming. At least - the precursor to him: he sees that of a long hallway. As he enters the city and finds Six along the way, Mono finds himself repeatedly drawn to televisions displaying static. He becomes completely transfixed by them: and with each subsequent TV he peers into, he once again catches a glimpse of the hallway from before - only a little bit further down. He is usually pulled back into the present by Six, lest he be lost in the static completely.

Mono’s singular fixation on screens and this mysterious hallway could be evocative of Thesis 6 of the Seven Theses: fear of the monster is really a kind of desire. While this thesis is very much playing into the hands of monster-smoochers the world-over, it’s also applicable to the desire to know. It’s a common, deeply held human experience that we are interested in the things we fear - heck, the fact that I’m writing this blog at all is proof.

This phenomena has been studied, though no one singular cause has been identified. Some studies indicate that it likely has its roots in the human instinct to play, the trait of being sensation-seeking, or even just plain old novelty. In a purely armchair sense, this desire of wanting to know that which scares us likely comes from an ancient survival part of our brain: the more we know about this thing, we might be able to avoid it, evade it, or even exhibit mastery over it. But regardless of the cause, Mono seems to almost fall into a trance when confronted with a TV screen.

By the third time this happens, we see the Thin Man seated patiently behind the door at the end of the hall, accompanied by his typical grating-metal sound effects and visual static. In a scene reminiscent of The Ring, the Thin Man climbs out of the television and is in pursuit of the kids. However, after this, Mono has actually discovered his own latent television-adjacent capabilities. He’s able to travel through television screens like a teleportation system, giving him access to other parts of the Pale City instantaneously. In fact… it almost seems like Mono has the same abilities as the Thin Man.

In the final portion of the game, Six and Mono are just about to escape. Mono makes a daring jump across an expansive void, and Six grabs his hand from the safety of the ledge at the other side. But for whatever reason - maybe she wasn’t strong enough. Maybe it was to distract the Thin Man so she could get away… he slips from her hand. He falls down into the dark pit below.

At the end of the game we see him sit patiently in that chair - the same one The Thin Man sat in. We watch him slowly transform into the very figure of the Thin Man… having fully become that which is either his father, himself fully, or his destined archetype.

The way he sits… it’s almost like he’s waiting for the next version of Mono to come free him again. Stuck in a loop. Forever. Having become the monster that was in front of him all along.

Thesis 2: the monster always escapes.

Thanks for reading another installment of Resident Anna! Little Nightmares is one of my favorite horror series of all time, so I’ve been itching to write about it. I’m very much looking forward to the third installment of the series, and Embracer I swear to GOSH you better not be mean to the folks at Tarsier!

Catch’ya later!

Content Warnings: this article discusses general themes of mental health, dissociation/dissociative states, psychosis, and hallucinations. There are also depictions of “cartoonized” gore, frightening imagery in screenshots, and overt symbolism to pregnancy loss in an embedded video.

Please note that this article also contains spoilers for Alice: Madness Returns (2011) and Fran Bow (2015).

Overview: Analogous Fictionalized Spaces

Alright. I’m gonna do it.

I’m gonna make up my own term.

I’m so sorry.

I searched TV Tropes from top to bottom to find a concept that fit the bill, but couldn’t find one which carried the proper nuance… so I’m going to make one up. I know this is incredibly pretentious. Forgive me.

Have you ever watched a movie or played a game wherein a character might be attempting to do something: say, in a purely hypothetical sense, obtaining an object that can produce fire which they were prophesized to need in order to escape a mental institution before they’re about to be lobotomized, and while in reality they are likely just slinking down the hall to swipe it, in their mind we see them infiltrating a castle under siege in order to slay a dragon and steal the fire-producing crystals that live within its throat?

Yeah. Me too!

It’s a device you’re likely familiar with: in real life, a character is trying to achieve a great feat or struggling with a difficult situation - but in their mind, they are an action hero or a secret agent. It’s a fun device - a character may, through mental health problems, magic, science, or otherwise, find themselves in an often fantastical fictional interpretation of what they are struggling with. In these spaces, we see the subconscious take center stage: ironically, the addition of this lens actually removes many of the layers of subterfuge.

…Okay, here’s where I start making things up.

The internal is transformed into the external via these analogous fictionalized space(s) (AFS), which allow the player to literally walk around and experience the furniture of someone’s mind. By doing so, they usually gain a greater understanding of the circumstances as they manifest in this inner world’s many details. Sometimes they come out the other side having neutralized the distressing situation or feelings - sometimes they merely gain a sense of understanding. Either way, the journey is well worth the effort.

AFSes, while not inherently a product of horror, often deal with frightening or otherwise intense subject matter, and thus often appear in horror media. The town of Silent Hill, for example, could be considered an AFS, as it’s merely a reflection of the thoughts and experiences of the protagonist of its various installments. Or we could consider the mansion in the first Layers of Fear to be an analogous space, as it becomes clear that its never-ending twisting halls might be representative of how the protagonist feels trapped by their quest for their magnum opus.

The stark intimacy AFSes provide is a natural fit for the horror genre, as it explores and confronts that which we find frightening, “othered,” or uncomfortable. But of course, perhaps the series that most famously utilizes this device isn’t horror at all!

In the Psychonauts series by Double Fine Entertainment, the player steps into the role of Razputin “Raz” Aquato, a kid with an uncanny knack for the extra-sensory. More than anything (to the point that he is willing to infiltrate a government-run summer camp for the psychically talented), Raz wants to become a “psychonaut”: a person from an elite, highly-trained group who use their psychic powers for good! That is: they can go into the “Mental Worlds” or “Mindscapes” of various characters, often with the intent of helping resolve any issues that might be causing the person distress. The character’s background, personality, and the nature of their struggles all play a role in shaping the appearance and contents of their unique analogous fictionalized space.

For example, Milla Vodello, a bona-fide psychonaut and one of the staff at Whispering Rock Summer Camp, has a groovy 1970s aesthetic - so the content of her mind is no different. She teaches Raz the skill of levitation by inviting him inside her mindscape’s dance party. But even dance parties have their secrets hidden away…

The long-awaited sequel to the series released in 2021, expanding upon the concept of the first game and its characters. And beyond the Psychonauts series itself: perhaps one of the most charming elements of games that utilize this device is that they often draw inspiration from, and are sometimes in direct conversation with, others which do the same! It makes sense: when using a device that wheels and deals with things getting meta, why not get super meta?

This is also indicative of how games draw inspiration from (and sometimes are in direct conversation with) its closest-kin artform: theater.

Level Design As Soliloquy

The act of peeking into the inner world of a character is a time-honored tradition in theatrical productions of all kinds. Soliloquys, monologues where a sole actor is onstage and is directly addressing the audience (in the guise of talking to no one in particular), have long been used to articulate a specific internal struggle or emotional exploration. Arias in opera also fulfill such a niche. Chances are, if you’ve ever read or watched a Shakespeare production, you’re familiar with soliloquys.

Take, for example, Sir Patrick Stewart here performing the famous “Dagger” soliloquy from Shakespeare’s M@ckb*th. While waiting to hear a specific bell toll to signal the time is right to assassinate his rival Duncan, we hear the titular would-be king grapple with the reality of what is about to happen. As his mental health is heavily unraveling at this point in the play, he is arguably feeling an internal struggle via (or potentially even a hallucination of) a dagger that he will use to kill Duncan and become King.

The audience gets a clear vision of his resolve… and the impact his quest for glory is having on his sanity. (As someone of Scottish ancestry: if you can depend on one thing from Scottish people, it’s being neurotic.)

Mental health, often in its deterioration, is a common motif among both soliloquys and horror games. Unfortunately, when terrible things happen or man merely succumbs to their hubris or folly, mental wellbeing is often the collateral.

But onstage where we get soliloquys, in games we often get environments - levels which allow the player to walk around in, look at, and sometimes engage in combat against the various elements which might be plaguing a character. Many of the techniques involved in constructing such environments, such as level design, environment art, etc, help heighten the experience to create a deeply human understanding.

It’s this element of humanization of complex emotional conditions that makes this device so compelling. As we move about and engage with the analogous space, we are allowed to draw our own conclusions and relate to various elements of the character’s experience. These sorts of things ultimately show us that while we are getting an intimate look at one person’s emotions… no one is ever truly alone in what they feel.

But how might someone go about designing one of these spaces? I wanted to look at a few case studies to find out, as there appears to be two primary methods.

Case Study: Alice: Madness Returns (2011)

The “Zone” Approach

In 2011, the much-anticipated sequel to cult-hit horror platformer American McGee’s Alice (2000) was released by the now-defunct Chinese development Studio Spicy Horse - Alice: Madness Returns.

Based on the classic children’s story of Alice in Wonderland, designer American McGee created a gothic re-imagining of the book’s heroine. Alice is now a young lady in her teens with dark brown hair and a haunting past wherein the rest of her family perished in a housefire.

Now struggling with severe post-traumatic stress and survivor’s guilt as a result, Alice’s “Wonderland” is more akin to a dissociative state that she returns to to feel safe. Parallels could be drawn between Alice transcending these two universes and the phenomenon of “Maladaptive Daydreaming,” an officially unrecognized syndrome characterized by excessive daydreaming to the point where it becomes intrusive in someone’s life. Its lack of formal diagnostic criteria is because it is often a symptom which is presented alongside a comorbid, diagnosable mental health condition: such as major depressive disorder or post traumatic stress disorder. Basically: it’s more of a symptom than a condition itself.

While this is a much more medicalized interpretation of what Alice is able to do, the esoteric tradition of astral projection and even the TikTok-ified practice of “reality shifting” could also be considered similar - it all comes down to transcending one’s current conditions in favor of something greater (often, something fantastical).

And when Wonderland is in balance? It’s truly a sight to behold. Seriously: this game is gorgeous.

Only… Wonderland, Alice’s internal safe-harbor, is in critical danger. It’s currently plagued with monsters, tar-like corruption, and a terrifying train which destroys everything in its path. As Alice explores the distinct regions of Wonderland and encounters familiar characters such as the Mad Hatter, the Caterpillar, and the Red Queen, she seeks answers. What has caused Wonderland to fall into such disarray? Why is everyone acting like she’s the one who destroyed it? And what really happened all those years ago when her house burned down, killing all but her?

When it comes to the design of the game and its spaces, Madness Returns utilizes “zone” or “biome” model. Each zone features its own theme, characters, and a fantastic dress for Alice to kick butt in. The zones often correspond with larger themes in the overall story and plot points which directly proceed them individually.

One of my favorite zones in the game, The Deluded Depths, is underwater: likely relating to Alice’s recent experience of near-drowning in the Thames, only to be pulled out near London’s famous Billingsgate fish market. It’s unclear why she’d fallen into the water - perhaps she had dissociated so severely that she entered some sort of fugue, unable to retain a sense of self-preservation. Throughout the many cutscenes detailing Alice’s past, we learn that she has a history of fainting, seizures, fugue states, and even catatonia, so it’s really anyone’s guess how she ended up in that river.

When Alice arrives in this watery hollow of Wonderland, she speaks to the Mock Turtle, whose boat sank in a recent naval battle. Alice gives him a pep-talk, saying that while captains are to go down with their ships, he should put up more of a fighting spirit. In the heavy, underwater space filled with shipwrecks and coral, she is mentally and physically at a low point, and I can imagine is truly giving this pep-talk to herself.

Another zone, known as Queensland, is a callback to Madness Returns’ predecessor: American McGee’s Alice (2000). The final boss of this first game is the famous Red Queen from the original children’s novel, only the Queen gives Alice a solemn warning: killing her is mutually-assured destruction - to kill the Red Queen would kill them both. But Alice, desperate to escape from her mental health problems… kills her anyway, as she believes her to the source of her problems. At the end of the first game, all appears to be in order in Wonderland once again. So where did things go so wrong?

Queensland in Madness Returns is a mess: it’s literally falling apart, and the card guards are not thrilled that Alice is back after what she did to their beloved queen last time. As she passes the cards and descends into the fleshy, meat-like interior of Queensland, we see a moment of these games with analogous fictionalized spaces in conversation with each other, as she might even see a familiar face.

As Alice finds the so-called “Queen of Hearts,” she also gets down to the heart of the matter: the Red Queen is a reflection of Alice’s intuition, her internal sense of self. And the Red Queen is undoubtedly suffering (and is understandably still a bit bitter about the whole “I killed you in the last game” thing). GLaDOS vibes.

By “killing” the Red Queen and attempting to shut out all the negative emotions and experiences associated with her trauma, Alice has actually created more problems. Wonderland is becoming corrupted by all the suppressed pain and suffering essentially leaking out through the cracks of her firmly-constructed barriers.

This is further complicated by the work of her caretaker and psychologist, Dr. Bumby, who routinely tells her that the best way for her to move on with her life would be to “forget” about everything. (Wow, that’s brilliant! Why hasn’t literally any human who has ever lived thought of that?) And it turns out this selfless psychologist might be up to more than she initially thought - as his connection to a frightening locomotive that tears through Wonderland becomes more concrete.

For Alice, the mission becomes clear as she navigates these recesses of her mind: she must restore Wonderland by championing her sense of self, confronting the painful things which have happened, and recovering the truth about her past if she ever has a chance of living a healthy life in the future. To defeat the monsters and identify how to stop the hellish locomotive is to reclaim these reaches of her psyche. And by fighting and platforming her way through these fictional analogous spaces, she is ultimately able to save Wonderland… and herself.

Case Study: Fran Bow (2015)

The “Duality” Approach

I can’t believe it’s taken this long for this game to make an appearance on this blog. Fran Bow by Swedish developer Killmonday Games is one of my favorite horror games of all time. You play as Fran Bow Dagenhart, a 10 year old girl in the 1940s who is currently living in the children’s ward at a sanitorium. She, like most of the other children there, are suffering from some kind of mental health issue as the result of severe trauma.

Fran, for example, witnessed the murder of her parents… and as you can imagine, she hasn’t ever really recovered. Despite this, Fran is a curious, friendly, and spirited girl who really only longs for a return to normalcy. Her ultimate goal is to leave the asylum and go live with her Aunt Grace, who was given custody of Fran after the death of her parents. Fran also longs for her pet cat, Mr. Midnight, who she considers her best (and only) friend.

Fran’s psychiatrist at Oswald Asylum, Dr. Deern, has recently decided to change her course of treatment for her psychosis by beginning a new medication: “Duotine.” Her file indicates that she has tried a variety of medications, but all have been stopped due to unpleasant side effects.

Unfortunately, Duotine proves no different: only, the side effects are a little… severe…

Fran has a vision of her cat, Mr. Midnight, who says that this new medicine is actually the secret to her escape - and that if she manages to do so, he’s waiting for her in the forest surrounding the asylum. Determined to do anything to get some semblance of a “normal” life back with Aunt Grace and Mr. Midnight, Fran decides that she’s going to leave the asylum by any means necessary.

The gameplay itself is point-and-click based, where the player can explore the world room by room. Fran is a naturally curious and creative young lady, so she has lots to say about the items in the world around her: some of which she takes in her inventory for use later. The player can combine and use these items to solve puzzles in order to progress. All of this is fairly standard point-and-click faire, but where Fran Bow utilizes the AFS lies in the little bottle of pills in the bottom right of the UI.

The player is able to switch back and forth between the “normal” view of the world and the “Duotine” view of the world by clicking on the icon of the bottle. Doing so will reveal the more extrasensory elements of this particular area.

The following are two versions of the same scene: the first in “normal” view (as evident by the closed Duotine bottle in the bottom right), and the second is the Duotine version.

By going back and forth like this, the player can find and interact with new items - and solving puzzles often requires switching back and forth multiple times. Whereas Alice focuses on a different analogous space for each aspect of what she’s struggling with, Fran has two versions of the same singular experience simultaneously.

This element of duality is oddly empowering within Fran’s story - she needs both of her viewpoints (for lack of a better term, her “regular” view and her “psychosis” view) in order to progress and handle the world around her. In this way, the point of view which is frequently demonized and seen as frightening is actually uncharacteristically helpful. Fran’s calm demeanor when encountering frightening monsters is also both a little jarring and very refreshing. For example, she may see a creature with three heads and say something like: “oh! Do you wear three hats on your birthday?” And then, upon closing the Duotine bottle, she is grounded back in reality once more.

Trauma and its lasting effects are objectively horrible, however there is something to be said for the fact that Fran’s experiences have come to let her see the world in a different way. Psychosis (which is a again a symptom/mind-state rather than a diagnosis in itself) can be developed as a result of extenuating circumstances. In fact, there is a substantial body of evidence suggesting that a history of traumatic events in childhood is a risk factor in developing psychosis for a variety of possible reasons.

“Cross-sectional studies have demonstrated that negative perceptions of the self, anxiety, and depression partially mediated associations between trauma (not always limited to childhood) and psychotic symptoms. They suggest strong relationships between negative personal evaluations and low self-esteem, negative affect, and the characteristics of positive symptoms. Lardinois et al found a significant, interaction between daily life stress and childhood trauma on both negative affect, and intensity of symptoms in patients with psychosis, suggesting that, a history of childhood trauma is associated with increased sensitivity to stress.

Biological mechanisms such as reduced cortical thickness and dysregulated cortisol following exposure to childhood trauma have also been recently investigated which may well facilitate the development of psychosis. Moreover, gene-environment interactions are likely to play a role in the relationship between childhood trauma and psychosis.

- Schäfer & Fischer, Childhood trauma and psychosis - what is the evidence?, Dialogues Clin Neurosci. 2011 Sep; 13(3): 360–365.

This lends a compassionate take on an AFS, as we can see how Fran’s life has been forever changed by witnessing the violent death of her parents - and how it quite literally has changed the way in which she navigates the world. This is similar to how Alice in Madness Returns depicts Alice’s mental health declining after experiencing the events of the fire.

But what’s more for Fran: it becomes fairly obvious in the first act of the game that there’s something else going on here - it isn’t purely psychosis or the result of a medication’s side effects… the things that Fran does while in her Duotine state actually change what is going on in the normal world too.

You can see Markiplier (one of the big YouTubers who has played this game) have that realization at the timestamped video below: content warning on this video for cartoonized blood/gore/imagery associated with pregnancy loss. Fran’s Duotine versions of rooms at the asylum often reflect the internal struggles of the characters who are also present, so we can assume that pregnancy loss may be a personal struggle that perhaps the receptionist is grappling with. As such, please watch at your own discretion.

“That doesn’t make any sense! That means this world that she’s in is actually real!”

You got it, Mark! This duality could be speaking to how psychosis is real to those experiencing it. Or… it could be hinting toward something else entirely. You’ll just have to play to find out! :)

Thanks for reading another installment of Resident Anna. Whether “zone,” “duality,” or not… I just love this silly little device! It bridges the gap between magical realism, level design, and often: mental health, so I wanted to feature it.

I’ll catch y’all in the next one!

Content Warnings: This article contains discussion of moral panics, trauma and traumatic memories (especially concerning childhood), child abuse (physical and sexual), violence towards animals, abusive power structures, mass-murder, death of children, sexualization of underaged characters, self-harm, suicide, and anti-LGBT bigotry.

I know that’s a lot - I keep it deliberately high-level and nondescript on many of these things: and some of the listed content warnings are because Rule of Rose was accused of having alarming content that (spoiler alert) wasn’t actually in the game - but I wanted to include them here just in case.

And, of course, spoilers for Rule of Rose (2006).

Overview

On On March 7, 2007, members of the European Parliament gathered in Strasbourg, France, to discuss a very pressing issue facing the children of Europe. Something so dangerous, so alarming, that they proposed the creation of an entirely new body within Parliament itself: the “European Observatory on Childhood and Minors.” And what was all of this hubub about? What could possibly have motivated them to expend such resources and demand additional oversight?

…A single video game from Japan.

If you’re a horror fan, you’re likely familiar with Rule of Rose’s legendary status. The game hadn’t even shipped when it began to make serious waves, particularly throughout Europe and Oceania. To this day, copies run anywhere from $150-$500 on sites like eBay, as disks are hard to come by after the game’s heavily restricted launch. To this day, your best bet at experiencing the game comes from a cracked copy played on a PS2 emulator (or merely watching a playthrough on YouTube from one of the lucky ones with a copy).

But something about the incorporeal nature of this game only adds to its mystique: so what is the big deal about Rule of Rose? Why was it banned in so many countries? And what might its history be able to tell us about the political climate we’re in today?

Well, folks: grab yourself a red crayon and let’s dive in.

What is a Moral Panic?

Before we are able to comprehend the unique history of Rule of Rose, we first must understand the psychology and sociology of the phenomenon known as a “moral panic.” Though you may not have heard the phrase before, if you are a person living in the United States in the past few years, you are intimately familiar with the concept.

Popularized in Cohen’s study of youthful hooliganism in post-war Britain, ‘moral panic’ constitutes a keyword in social-scientific studies of crime, deviance, and control. Referring to episodes where folk devils – moral outlaws and ‘visible reminders of what we should not be’ – are blamed for societal malaise, the term captures how ‘right-thinking’ actors transmute deviant outsiders into potent sources of anxious indignation. …For Cohen and his peers, panics represented media events, with journalists and broadcasters playing an essential role in identifying aberrant behaviour and mobilizing consensus and concern.

- James P. Walsh, “Social Media and Moral Panics” from the International Journal of Cultural Studies

Sound familiar?

Here in America, we love moral panics. We have one every 5-10 years or we start gnawing on our furniture like a dog without proper enrichment. From the Salem Witch Trials to the Satanic Panic of the 1980s and 90s, we love to pretend the end of society is nigh.

It’s important to note that moral panics are distinct from the phenomenon of “mass hysteria” - or known by its proper name: mass psychogenic illness (MPI). MPI is a psychological phenomenon wherein there is an apparent transmission of symptoms or behaviors, rather than a sociological phenomena. Examples of MPI include the Dancing Plague of 1518 or the 2011 incident in Le Roy, New York. The phrase “mass hysteria” is commonly used colloquially in an interchangeable manner with “moral panic,” but for the purposes of this article, I will only be addressing moral panics and referring to them as such.

Moral panics are often concerned with some sort of vague idea about moral corruption or a degradation of “traditional values” and “morality” (whatever that might mean). As nondescript as these concepts are on the surface, they are very compelling in terms of rhetoric and psychology. Therefore, moral panics tend to follow a typical pattern as outlined by Stanley Cohen - the sociologist who coined the term in the 1970s.

That last paragraph is also very important: it does not matter if the subject of the moral panic is in any way new or original - it can be a thing or concept which has existed for centuries, or something that was invented yesterday. The thing that makes it a target is that the genuine populace (often, as Cohen noted, encouraged by the media) has decided that it is the manifestation of often completely unrelated social anxieties.

That’s because moral panics have little to do with the actual threats a population may be facing - they are primarily concerned with social control. Moral panics historically have occurred during times of great societal change and anxiety, such as shifting social dynamics, war, or technological advancements. As Scott A. Bonn, PhD writes for Psychology Today, moral panics are about maintaining the status quo - and thus often prey upon misconceptions, stereotypes, and biases about minority groups that are often already present within the population. This creates what is known as a “folk-devil.” Essentially: an urban legend of a societal problem.

Bonn also notes that the creation of these folk devils creates a mutually-beneficial arrangement for politicians, the police, news/mass media, and social media as they enter a feedback loop. This continues until they have whipped up the public into a frenzy and a full-blown moral panic is achieved. It is at this point that we see “the passing of legislation that is highly punitive, unnecessary, and serves to justify the agendas of those in positions of power and authority.”

Moral panics aren’t about the actual problems that plague a community. They aren’t about caring for the actual health and safety of your fellow man. They aren’t altruistic in the slightest: moral panics are strictly about social control. And while that often manifests in “punching down” on already underserved groups of people, sometimes the subject of a moral panic is… honestly just bizarre.

Things which have been the subject of moral panics:

• Communism - the famous “Red Scare” of the 1950s.

• Jazz/rock and roll/blues - the “Devil’s music” - or, racism: repackaged. See also: metal in conjunction with the “Satanic Panic”

• Witchcraft (this one is a member of Moral Panic: Greatest Hits!)

• Dungeons and Dragons (for some reason)

• Islamic Extremism and terrorism

• Video games - particularly in relation to depictions of violence

• Immigration - or, racism: repackaged (again).

• The so-called “War on Drugs” - see also: marijuana, crack, and opioids/fentanyl

• “Satanic Ritual Abuse” often in conjunction with pedophilia, which is a tangential repackaging of the ancient anti-Semitic conspiracy theory of the “blood libel.” See also: the phenomenon of “repressed memories,” and the “Satanic Panic.”

• The LGBT+ community - see also: the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the “Lavender Scare” of the 20th Century, and the “grooming” conspiracy theory.

• Human trafficking (especially that of children) - see also: the QAnon conspiracy theory and… sex work in general.

And you might ask yourself: which one of these does Rule of Rose fall under? Well, perhaps the reason why Rule of Rose ignited a moral panic is that it ticks most of the above’s boxes, all wrapped up into a nice, neat package. Or, at least, you may think it ticks all of the above boxes if you don’t actually know what the game is about or to whom it is actually being marketed (or know much about video games in general).

Essentially, it was a a supreme folk-devil. Rule of Rose is a video game with violence and frightening imagery that was made in a foreign country and features LGBT themes, the concept of repressed memories, and even discussions of child abuse and adolescent sexuality. Despite being rated M here in the States, most of the characters are minors, creating the perception that it was aimed at/marketed towards and therefore a danger to children.

So. You know. Everyone was going to be so normal about it.

Misconceptions Embroiled the Launch

In a chapter about Rule of Rose in Moral Panics in the Contemporary World (2013), scholars Elisabeth Staksrud and Jørgen Kirksæther noted that the media panic appeared to move in a series of stages: all of them very silly, yet unfortunately leaving a lasting mark on regulatory processes (and the legacy of the game itself).

It all starts with a news article. On November 10th, 2006, the Italian news publication Panorama made their cover story about Rule of Rose. It bore the provocative title: “Vince Chi Seppellisce Viva La Bambina” - translating to: “he who buries the little girl wins” (bold to assume your player is a man or uses he/him pronouns, but I digress).

The article within, which may actually have been plagiarized according to some web sleuths, scathingly detailed that the game (and medium in general) contained violent, sexual content concerning underage girls. “Every single frame is dripping with perversion… Every scene features homoerotic and sadistic subtext,” declared the author.

This condemning quote is speculated to be referring to the prerendered footage shown in the trailer - some of which isn’t present in the game at all. And the title, which refers to “burying a little girl,” likely is referring to the cutscene toward the beginning of the game where Jennifer falls into an open grave. This, of course, is symbolic when seen in context - no one does any actual burying of any children within the game. But they didn’t let that stop them.

In fact, as Staksrud and Kirksæther note, they don’t let much stop them at all.

“The Panorama feature includes an interview with Italy’s president of the Committe for Childhood, Anna Serafini. Serafini, admitting that she does not know how to even switch on a PlayStation, is terrified by the described content of the game and questions how it could have reached the market. The same reaction comes from Rome’s mayor Walter Veltroni, calling for a national ban of the game.”

- Staksrud & Jørgen Kirksæther (2013)

Franco Frattini (the European commissioner for justice, fundamental rights, and citizenship at the time) subsequently called an immediate meeting for all ministers of domestic affairs within the EU. From there, the moral panic spread throughout Europe, namely to the UK, with the primary narrative becoming: “this is dangerous for the children!”

It is worth noting that Rule of Rose was never intended for a child audience, and the associated ratings reflected this intent. In Japan, which uses the CERO rating system, it was rated a C, meaning that it was only suitable for players ages 15+. In the United States, it was given an ESRB rating of M (17+). And even in Europe, it was given a PEGI rating of 16+. This, however, did not satisfy the European Parliament. The previously-established ratings systems built for this exact purpose were no longer adequate to protect against the moral threat of video games. Frattini said that they would need a complete overhaul if there was ever a chance to prevent this kind of “sadistic,” “perverted” content from reaching the impressionable children of Europe.

In an interview with British trade outlet MCV, Lori Hall, the secretary of the British Video Standards Council - the arbiters of the PEGI rating system - was outraged by Frattini’s suggestion that the PEGI system was inadequate or that they had been careless with their determined rating for Rule of Rose.

“There isn’t any underage eroticism,” added Hall. “And the most violent scene does indeed see one of the young girls scare Jennifer with a rat on a stick. But the rat’s actually quite placid towards her and even licks her face.”

“I wouldn’t call the game violent. We’re not worried about our integrity being called into question, because Mr. Frattini’s quotes are nonsense.”

- MCV Article “505 Pulls Rule of Rose Release” from the Wayback Machine

All of this based on hearsay about the content of the game. I can’t help but wonder if the English adage of “you can’t judge a book by its cover” has a similar version in Italian.

The Reality: What the Game Was (And Wasn’t)

You’ll notice we got terrifyingly far into this article without even discussing the game itself - it’s so so easy to get wrapped up in the controversy and sensationalist headlines, you might forget to ask: …what’s the game about anyway?

And let me be frank: this game is weird - but not in the ways the moral panic thought it was.

In Rule of Rose, you play as Jennifer: a 19 year-old English woman in the 1930s grappling with her traumatic past. Now an adult, Jennifer find herself returning to a dilapidated orphanage (that is also an airship - we’ll come back to this) for reasons unknown. In an “the inmates are running the asylum” arrangement, the remaining children run the orphanage with the iron fist of beaurocracy: The Red Crayon Aristocrat Club.

With few adults left to care for the children, the Aristocrats each have their rank and function within the organization to create a semblance of order. In a fashion that emulates how children might interpret classism in 1930s Britain, this manifests as having class-ranks, particularly: the Refined Class (a few named individuals), the Bourgeoisie (other orphans in decent standing), and… the lower class. Guess which one Jennifer’s in.

At the topmost tier of this hierarchy, although not written on the above sign, is the Prince and Princess of the Rose. All orders come from them. Now, this childlike attempt at creating a social hierarchy might have truly been made maladaptively in order to create structure in the absence of adult supervision - a feat which honestly might be commendable given the circumstances.

…But these might be some of the most messed-up kids on the planet.

Meet the Aristocrats

In order to explain what the heck is going on in this story, you’ll need to meet the decently large cast. This is by far not all of the members of the orphanage, but these are the characters we interact with the most.

Diana, the Duchess:

Diana is the oldest of the orphans at the orphanage - appearing to be in her mid-teens (I’d wager about 14 or 15 if I had to guess). It can be assumed that her age is partially why she is ranked so highly in the Aristocrat Club, and can thus “command anyone below her” as dictated by the rules. In the absence of proper adult supervision, she might be the best they’ve got!

Diana is the most outwardly violent of the girls, showing multiple traits consistent with sociopathy: with a low-conscientiousness for others and even being depicted harming animals, she is almost always looking for the first opportunity to cause harm to someone else.

As we continue throughout the story, it’s alluded to that she is being sexually abused by Mr. Hoffman, the headmaster of the place - and it is likely she is not the only one. We can assume that her aggression toward the others is an attempt to feel in control and safe in her own way: by subjugating others, she is attempting to soothe her own pain from victimization.

Eleanor, the Countess:

Eleanor is a younger member of the Red Crayon Aristocrats (I’d guess perhaps 9 or 10 or so). She does not talk much, and is quite introverted and aloof - she rarely ever appears to be looking directly at whoever she is speaking to. She participates in the Aristocrat Club, though it does not appear that she revels in the cruelty of the punishments - it is unclear how much she enjoys any of it, and I wonder if she’s perhaps just “going along to get along.”

Eleanor is most fond of her pet bird, and is often associated with bird imagery, as she wished she might "sprout wings like a bird and fly away to wherever she pleased." We get the sense that she would rather be anywhere but here (and honestly I wouldn’t blame her).

Some in the fanbase believe Eleanor may be autistic (or otherwise not neurotypical). She does appear to have low verbal communication skills compared to the others, and birds may serve as a comfort object and special interest. This has never been commented on by the developers, but many in the fanbase have felt “seen” in this aspect by Eleanor’s character.

Meg, the Baroness:

Meg is the final member of the Refined Class of the Aristocrats with the title of Baroness (and I’d guess she’s around 11 or 12). Though she is the lowest tier within her rank, she appears to have the important duty of functioning as secretary for the Club. The book she always carries around with her contains all of the rules (and the associated punishments for breaking them) and direct messages given to her from the Princess of the Red Rose.

Meg is a dangerous combination of arrogant and highly intelligent, and uses her wits to dream up new methods of punishment for any who dare violate the rules. This gives her almost a mad-scientist vibe, and cements her as the “mastermind” of the group. She then turns to Diana to act as the “enforcer.”

Oh - another thing about Diana. Meg has a mega crush on her. This is revealed over the course of the game when Jennifer finds both halves of a torn-up love letter. Meg is humiliated, and takes it out on Jennifer by shoving her in a bag. These kids are very well-adjusted, to be sure.

Amanda, the Poor (then Miserable)

Joining Jennifer in the “Lower Class” is Amanda, who I would guess is 10 years old or so. She is quite self-conscious and insecure in personality, likely from living under the hard rule of the Red Crayon Aristocrat Club for so long. She clearly longs to be like the members of the Refined Class, but due to beauty standards or social convention… she just can’t swing it. And the Refined Class girls are determined to make sure she stays at the bottom of the heap.

At first, Amanda welcomes Jennifer as her fellow member of the proletariat. But after Jennifer is promoted from Beggar to Poor (and Amanda is thus demoted, becoming “Miserable”), Amanda becomes jealous and vindictive. Her desire to climb socially and gain social approval appears to come before all else, and she isn’t concerned about who she needs to step on or destroy in order to do it.

However, later in the game, she apologizes to Jennifer for how poorly she treated her following her “demotion.” How much remorse she genuinely feels for this is questionable, given how quickly she was willing to abandon her principals in order to gain approval from the rest of the Aristocrats.

The Rules

…Boy do the Aristocrats drive a hard rule. As someone who attended an all-girls’ middle school, Rule of Rose is terrifyingly real in depicting how unforgiving social structures are in young girls. As young women (already pitted against each other due to patriarchal conventions of society) seek a sense of understanding in their own identities and where they might stand within a community - they are just freaking mean.

The Aristocrat Club dictates a series of intricate rules and rituals as determined by the Prince and Princess. Failure to follow these decrees will result in punishment (there is something very ominous about a cute, British child saying: “I’ll kill you :)” in a way that you can tell they very much mean it).

The general ruleset is as follows:

1. Anyone who disobeys any of the Rules of the Rose are to suffer dire consequences and terrible penalties. Most of these punishments are invented and performed by the Baroness, Meg.

2. The Aristocracy must always follow the instructions of the Prince and Princess of the Rose, and all rules, regulations, and information from the Prince and Princess of Rose are to be read by the Baroness.

3. The Duchess, Diana is allowed to command anyone below her.

4. The Prince and Princess want a gift every month: those who do not give them a gift are to be punished by the Baroness' choosing.

5. There are severe penalties for those who do not obey the rules.

6. If anyone of the Aristocracy disobeys the Prince or the Princess of the Rose, they will be punished by Stray Dog - an enigmatic figure who we will meet later.

What ensues is a bit of an obtuse story (narrated as if in a children’s book) about grappling with childhood trauma, emerging sexuality in adolescence, and just how mean young girls can be in social settings.

“We wanted to depict the darker side of children. Not really dark, per se, but if you really think about kids, they aren’t really afraid of the same things that adults are, and often aren’t aware of the consequences. Something that may seem benign to them may seem wrong or frightening to adults, but it’s really just a form of innocence.”

- Yuya Takayama, Assistant Producer

Much of the gameplay focuses on exploring the orphanage-turned-airship, finding the associated “gifts” for the Aristocrat Club, and exploring fractured memories of Jennifer’s past. Combat is relatively scarce, culminating in a few actual boss fights but mostly just hoards of creepy childlike imp things.

The Actual Plot of the Game

In truth, the game is allegorical: the first scene of the game involves an adult Jennifer appearing to doze off on a park bench, insinuating that the entire events of the game may be her repressed memories attempting to manifest. There’s also a very real reason why the orphanage inexplicably moonlights as an airship.

Jennifer was involved in a horrific crash of a luxury airship in 1929 in the English countryside - killing everyone onboard, including her parents… except for her. Before the wreckage could be searched by authorities, a local farmer came on the scene, and found only Jennifer left alive. This farmer (like everyone else in this story) was mentally unstable. This is a result of the loss of his only son, Joshua, to illness.

In a moment of what can only be described as a grief-fueled psychosis, Farmer Wilson (known by the Aristocrat Club as “Stray Dog”) believes Jennifer to be his son Joshua. He kidnaps her and holds her hostage in his son’s old bedroom: cutting her hair and dressing her as a boy.

It is during this tenure that Wendy (the Princess of the Red Rose), one of the girls from the orphanage, spotted Jennifer through the window of Mr. Wilson’s home. The two began exchanging letters, and eventually fell in love (or, at least, what middle schoolers might deem love).

Wendy said that she would help “Joshua” escape the terrible man holding her hostage, and take her to the orphanage where she actually belongs. All she needs to do is swear her everlasting love for her. Which she does. Saying:

One night, Wendy helps Jennifer escape and brings her to the orphanage, where she is welcomed. The trouble comes about when Jennifer finds a homeless puppy, which she names Brown. She loves and dotes on her little doggy friend so much, that Wendy becomes jealous, and schemes with the other girls at the orphanage to kill Jennifer’s dog in a jealous rage.

Jennifer, of course, is apoplectic and swears to never forgive them. The rest of the girls say it was Wendy’s idea, and want to promote Jennifer to being the “leader” of their group in a mea culpa. Furious at her “demotion,” Wendy goes back to Mr. Gregory’s house to manipulate him to come visit the orphanage.

When he does… he goes on a rampage, killing all of the girls except for Jennifer in an act of mass violence. When he comes to his senses moments later, he ends up taking his own life. When the police show up, finding the entire population of the orphanage deceased except for Jennifer, the truth comes out about her identity as the sole survivor of the airship, too. There is a media frenzy about the sensational story… and then the trail goes cold from there.

We can assume Jennifer has survived into adulthood, but not without heavily repressing her memories through dissociative amnesia. As they come spilling out over the events of the game, we can see how each of the individual Club members might be embellished versions of real girls at the orphanage - just dialed-up to 11 and distorted through a childlike lens.

And like, okay, that’s pretty weird. But where did the misconceptions about the moral panic come from?

Themes Driving Misconceptions

Adolescent Sexuality

Rule of Rose is definitely a queer game. From our 2023 perspective, a video game involving the queer development of an adolescent protagonist is demonstrably mainstream: see Ellie from The Last of Us or Max from Life is Strange. In Rule of Rose you have two sapphic relationships between characters anywhere from ages 10-15.

While I was not able to find any definitive data due to the subjectivity of the experience, a cursory glance on the internet indicates that people who experience romantic and/or sexual attraction often become aware of those attractions around ages 10-13. A study from the American Psychological Association’s journal of Developmental Psychology seemed to confirm this, adding additional clarity on the conventions of these early romantic connections.

“the development of early romantic relationships follows a phase-based approach, whereby adolescents begin with fairly short-term, shallow romantic connections primarily occurring in peer groups”

- Rauer et al., 2017

Therefore, Jennifer’s childhood puppylove for Wendy would be considered developmentally appropriate for their age. It’s about as squeaky-clean as you could get in terms of adolescent romance: it’s quite literally modeled after the standard fairytale trope of a prince and princess living happily ever after. The only kisses we see exchanged are that of a peck on the forehead and cheek. And while they might have pledged their “everlasting” love for each other, it’s undeniable that these kinds of relationships can’t be anything other than shallow. This is also the case with the relationship between Meg and Diana, which is slightly more mature based on their more advanced ages, but is still centered around someone writing a frilly love note in crayon (and her love ultimately going unrequited).

One of the major concerns referenced above was that it contained “erotic” content associated with children. And while there is definitely a few moments that I think were meant to be shocking to adults (such as a moment where Diana puts Meg’s cut finger in her mouth to stop the bleeding in a way that’s definitely suspicious), I think this is likely overstated. I can’t help but feel that this inherent discussion of sexualization is a remnant of fearmongered attitudes toward the LGBT community. The idea that something being queer is inherently sexual is incorrect, and is rhetoric that has fueled moral panics concerning the LGBT community and how their presence is somehow a danger to children for decades.

It is not “dangerous” to merely depict to young LGBT characters experiencing their first crushes. It would not be so even if the product in question was marketed to children, but given that this game was clearly made and marketed for adults, this element of concern is superfluous. Coming-of-age stories often tell of first romances in the tweens: the genders of the parties involved should be of no consequence.

Common concerns about sexual depictions of children often settle on Diana, who is certainly the oldest of the group. Apart from the one “finger in the mouth” moment, one of the pieces of evidence used to declare Rule of Rose as sexualizing children comes from Diana’s curtsey.

Her curtsey is indeed quite high, showing off quite a bit of her legs (while I couldn’t find an exact citation for this, this supposedly was declared “lifting up her skirt” in the European Parliament). However, most fans of the game insist that this is done to to highlight the bandage around one thigh - which some people believe may be hinting at self-harm. Self-harm is never explicitly stated with Diana, but is with a peripheral member of the orphanage (Clara), so its presence within the lexicon of the narrative definitely makes this bandage suspicious. Additionally, the combination of her high curtsey and her low-cut neckline could be subtle cues to how she is quite precocious sexually for her age, which is unfortunately consistent with children who experience sexual abuse.

Other concerns with eroticism appeared to be concerning the returning motifs of ropes and punishment, which could evoke… certain adult activities. However, in the game, the symbolism of the ropes is often coupled with a character or character(s) being in a position where they are thematically helpless. The theme of punishment for being in violation of a social contract may also be reminiscent of Jennifer’s history of abuse and post-traumatic stress, combined with the strict social rules maintained by girls in this developmental chapter of their lives.

It’s generally agreed upon by modern horror fans that while the concerns of the moral panic look very alarming on paper, actually playing the game makes these various claims deteriorate rather quickly. It’s almost like those people in the Italian parliament should have played the dang thing.

Violence - Particularly Towards Animals

Depictions of violence in video games has been the subject of moral panics for decades, but top academics in this area have found that video games do not inspire or otherwise influence violent tendencies in the player.

Now, that is to say, there are quite a few depictions of violence towards animals in Rule of Rose - and for the purposes of this article, I will not be providing any screenshots associated with it.

It is common knowledge that seeing a child exhibit any kind of harm towards an animal is a red flag, as it could indicate that the child struggles with empathy. You may have colloquially heard that abuse towards animals in childhood is an indicator or predictor of sociopathy, or that a child may become a serial killer. Like many other soundbites of pop-psychology: the reality is a bit more complicated than that.

The inclusion of children committing violence towards animals appears to be an intentional addition to Rule of Rose, as it’s frequently noted that “children who abuse animals have either witnessed or experienced abuse themselves.” And in Rule of Rose, it is very obvious that there is abuse occurring at the orphanage - likely both of a physical and sexual nature. Showing just how careless the members of The Red Crayon Aristocrat Club are towards animals could indicate the degree to which they were impacted by such abuse, or otherwise is meant to serve as an indicator of how their capacity for empathy has just completely gone down the drain.

Of all of the moral panic concerns about this game, I think this one actually holds the most water - and yet, it seemed to get the least amount of focus as it’s not quite as sensational. Funny how that works.

What Can This Tell Us About Today?

You may be like me: in researching for this article, I had multiple moments of deja vu. So many of the sources I found and historical news coverage I retrieved felt like they could have come out last year. Concerns for the “welfare of the children”? Concerns about LGBT “grooming”?

Because the truth is: we are in a moral panic today in America. Multiple overlapping ones, even. Between the rise of far-right anti-LGBT content creators and think tanks like L*bs of Tiktok and The D*ily Wire, we’re seeing the emergence of anti-LGBT “grooming” conspiracies. These specifically center around people who are of transgender experience and/or those who do not otherwise fit the conventional “respectability politics” of the 21st century. And chances are if you’re reading this - you don’t need me to tell you.

When you’re seeing a moral panic unfold in real time, it’s almost like being Jennifer tied to that support beam: only allowed to listen as a member of the Aristocrat Club tells you how things are going to go down. It’s easy to feel helpless and scared, especially if you are someone who is directly impacted by these feigned “concerns.”

What we can do is be prepared.

The thing about moral panics is that they have a distinct playbook. Watch for the signs. Don’t fall for it. Stand up for those impacted. Look out for each other. Because unfortunately, just as chaotic times will always come and go: that means moral panics will, too. Only, we will be vigilant. No one’s getting buried on our watch.

Thanks for reading another installment of Resident Anna. The history surrounding Rule of Rose has always fascinated me, especially in a sociological sense.

What I said in that last part is very real. If you want to learn more about the recent anti-LGBT moral panic and its associated legislature (and what you might be able to do to help), check out the ALCU’s page about LGBT+ Rights, and the Transgender Law Center.

You are not alone. We will fight for and with you.

I would like to give a special thanks in this article to Elisabeth Staksrud, faculty at the University of Oslo, for sharing her and her colleague’s research with me as I worked on this article!

Staksrud, E., & Kirksæther, J. (2013). 'He who buries the little girl wins!' - Moral panics as double jeopardy. The Case of Rule of Rose. In Moral Panics in the Contemporary World (pp. 289). Bloomsbury Academic

Thanks for reading!

Content Warning: this article discusses mental health deterioration and crisis, psychosis/unreality, and domestic abuse/violence toward a spouse. There is also mentions of alcoholism/substance abuse, suicide, ableism, and animal abuse. Layers of Fear is a real cheerful one, huh?

This article also contains depictions of nudity and spoilers for Layers of Fear (2016) (2023), Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem (2002), and The Shining (1980).

(Sorry in advance for the silly images and captions in this one, I am desperately trying to lighten the vibe.)

Overview

With a name like Bloober, you could be forgiven for thinking this studio makes those match-3 mobile games with absolutely ridiculous ads. But no: the Bloober Team, based in Poland, is trying to stake their claim as the next horror powerhouse. And with several titles already under their belt including the upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake, they’re well on their way to putting their money where their mouth is.

I was interested in their 2023 remake of a previous game of theirs from the not-so-distant year of 2016: the painting-based horror game Layers of Fear. While 2016 wasn’t that long ago (though it may feel like an eternity has elapsed since then), this particular title feels like staring into the past. Layers of Fear is one of those games that was stylistically very much a product of its time: certain trends in the horror market shaped its narrative and gameplay, so I was curious how Bloober would adapt the title to be remade for a modern audience - especially given how quickly greater societal trends have evolved on some of its more taboo subjects.

Now, I personally have quite a few opinions about the games made by this specific team for that very reason: I do not think they have a good track record regarding the handling of sensitive topics. Granted, horror is and should be about confronting that which we find uncomfortable and even grotesque: but there are ways that this can be done in such a manner that it does not “punch down,” demonize groups of already underserved people, or depict upsetting events in such a way that it could be detrimental to the health and safety of those who might be playing. While the Bloober Team clearly has a passion for horror and some truly excellent developers on staff, I personally have been deeply disappointed with how they engage with sensitive subject matter throughout their titles such as Blair Witch (2019) and The Medium (2021).

Despite this, I ultimately decided that the Layers of Fear would make a great case study for the “remake” phenomenon currently sweeping the AAA market - especially in the horror genre. Making a game is incredibly difficult. Remaking a game is another task entirely. How do the developers rebuild a game from the ground-up while also providing enough freshness and retaining its critical essence?

Safe to say? It’s pretty complicated.

The Rise of Remakes

While we might associate remakes more with Hollywood and our cinema counterparts, games are historically no stranger to remakes, either. The first commercially remade game was 1942: Joint Strike in 2008, which remade Capcom’s 1984 side-scroller 1942. Now, it is worth noting that “remaking” is distinct from “remastering,” which typically leaves the original game intact, but often updates things like textures or music to match current industry-standard. Remaking on the other hand involves quite literally building the game again from scratch, which is a labor of love to say the least.

Some games actually have both forms, for example: The Last of Us Remastered and The Last of Us Part I - both are essentially the modified versions of same concept: however one is considered a remake, the other a remaster. You can best see this illustrated in the triptych of Ellie below.

Horror has seen a variety of remakes as of late, and to thunderous critical acclaim - the Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 4 remakes received glowing reviews, and the Dead Space remake managed to completely capture the soul of the first while delivering on its gory gameplay with all the grisly tech art contemporary graphics cards can render.

And it’s no real question how we got here. With the simultaneous rise of IP and franchise-driven consolidation in media, companies are essentially puppy guarding the shafts of their gold mines.

However, when video games engage in the act of remaking, the impetus is different than that of cinema. In cinema it’s about that fresh-take - that reimagining. But often in the case of games, it has to do more with the way that technology has advanced at a breakneck speed over the past 40 years. Iconic titles originally constructed with low-poly models and stilted VO can be remade into the sparkling AAA near-photorealistic style consumers have come to expect of new releases - often with startling adherence to the original.

This element of preservation seems to be more keenly adhered to in game remakes. And while there is some variation of just how faithful adaptations remain from game to game, often a great deal is carefully conserved. Check out this video doing drive-by comparisons of the original 1998 Resident Evil 2 with its 2019 remake counterpart. While the dialogue itself was rewritten, much of the gameplay, story, and level design is entirely intact.

The Resident Evil remakes have managed to strike the perfect balance of “faithful remake” with the addition of modern aesthetics, quality of life elements (although failure to return to a “fixed” camera angered hardcore fans), and accessibility features. And the numbers don’t lie: as of August 2023, the RE2 remake has officially become the best-selling game in the entire franchise.

But what if a remake wants to do more than just a 1-to-1 adaptation? More and more, remakes are taking additional liberties with their content… including Layers of Fear.

Layers of Fear (2016)

The original Layers of Fear is a psychological horror game surrounding the story of a previously prolific, now “washed up” painter as he attempts to complete his masterpiece. Developed by the Bloober Team and published by Aspyr, it released in 2016 to mostly positive reviews, with one journalist from Polygon going so far as to say it’s “like P.T. on drugs.”

The gameplay is mostly puzzle and exploration based, and the large Gilded Age home the player finds themselves trapped in is almost a character in itself. It seems to grow and change in a very House of Leaves-esque fashion, getting progressively trippier as time goes on. As the player progress through the house, reading scraps of paper and interacting with keepsakes, they are able to piece together the story of their past… and things get a little bit weird.

2010s DNA

As previously mentioned, the “DNA” of the Layers of Fear is comprised of rung after rung of popular conventions of the 2010s, which - while very popular at launch - feel dated in retrospect. But it’s important to identify these qualities in order to analyze this game’s 2023 counterpart.

It’s funny, though the house the player is trapped in is arguably filled with ghosts (both literal and figurative), examining this game in 2023 reveals the many ghosts of genre’s past, such as the following.

The “Walking Simulator”

This divisive genre/gameplay convention was popular in the 2010s, focusing primarily on creating short-form gaming experiences in atmospheric environments for a single player. The genre gets its pejorative name from its limited range of player agency: interaction is often restricted to walking around, reading notes or newspapers strewn about the vicinity, and examining items. This makes “walking simulators” a younger cousin to the typical point-and-click adventure games of the 2000s, which often exhibit similar gameplay, but less atmosphere and immersion. Exemplary games of this genre include Dear Esther (2012), Firewatch (2016), and What Remains of Edith Finch (2019).

Walking simulators proved to be quite schismatic at the time, with some players detesting their “pretentious,” “art school” approach to game narrative. Others merely found them boring or not engaging as the genre didn’t cater to their taste. Furthermore, walking simulators were highly accessible, and often popular with those who were otherwise not interested in the gaming sphere. This was naturally seen as a plus to some, and a massive detriment to others. But love them or hate them, their presence inexorably changed games forever.

“While these games looked and played quite differently, they shared an approach that, in retrospect, appeared to be a tipping point in games culture. Both [Dear Esther and Journey] had a willingness to sit with time and space — to let the gameplay experience wash over you. The wandering from point-to-point was the endeavor. They stood out starkly against the major players dominating the industry at the time like Call of Duty or Halo, and there was a world of difference between the kinds of emotions these indie games played on and narrative-driven AAA titles”

- Cameron Kunzelman for The Washington Post

This genre works particularly well in horror settings, as progression in the game requires interaction from the player. There’s no way for the player to “cover their eyes” during a frightening cutscene or otherwise escape the mounting dread from the oppressive atmosphere. The work of putting the story together is a continuous expectation, which can prove more difficult if the particular game wishes to be nonlinear in form (or just particularly obtuse). This level of narrative immersion often creates a much more personal, intimate horror experience which, for the right player, provides a scary good time.

Helpless (Insane) Protagonist

In September of 2010, Swedish developer Frictional Games released Amnesia: the Dark Descent to absolutely rave revues (and the terrifying crack! of breaking conventions of horror games wide open). You see, being pursued by some kind of untouchable enemy is nothing new for the genre - but Amnesia took it one step further. The player as Daniel is entirely helpless: without weapons or any means to protect oneself, your options when faced with horrible enemies are: die, hide somewhere until the enemy goes away, or run like hell.

The game additionally requires some intentionally-clunky interactions which are designed to be compromising if you’re being pursued: such as forcing players to physically click and hold on a door in order to open it, or draw their cursor in a little circle to wind a crank. The helpless scrambling a player may resort to instantly ups the ante in terms of the scare factor, as there’s little they can do to evade or eliminate the threat. By eliminating “fight,” the only options remain “flight” or “freeze.”

But the planned sense of helplessness goes beyond the metaphysical, as Amnesia utilizes a “sanity” mechanic first pioneered by Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem in 2002 (a game which could warrant an entire Resident Anna article on its own). This mechanic is deceptively simple: the lower your “sanity,” the more the world around you will react accordingly. This includes things such as visual disturbances and strange sound effects which harken to the protagonist’s state of psychosis.

While Amnesia clearly borrows from Eternal Darkness, its predecessor additionally broke the 4th wall: attempting to make the player question their reality, as some of the sanity effects make it appear as though a bug is crawling on the screen, or that the TV has shut off.

Perhaps we should be thankful that Amnesia did not attempt these gags.

At the mercy of a monster externally and a failing connection with reality internally, the 2010s were filled with games where helplessness was the vibe. Unreliable narrators, unkillable patrolling enemies, and overall being powerless to your surroundings were common themes. Exemplary games of this style and era include of course Amnesia: the Dark Descent, P.T., and Alien: Isolation.

“The Rammys”

Using horror as a lens to look at unfortunate things in your past is about as milquetoast as you can get. But there was a real trend of horror games in the 2010s having the narrative twist relate to <checks notes> the consequences of your own actions???

Now, before I get too ahead of myself: the rammys are a very valid element of storytelling and often provide lots of exposition and character development and blah blah blah. But there was this trend for a while, arguably popularized by horror games such as Silent Hill 2, where “the rammys” (which often included murdering your wife for some reason??) were the primary narrative twist - I won’t list exemplary games here for the sake of spoilers, but just know that there are several.

When lacking any sort of appropriate characterization or dynamism, the rammys actively run the risk of your player feeling less sympathetic for, or, otherwise, less connected to your protagonist. And maybe that’s what you as the developer want - perhaps you want the audience to be disgusted with the player character. But in Layers of Fear’s case - a walking simulator where the player is a stand-in for your protagonist - you risk destroying the carefully constructed sense of immersion.

Predictability of topes like the rammys is a major hindrance of the walking simulator, as the player won’t be as enticed to interact with the beautiful worldspace you built if they already feel like they know what’s going on. That drive to learn what happens next or find out additional details keeps them interacting. With both predictability and disgust, it’s a lot harder for your player to stay engaged, which is a premium in the walking simulator genre.

There is also a deeply cynical part of me that can’t help but notice that if horror games are the standard: “facing the consequences for my own actions” is apparently considered the worst possible/most horrifying thing the often straight male player character (and often by extension the narrative team) can experience. Even more so if “my own actions” are “I was horrible to the women in my life.” But we don’t have time to get into all that :)

Narrative Highs and Lows

The story of Layers of Fear received high praise at launch, with horror fans noting that it took inspiration from P.T and Anthony M. Rud’s short story “A Square of Blank Canvas” (1923), which was published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales.

“The Highs” are many: not content with walking around a singular location where a player can backtrack and expect to find things exactly as they were, the house in Layers of Fear changes and distorts heavily throughout the gameplay. This element of impossible geometry gives the house an almost dreamlike quality, depicting the protagonist’s sense of disconnection with reality.

This technique is masterfully employed here as things continuously change once just outside your peripheral vision. The effect strikes me as similar to the otherworldly, uncanny quality the Overlook Hotel has in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. There are many spatial abnormalities within the Overlook, and it has been the speculation of film buffs for decades. The most famous of these anomalies even has a nickname: “The Impossible Window.”

By weaving in these little inconsistencies, Kubrick puts the viewer subconsciously on edge and establishes the Overlook as a place that may be liberated from space, time, and logic completely. Bloober has done a fantastic job of this in Layers of Fear, displaying some serious tech art chops for 2016. As the game continues, the player can’t help but wonder how much of the environment is the literal home the protagonist has returned to, and how much might be some sort of complex allegory of deteriorating mental health as collateral in the quest for perfection.

But while the highs provide a pretty nice view, “The Lows” are unbearably low. Any game which hinges its narrative upon mental health immediately finds itself in a very precarious and sensitive position. Add in components like domestic violence and physical disability and disfigurement, and your need for sensitivity consultants skyrockets. Unfortunately, as is evident by the depiction of the events that unfold and this studio’s track record: I do not personally believe that much care was given to the topic of sensitivity. You’ll see why.

This is where things start to get really gnarly.

The tragedy of the narrative pins itself on the wife of the protagonist, who was a professional pianist and the painter’s muse. However, as the protagonist singularly fixates upon their work and their mental health subsequently deteriorates, their previously happy marriage does so too, resulting in a domestic abuse situation. Throughout the scrawled notes and bits of VO, the majority of the time the protagonist is depicted as an abusive alcoholic and certainly the aggressor in the dynamic, even going so far as being alluded to killing the family’s pet dog.

All of this culminates in his wife - who over the events of the story became facially disfigured due to a fire - dying by suicide in the bathroom of the estate. Unsure of how to cope with what has happened, the protagonist does not give her a proper burial, opting instead to use elements of his wife’s body to complete his magnum opus - a portrait of her. As the narrative progresses, we learn how he utilized the various components: her skin as the canvas, her blood as the overlay, her bone marrow as the undercoating, a brush made from her hair… you know. Totally normal things.

To say that all of this is problematic doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. Not only has horror more than outgrown the “dead wife” trope, the narrative of this game truly can be described as “adding insult to injury.”

The protagonist character is already described as requiring a prosthesis on one of his legs in order to walk - medals around the house indicate that this injury may have been sustained during his tenure as a solider in WWI. He already suffered the horrors of war and is now a disabled veteran - yet all of this feels like an accessory, tangential to all of the suffering he faces at the hands of his own actions. Similarly, the protagonist’s wife already must deal with having an abusive spouse over the events of the story - but she has that history of surviving a terrible fire wherein she sustained serious burns, especially her hands and face. It all just feels unnecessary to me: especially given that there is a certain banality and lack of reverence for the very real challenging experiences that people live with every day in favor of the fantastical... here, they feel like a prop.

In death, the figure of the wife appears in a paint-soaked dress, her face obscured by bandages and scarring. Her character model is somewhere between an artistic portrait and a nightmare, complete with an outfit that can only be described as “tiddies-out.”

She has no personhood in her death - she has become transmogrified into the literal manifestation of the rammys. I can’t help but feel that the shortened, 2010s-esque high-low of her hemline and the entire lack of bodice create an element of sexualization to her already disrespected corpse - again, “adding insult to injury.”

Safe to say: the lack of interest in sensitivity and trope subversion left a great deal of opportunity for the 2023 remake. I hoped that this new iteration would reflect changing societal understandings of issues like mental illness, intimate partner violence/abuse, addiction, and disability. I was so curious how it would turn out, even with my misgivings about the original and skepticism about the developer. The concept of a horror game inspired by painting still whips.

And then… the Layers of Fear remake wasn’t what you would much expect from a remake at all.

Layers of Fear (2023)

Launching on June 15th, 2023, the Layers of Fear remake surprised everyone: it was both a remake of the first Layers of Fear, its sequel Layers of Fear 2… and new original content that ties them both together.

I honestly loved this approach. While hardcore fans of the original weren’t necessarily thrilled by this new development, I really appreciated that Bloober were trying to do something different - ultimately deciding to use it as a case study in remakes entirely. The world changes so quickly: what besides the graphics might change along with it?

The Design

This game is seriously gorgeous. With the launch trailer proudly boasting that it was “the first Unreal Engine 5 horror game,” it’s got the ray tracing to back it up. Many of the iconic interiors of the game were faithfully remade in Unreal 5, and they are truly breathtaking.

And while some of the scares and trippy effects were identical, there were enough new sequences to keep even familiar environments fresh.

There are instances of “choice” moments: where the player can choose which hallway to go down in order to progress, potentially offering a branching experience with built-in replay value. New characters and notes providing insight into other sides of the story make the experience feel more fleshed-out and not as one-sided as the previous installments. A greater inclusion of voiceover also provides a sense of real personhood behind each character, allowing you to more acutely feel their presence in the periphery.

But perhaps the most surprising of all: there were new gameplay mechanics!

Though the legacy of the walking simulator is irrefutable (whether you enjoy that particular style of game or not), Bloober noted that the walking simulator format was a sticking point with players who really wanted to be able to engage with the gorgeous world the team had built for them. One potential solve for this comes in the form of a handheld light source, such as a lantern or flashlight.

Although perhaps a little heavy on the symbolism, the Painter can use the beam of light emitted from his lantern to “burn away” the distorted areas within the estate, for example. Additionally, if approached by the ghostly form of their wife, the Painter can use the beam to temporarily stun her and cause her to dematerialize. This can allow the player to make an escape in what would otherwise be a “game over” scenario, essentially adding a pseudo-combat element to the game.

This departure echoes greater trends in the horror market, where interactivity goes beyond walking and reading notes, but is still relatively restrained. A good example of this is the indie title Endoparasitic - where you are able to protect yourself from monsters with a weapon… but you only have one arm. And I really do mean you only have one arm. I found the addition of this mechanic interesting, as I think it follows natural ebbs and flows in trends and mechanics.

The Story

As is the Layers of Fear tradition, there are highs… and lows.

I really commend the developers for trying something new with their overall plot: adding the character of “The Writer” to essentially create a metanarrative of the first two games and their DLCs was an intriguing choice. She is a woman who recently won a writing contest, the prize for which involves a retreat at a spooky lighthouse. And we all know only good wholesome things happen in lighthouses in fiction! :)

The addition of this frame makes you as a player consider that what you are experiencing might be through an additional lens of distortion… especially as The Writer becomes increasingly convinced these stories she’s writing are real by none other than The Rat Queen, a recurring character from Layers of Fear 2.

This lady, sporting a striking resemblance to Count Orlok, is the personification of mental illness in itself. Or, at least - a relatively one-dimensional interpretation of what a sentient entity of mental illness could be like. She is associated with the common motif of rats throughout the series, as it’s implied that they may not be real at all throughout the series, rather auditory/visual hallucinations.

The way that the Rat Queen claims to have influenced or contributed to the various arts of the protagonist in any/all of the stories could be narratively compelling, but it isn’t done with any degree of empathy. She appears to have no motivation other than watching people suffer. There is no depiction of the Rat Queen where she is merely trying to help the protagonist survive difficult situations and life stressors, keep the protagonists safe from recurring trauma, or any of the other multi-dimensional understandings of how mental illnesses develop given the bio-psycho-social model we’ve talked about on Resident Anna before.

She’s a very cool concept for a villain, but much like the rest of the women in the series - lacks any true depth or dimension.

So with the highs… come the same old lows.

While there were marginal gains in terms of representation in the remake (with the inclusion of a character who is a woman of color and a general greater fleshing out of the women in general), I still couldn’t shake a certain disregard - or at least, a certain misunderstanding - of sensitive topics. Granted, I understand that the developer is based in Poland, so there may be some elements which are lost in localization - but that benefit of the doubt can only go so far.

As you can probably tell by my casually-scathing analysis of the wife from the first game, I was very curious how they were going to expand upon her character. The remake offers more characterization for The Musician (the wife), however it does so in a way that simultaneously muddies her concept. I think the developers wanted to show how toxic her relationship was with her husband, and in doing so wanted to show the wife as a more willing participant in the escalation of the domestic discord.

This is further extrapolated upon in The Last Note, the “Musician’s Story.” This DLC which is included in the remake allows the player to view the perspective of the wife… up to and including her suicide. It goes without saying that depicting suicidality in works of media must be done with the utmost care: both to prevent upsetting anyone in the audience who may be struggling with their own mental health, and to provide dignity for those who are in mental health crisis. While I am thankful that nothing was shown directly, the inclusion of imagery such as a noose could still be very triggering… and yet, there it is. Sitting on the desk.

So we get to hear her speak - we get to know her own struggles with her own mental health… but we still cannot change her fate. Are we merely meant to just… feel more empathy for her before she is doomed by the narrative? The insult to injury never ceases.

Similar to the character of Lily from “The Actor’s Story,” (the portion of the game that is a remake of Layers of Fear 2) it seems as though the men in their lives are forever haunted by the loss of a woman. It does not matter how much context we have for those lost lenores, as no amount of context or showing their side of the story makes up for the fact that, well… they’re dead. The survivorship rate of women in the Layers of Fear series is, unfortunately, still pretty laughable. And you might say: “but Anna! It’s in the pursuit of art!” To which I say: those women were artists in their own right - why should they have to give up their lives to improve the artistic expressions of the men in their life? Critic Ashley Bardhan commented on this in her review of the remake:

Whereas something like Faust satirizes the tortured artist, conveying that creative people aren’t necessarily special people, that they can be as bad as anyone, Layers of Fear seems to say that art is uncontrollable. It’s a hungry, magical force, and if a wife, or a sister, or a daughter are caught and bloodied in its insatiable mouth then, well. So be it.

- Ashley Bardhan for Kotaku

They did, however, give the wife’s ghost form a suitable makeover…

Small victories.

Risk and Reward

Bloober definitely took some risks when it came to this remake - something that I genuinely commend them for! And while some of them paid off… it appears others did not. That’s the way the cookie crumbles, baby.

Receiving a Metacritic score of 73, the reviews for the remake were pretty mixed. Overall it seems like people were split on the addition of The Writer and the pseudo-combat mechanic. But for the most part, players seemed content to re-live The Painter and The Actor’s stories as if for the first time.

In the end: I definitely think Bloober got some things right in trying to create a remake with additional added material… but a lot of things, such as their treatment of women and sensitive subjects, feel stuck in 2016.

Thanks for reading - I know this article got pretty gnarly at points, so thanks for sticking with me. The next one is going to be a bit more historical and focus more on analytics of psychology and sociology, so expect a nice change of pace.

If you are experiencing mental health difficulties or are in an abusive relationship, resources are available to you. Please do not be afraid to reach out and ask for help. No matter what that voice in your head may tell you: you are worth it.

Be well.

On August 8th, 2014, a man by the name of Scott Cawthon independently published his solodev game Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNaF).

Just a few days later on August 12th, 2014, a man by the name of Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach would upload a video of himself playing the pizza-adjacent horror game onto YouTube, calling it “the scariest game in years.”

The world was, quite frankly, never the same.

The Rise of “Mascot Horror”

The term “mascot horror” has disputed origins. Some believe the term derives from Five Nights at Freddy’s, wherein the enemies are animatronics akin to sports team mascots. Others, however, say that it likely refers to the greater trend of indie horror games being associated with a primary “mascot” of a character, which then becomes an ad-hoc representation of the game itself: think Freddy Fazbear, Huggy Wuggy, Bendy… those sorts of guys. Even if you don’t know their names, I’d bet you’ve seen their “faces.”

Regardless of the name’s origins, mascot horror as a subgenre absolutely exploded in the second half of the 2010s and continues to be immensely popular today - specifically in the indie game space. But what exactly does this genre entail? And why is it so enticing?

Common themes and characteristics of mascot horror:

“Kiddish” aesthetics:

Bright colors, toys, friendly/familiar themes and settings which are then subverted for the purpose of a scare. This works on children because of its uncanniness and subversion of the familiar, while simultaneously working on adults by upending the nostalgia factor and returning the player to a smaller, more vulnerable chapter of their lives. A great example of this is My Friendly Neighborhood, an indie title published by DreadXP, wherein the enemies and environment are a hostile version of the types of puppets and sets you might find on a children’s educational television show, such as Sesame Street.

Serialized format:

Most of these games are released as part of a series - whether individual installments (such as Five Nights at Freddy’s, which is currently at 10 games and counting) or in a chapter format of a singular story, such as in Poppy Playtime, from MOB Games, which currently has two chapters and is awaiting a third. Like FNaF, Poppy Playtime uses their various installments to introduce new characters/enemies and mechanics to keep things fresh and provide iteration upon the genre’s typically simplistic gameplay.

Scares are often jumpscare or chase-sequence based:

Very little blood or gore is depicted due to the target audience being children (and thus keeping that ESRB rating low).

Simple puzzles:

Puzzles are simple and developmentally appropriate for grade-school children. An example of this would be the pilotable drone in Garten of Banban. The player must use a remote control drone to press various buttons in order to open doors. Why this is a feature of a kindergarten/daycare center? Anyone’s guess.

Gameplay mechanics may be more sophisticated depending on the title, but are ultimately still approachable for players of all ages.

Nebulous metanarrative:

These games are well known for being narratively confusing. With continuous retcons, “lore” (often hidden), timelines, and sometimes accompanying alternate reality games (ARGs), we can assume that this particular feature is derived from a need for continuous engagement, rather than a genuine interest in nonlinear narrative structures - but I digress. A classic example of this is the game Hello Neighbor from tinyBuild, wherein a nosy neighborhood child is trying to figure out what their eccentric neighbor has locked in their basement. The narrative of this game is as wild as it is confusing, leaving many players to question if they were merely making it up as they went.

Virality:

These indie-horror games are not marketed with flashy PR campaigns or publisher press releases - instead they are made popular by harnessing the power of internet virality.

…That last one is a biggie. In fact, it’s widely speculated by horror fans that mascot horror would never have reached its fever pitch in the last couple of years if it hadn’t been for one compounding meteoric rise: “let’s play” and gaming YouTubers. In these YouTube videos, gaming personalities would record themselves playing the scary game and showcase their terrified reactions. And viewers? Ate. It. Up.

YouTuber Lanza in his video essay Poppy Playtime and the Ever-Growing Problem with Horror Games for Kids summarizes the symbiotic relationship let’s play-ers and game developers have in this subgenre:

“Let’s play-ers play the game - game gets popular - Game Theory [an (in)famous channel on YouTube] makes a video going over the deeper lore - game gets even more popular… and this is 100% free advertising that the game developers don’t have to pay a single cent for. All they have to do is get their game noticed by the right people, and theoretically the money should start pouring in.”

- Lanza, Poppy Playtime and the Ever-Growing Problem with Horror Games For Kids

This mutualistic relationship catapulted mascot horror to popularity: the game developers sell copies and the let’s players get views and that sweet, sweet ad revenue. It’s a win-win! But it doesn’t stop there - developers and YouTubers alike often openly encourage and foster online fandoms of their content. This leads to things like fanart, fan theories, and even entire fan-games. This drives continued engagement: more clicks, more views, and more outreach, meaning that they can almost guarantee a greater player-base should they release a subsequent installment. In the world of mascot horror: more is always better.

And this hasn’t gone unnoticed, as many indie developers are increasingly interested in the subgenre and out for their piece of the (pizza) pie.

Some titles associated with the genre are:

• Five Nights at Freddy’s (franchise)

• Bendy (franchise)

• Poppy Playtime

• Choo Choo Charles

• Garten of Banban

• My Friendly Neighborhood

• Amanda the Adventurer

• Hello Neighbor

• Tattletale

…The list honestly goes on, and there are cases to be made for inclusion or exclusion for any of the above (and those not mentioned here).

Even if you aren’t familiar with any of these games, a quick glance at their Steam pages can give you an idea of how they are thematically coherent. They’re aesthetically stylized, short-form, meant for quick, cheap, enjoyable scares and entertainment before being readily discarded for the next one that comes out in the next few months.

In short: mascot horror is a new form of pulp.

What’s Pulp, Anyway?

“Pulp” as a genre originated from “pulp magazines” (sometimes referred to historically as “the pulps”). The Pulp Magazines Project, an open-source archive of all things pulp, credits the birth of the genre in the 1890s to a convergence of several cultural phenomena, including a readily increasing literacy rate, establishment of a working class with pocket change to burn, and the rise of American news and magazine culture.

Pulp magazines, which were typically associated with genre fiction (such as true crime, horror, or erotica), were on the cheaper side of most newsstand offerings. This meant that they had to be dirt cheap to produce in order to make a profit. So rather than print them on decent paper, they were instead printed on paper made almost entirely out of wood pulp: ultimately earning the genre its name.

Picture the absolute poorest-grade toilet paper you can imagine: the kind you might find at a public school (or the Moscone Center) - that sort of stuff is usually made out of wood pulp.

Paper isn’t necessarily known for being the most durable of materials at the best of times, but pulp magazines had a reputation for falling apart in your hands (especially if it’s raining). But this was acceptable to folks at the time, as being readily discardable in favor of the next publication from your favorite serial was part of the culture. As technology continued to advance and distributors could print newspapers almost as fast as articles could be written for them, the speed of production picked up. While it likely wouldn’t phase us modern twitter-users, at the time they were being released at a blistering speed.

As modern readers, we look back on pulp fiction as a deeply kitschy era of pop culture which would give way to comics as we know them today. But the truth is: pulp still exists - it’s just changed its form. Instead of hard-boiled detectives, we have fearless young children. Instead of vampires and zombies, we have animatronics, toys, and puppets. And instead of inexpensive paper: we have free-to-play and cheap indie game releases. But these spiritual elements are not all mascot horror inherited from its paper predecessor.

Pulp undeniably influenced the landscape of American fiction, however the genre was also associated with exploitation and the overall poor working conditions at the turn of the 20th century. Because when you have to make something return a profit? Well… you’re bound to cut a few ethical corners, right?

…Right?

Late-Stage Capitalism (We Live In Hell)

It is an unfortunate reality of being a game developer that our games - our precious babies that we have toiled away at making for years - have to be financially profitable. To see them as the art that they are is admirable, but the reality of the biz is that we need to turn a profit to keep the lights on (and the execs happy in their million-dollar houses).

This is an unfortunate, universal truth of game development, however there is something uniquely distinct about the “franchisability” of children’s horror properties of the modern era. Five Night’s at Freddy’s and Garten of Banban might have started as standalone, single-entry entities… but they have quickly exploded into entire franchises which have extensive spinoff material, merchandise, novels, and comics: turning a once-humble independent videogame into a fire-spitting hydra of capital.

And truthfully? It’s not a massive leap to understand how we got here. Children’s horror - mascot horror… it’s good money.

Here are some staggering figures I was able to find of recent mascot horror releases:

• Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach (Steel Wool Studios, Scottgames) - 2021: $44.5 million gross revenue, 1.4 million units

• Poppy Playtime (MOB Games) - 2021: $2.1 million gross revenue, 1.5 million units

• Bendy and the Dark Revival (Joey Drew Studios) - 2022: $5.5 million gross revenue, 237,000 units

…And people are taking notice. Studios are racing to create “the next FNaF” next to the original franchise itself as it continues to fight for relevance. Others want a cut of the ravenous market: not giving any care towards continuity (or even quality).

When the first Garten of Banban game was released for example, gamers across the internet found themselves asking: “is this for real?” It contained so many of the classic tendencies of the genre that a large portion of the player-base was questioning if it was a lampoon of the genre itself instead of a legitimate entry (if not a shameless cash-grab). It spawned more video-essays than you could possibly imagine in the weeks following its release.

As time has gone on, the jury is still out on how much (if any) of Garten’s design is tongue-in-cheek. But what was increasingly evident was how aggressive the series would be about trying to snatch a piece of the mascot horror zeitgeist. And I couldn’t help but feel all of this felt a little… Marvel-ish?

Michael Schulman of The New Yorker noted that “the Marvel phenomenon has yanked Hollywood into a franchise-drunk new era, in which intellectual property, more than star power or directorial vision, drives what gets made, with studios scrambling to cobble together their own fictional universes.” It doesn’t matter if it’s good. It doesn’t matter if this will have to become some sort of alternate timeline because things don’t match up. If it can hold the public eye and capture the imagination (like all good pulp can) - that’s good enough.

It is not enough to merely make a delightful game experience that a child can play with their friends. It’s not enough to create a few genuine scares, some laughs, and then allow the player to close the game when it’s time for dinner. All of that is a thing of the past. Now? Now games must become “IPs.” They must become “franchises.” The soul of a game and its story must be distilled and commodified into an asset which can then be turned into marketable plushies, comic books, children’s novellas, and now even Hollywood movies.

Welcome to indie horror in late-stage capitalism. I hate it here.

The Ethics of Mascot Horror

Now I would be remiss if I wasn’t to note that “ethics” don’t necessarily exist under capitalism blah blah blah - all that jazz. However, there are some serious questions that the current state of children’s mascot horror pose. How can these games be produced in their current iterations in an ethical way for their employees? Is it ethical to be marketing to children at all?

Unfortunately, in this fertile soil where everyone is trying to create the next hot FNaF-like, new studios are forming and attempting to bite off way more than they could chew… giving us some classic examples of what I like to call “developers behaving badly.”

For almost every single mascot horror game, there’s some sort of controversy regarding poor behavior on the part of the developers. We can sometimes chalk this up to inexperience with the ins and outs of making a game (which is already a gargantuan task in itself). Sometimes that’s reflected by the studio’s internal behavior, such as the reportedly horrific working conditions at Kindly Beast, the makers of the Bendy series, and the subsequent mass-firings.

Running a game studio is hard, but being a new studio in this incredibly fast-paced genre in an industry already synonymous with overwork and poor culture sounds awful. Without having the expertise of multiple shipped titles under your belt, the lack of knowledge about everything from development cycles to how to give proper feedback to your team becomes a massive hindrance to your success (critically, financially, and culturally). And if the issues with the genre were mostly internal, it would still be considered an issue by those working in the industry… but they aren’t.

There are instances of developers being out of touch with the needs and ideological stances of their players, such as the many controversies surrounding the FNaF franchise, but unfortunately the claims become worse, even still. Enchanted MOB, the developers behind Poppy Playtime have faced claims of everything from plagiarism, to bullying, and even dubiously sexualized depictions of underaged characters. …Then, of course, there was the backlash to their NFT project (this is a whole other topic, but to understand why these are controversial, please watch the YouTube documentary Line Goes Up), which was particularly outraging as it planned to lock story elements associated with the NFTs effectively behind an incredibly expensive paywall. Of course, the studio responded to each of these claims in turn, but it really seems like creators in this particular genre can’t seem to stay out of drama in their pursuit of the limelight.

Developers, are, of course, human, however I can’t help but feel a little yucky about the ethics of creating for, marketing to, engaging with, and receiving money from literal children. Pulp-y materials have always been popular with young people, however there is a specific element of greed simmering beneath the surface of these releases. Garten of Banban in particular fell under fire for this, as they quite literally included a merch button on the game’s menu at launch.

And you might be saying: hold on, Anna. What’s the big deal with marketing products directly to children? Turns out, there’s a whole field of ethics about marketing! An overview of decades of research regarding children and advertising from the International Journal of Advertising succinctly describes the concerns as such:

“The biggest concern is that children (up to 12 years old) are not yet capable of critically evaluating advertising. In comparison with adults, children are thought to be more vulnerable when confronted with advertising and, consequently, more susceptible to its effects. The rationale behind this assumption is that as children’s advertising literacy (i.e. understanding of and critical attitudes toward advertising) has yet to fully mature, they are less able to defend themselves against its persuasive appeal (Hudders et al. 2017; Rozendaal, Buijzen, et al. 2011). As a result, advertising targeting children is often perceived as unfair. These issues of fairness are even more severe in the contemporary media environment, which is characterized by subtle advertising formats that are integrated in entertainment (e.g. influencer marketing, advergames). Children have great difficulty recognizing the commercial nature of these practices (Hudders et al. 2017).”

This is because:

“…there are fewer identifiable commercial characteristics, and consequently children find it more difficult to recognize these forms of advertising. If children don’t recognize contemporary advertising messages as such, it is far more difficult for them to understand the commercial nature of those messages.”

- Rozendaal & Buijzen, Children’s vulnerability to advertising: an overview of four decades of research (1980s–2020s)

Therefore it follows that using video games to advertise merchandise to children featuring the “mascots” in question could be seen as morally dubious on the part of the developers. They could essentially be convincing children to buy things by exploiting their developmental inability to recognize that they are being advertised to. And sure, there is additional responsibility on the part of the parents or guardians of said child - but it doesn’t seem to be much to ask for the developers to stop taking advantage of the low advertising literacy levels of children. Come on, you guys.

Conclusion

I wish I had more concrete answers for many of the issues surrounding mascot horror and this new phase of pulp pop culture (apart from us desperately needing a union of course - that I’m very much serious about. Check out how a union in the games industry could benefit you!)

Unfortunately, the phenomenon of mascot horror is already at a full sprint, which means that we can only make guesses of how to improve the circumstances of the business and social practices within the genre, rather than trying to tackle the entire mascot horror industry at large.

Developers? Stop the bad behavior.

Now onto the business sense.

The FTC has established regulations when it comes to advertising to children, however they are mostly oriented towards television advertising, online privacy, and consumer protections. These relate to things such as how many advertisements can be shown during children’s television programming, that children should be able to access children’s content on a website (such as games or activities) without having to give any sort of identifying materials), and that there needs to be a statement on all direct sales saying that all purchases must be made by someone 18 years or older. But there’s very little regulation in terms of things like “advergames” - video games made by companies specifically for the purpose of advertising their products to consumers.

These types of games are not without scrutiny, and due to the “Get cool merch!” button being directly placed on the main menu of games like Garten of Banban, the world of mascot horror is veering rapidly toward this rocky slope. Advergames are nothing new, so by the time I was looking into them in 2023, academic debates about the ethics and even constitutionality of regulating advergames have already been raging in the minds of JStor users across the globe.

As you can see from the above example, many of the advergames that were created during the Flash-era of browser games were made by large food corporations. Because many of the foods being advertised were, for lack of a better term, “unhealthy,” there were multiple attempts to regulate advergames at a federal level in the United States. Unfortunately, because, once again, we are in the United States, lobbyists of the food industry made sure that these efforts would not be successful. It’s likely the precedent of those cases have paved the way for indie horror to teeter on the edge of going full mask-off advergame capitalism. But that doesn’t mean that future pushes for regulation can’t change things for the better.

We can hope that indie horror creators are truly in it for the art. That they, like me, genuinely love horror games. That they honestly love making spooky content for kids. That they are fostering healthy work environments and inspiring the next generation of game developers. Maybe they will see the error of their ways when it comes to the blatant cash-grabs, or maybe the FTC will change its mind about increasing regulations regarding advertising in gaming. Maybe in a few years we will look back fondly on the mascot horror era of indie horror as a quirky little experiment and a fun trend. Maybe developers will take notice of all of the poor behavior on the part of their peers and hold themselves to a higher standard.

Maybe.

…But it sure sounds like wishful thinking to me.

Thank you for reading another installment of Resident Anna. As an indie-horror (and even mascot horror fan) myself, I’ve been wanting to write about this topic for quite some time. I hope that this has given you some food for thought and you’re able to take a closer look at the next Five Garten’s at Bendy and the Tattletail or whatever whenever the next installment releases next tomorrow. But for now? Farewell.

Content Warning: this article discusses the prison-industrial complex, mass incarceration, and the many intersectional issues (such as racism and human rights violations) therein. Additional content warnings for mentions of dismemberment and a brief mention of needles and eye-related trauma (thanks, Dead Space 2).

This article also contains spoilers for The Callisto Protocol (2022), Presentable Liberty (2014), and Wendell & Wild (2022).

…This one might get a bit divisive.

Extraterrestrial Origins

In 2008, Electronic Arts would release its newest survival horror game, Dead Space, to thunderous acclaim. Just a few years post Capcom’s magnum opus Resident Evil 4, the survival horror genre was thriving. Sales of the first Dead Space were good, but according to EA: not good enough. With the financial crisis of 2008, a greater reliance on physical media at the time, and expensive marketing costs, EA reported that despite the critical and popular success of Dead Space… profits were down.

But with critics and players hailing Dead Space as a titan and arguably a crown jewel of the genre, EA set out to make Dead Space 2 with San Francisco Bay-area studio Visceral Games, hoping that the word of mouth and name recognition would result in a real blockbuster. As you might expect, the next installment of the franchise would release with glowing reviews and players chattering about the now infamous “eye-needle scene.”

But once again, EA said that its sales numbers were lacking.

Hoping that the third time was the charm, Visceral would go on to develop Dead Space 3, which incorporated co-op elements unlike the previous two titles to better reflect changes in the console market. While reviews were far from poor, its reception wasn’t as universally positive as the previous installments, and (you guessed it) EA said that they were disappointed with sales. EA would eventually go so far as to completely close Visceral Games in 2017.

The Dead Space franchise seemed to have a major problem on its hands. Despite quite literally being regarded as a staple of the survival horror genre, shipping three AAA titles, and being on best seller-lists… it was never good enough for their publisher. The game was great, but the numbers were simply too low.

It’s a grim reminder to us game developers who fancy ourselves artists: games might be art, but they’re still a product. And products have to sell.

But the spirit of Dead Space continued to live on in the fond memories of players… and in the minds of many of the original developers. That’s why in 2019, PUBG Studios-affiliated Striking Distance was formed with the intention of making a “spiritual successor” to the series, with many of the original developers at the helm. What they would end up making, The Callisto Protocol, had many of the hallmarks of a Dead Space universe game: undead creatures, some sort of cult or newfangled religion, and of course: space. And, uh, this ol’ gag:

But it also had one other unfortunate hallmark… it didn’t meet sales expectations.

The Callisto Protocol’s release was met with middling reviews, consistently saying that the game was visually stunning, but that the story was lackluster (and almost a little too much like that of Dead Space, even for a spiritual successor). Tristan Ogilvie of IGN wrote that Callisto presented “a campaign that was heavy on startling jump scares but light on any major story or gameplay surprises.” One reviewer scathingly called it “a relic of the past.” Ouch!

But the game itself is a real visual feast. It’s a bona fide AAA horror game extravaganza, complete with crunch discourse. The combat primarily has a melee focus, allowing the player to hack and slash their way through claustrophobic hallways and and otherworldly snowstorms. One of the standout weapons is a GRP (pronounced “grip”) device - an anti-gravity glove which can be used to manipulate the environment and engage in combat. The GRP is a fun little gadget that you can upgrade as you continue to play, even if it does take a while to recharge after use. The audio and SFX were sparkling and the performances given by the celebrity cast were great. With a metacritic score of 69 (lol, lmao), for every gorgeous vista there was a frustrating moment of UX. For every tech-art masterpiece there was a design disaster.

The Final Frontier… Is An Old Institution?

But there was one thing that stood out about the Callisto Protocol’s universe as distinct from that of the Dead Space IP: one thing that was inexorably overshadowing every story beat, every character design, and every undead creature, and I couldn’t get it out of my mind.

The Callisto Protocol takes place in a prison.

The story follows protagonist Jacob Lee, who is basically a space trucker for a logistics company: he gets a contract, gets items where they need to go, and gets paid. The inciting incident involves a terrorist group known as The Outer Way trying to board his ship, resulting in Lee crash-landing on Callisto. In real life, Callisto is Jupiter’s second-largest moon, named for a nymph in Artemis’ hunting posse who forever swore to remain unwed (what a queen). But in the game, Callisto is the home to a massive penitentiary known as Black Iron Prison, conveniently operated by the same logistics company that Jacob has been a courier for.

As he’s technically trespassing, he’s immediately apprehended. Unable to talk his way out of the situation, he’s taken in as a convict - alongside supporting character Dani Nakamura, who is believed to be the leader of that pesky terrorist cell. Like all convicts at Black Iron Prison, Jacob is forcibly fitted with a CORE device - an implant which, through a disturbing cutscene, conveniently places a diegetic health bar on the back of Jacob’s neck.

After only a short time, all hell appears to break loose within the prison, as “biophages” (read: humans overrun with a zombifying condition) begin to emerge. The robo-correction-officers, Black Iron’s oddly flirtatious Captain Ferris, and a newly-appointed (and waxing poetic) Warden scramble to contain… whatever has occurred. With special authorization of lethal force, of course.

In the chaos of the outbreak, Jacob works with a fellow prisoner named Elias and eventually Dani Nakamura herself to escape, all while trying to figure out what has happened on the ill-fated moon.

I was excited about this title because of how iconic Dead Space had been. I don’t even mind some performance issues upon first launch or the frequently bemoaned tight runtime. I knew this would be a “Deadspacelike,” but I just couldn’t get the whole “prison” thing out of my head. The Callisto Protocol is happy to revel in the bloody details of an outbreak of a zombifying disease - but it had absolutely nothing to say about the fact that the game takes place in a corporate-run private prison.

Thanks to the work of activists such as Angela Davis and Michelle Alexander, much attention has been brought to the phenomenon of so-called “private prisons” and mass incarceration in America within the past decade. But in case you’re still unfamiliar (especially for international readers): in the United States, we are prison-obsessed. With the rise of private/for-profit prisons and increase of “tough on crime” legislation since the 1970s, the American Civil Liberties Union (ALCU) states that the incarcerated population of the United States has increased over 500%, which is “far outpacing population growth and crime.”

The reasons for this are vast and steeped in America’s own shameful history of slavery, white supremacy, and the failed “war on drugs” - scholars have spent their entire careers studying this topic and its many integral intersections: I cannot even begin to detail it all here. The Netflix documentary Thirteenth does a terrifyingly good job detailing how mass incarceration particularly impacts people of color, especially the Black community in the United States - but I must warn you it is not an easy watch, and I encourage you to look up associated content warnings before doing so.

However, should you wish to learn more about mass incarceration and the prison-industrial complex in the United States in a general sense (especially for international readers), this video from the leftist YouTube commentary channel Second Thought, does an excellent job compiling the basics in the following video.

In Callisto, the biophages, cult elements, and atmosphere are absolutely fair game for a Dead Space spiritual successor, but I found it odd that more of the horror was not reflecting upon the terrifying realities that humans have already invented and forced upon a large sector of our population.

The two primary genre spaces that Callisto fits into, horror and sci-fi, have been used to perform commentary on current events since their inception: with the overlap of the two typically attributed to Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein in 1818. By entering a fictional world of sci-fi and horror, we have an additional lens for us to examine the things that feel uncomfortable, high-concept, and even horrific. Yet this stalwart pillar of these genres is completely abandoned in Callisto, which leaves the story feeling hollow and, quite frankly, toothless. Especially because many of the opportunities for this reflection were right there: the ball was going straight across the plate. Swing, batter, swing!

Jacob has been incarcerated without any discernable charge and held in a corporate-owned prison that financially benefits from inmate labor. He witnesses and experiences brutality at the hands of corrections officers within the prison. He is given an invasive medical procedure against his will and later unearths evidence of medical experimentation on other inmates. All of these are things that are currently happening or have happened historically in prisons in the United States.

But the focus of the horror is always of course: the biophages. Sure, the corporate entity is bad - it caused this whole thing, anyway. But that’s not where the focus is: the strange cult influence and the rise of the zombies... it all just feels like a missed opportunity for some serious reflection and criticism on an institution which we rightfully should be horrified and ashamed of. And we know that games and other entertainment mediums can thoughtfully address this issue because… quite frankly, some already have.

Case Study: Presentable Liberty (2014)

The 2014 cult-hit psychological horror game Presentable Liberty by Robert “Wertpol” Brock takes place, you guessed it, in a prison. Before we get too far into this: this game is bleak. If you tend to be the sort to like edgy speculative fiction that may or may not involve the trading of organs, this might be for you (or Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator). But I wouldn’t blame you if you skip this section.

The player is confined within a tiny cell and is only able to communicate with the outside world via letters which slide in underneath their door. Unable to (or merely lacking the materials to) respond, the player learns about the goings on in the outside world and the people who still live in it - as it becomes rapidly clear that there has been some kind of apocalyptic event at the hands of a man by the name of… <checks notes> Dr. Money. Who is also sending you letters.

The player must wait for these letters to arrive. The only actions they can otherwise take are walking around their tiny cell and playing on a handheld gaming device: Doctor Money’s Portable Entertainment Product. The games available are simple black and white classic games like “Snake," and they are progressively unlocked by another character known only as Mr. Smiley: your personal Happy Buddy. He’s been assigned to you because the rates of depression in prisons have been so high lately.

The bleakness of this game comes from the overwhelming sense of helplessness on the part of the player: you are merely a witness to the events unfolding around you. But in the end, this actually your saving grace. Sort of. You learn that your importance to these characters comes by way of your isolation: you aren’t “infected.” In a similar scenario to The Callisto Protocol, a virus has broken out. In this case, the kicker is that the virus was made by Dr. Money - who has also conveniently made an antidote which he plans to sell to cure people… of the virus that he… also created. Sounds about right for a guy named Dr. Money.

Only, the antidote isn’t working as planned, and the virus is destroying people’s organs. And the organ black market right now? Is hot. And you? Because you aren’t infected? Well, you and your organs are one hot commodity.

Presentable Liberty is a buffet of helplessness and dehumanization. By becoming a prisoner, you have essentially forfeited your right to being a human and have instead become nothing more than a commodity for the rich (like Dr. Money). Your organs are quite literally worth more than you are as a sum of your parts - you have essentially become your raw components.

And you might say: “sure, Anna, but you said so yourself this was spec fic.” Well, it was in 2014… but not anymore!

In February of just this year (2023 at time of writing), a bill was proposed in Massachusetts that would allow prisoners to shave time off their prison sentence in exchange for donating an organ or bone marrow.

“The bill reads like something from a dystopian novel,” Kevin Ring, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a Washington, D.C.-based criminal justice reform advocacy group, told the Associated Press. “Promoting organ donation is good. Reducing excessive prison terms is also good. Tying the two together is perverse.” But this isn’t Repo!, this isn’t even Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator. This is 2023 in the United States of America!

There are multiple endings to Presentable Liberty. All soul-crushingly bleak and depressing. But for Wertpol, that was the point. His work, known now as the “Menagerie” series, offered nothing but a scathing indictment of capitalism, the prison industrial system, and lack of resources for those suffering from mental health problems. Unfortunately, Wertpol would succumb to his own depression and passed away in 2018. But his games really stuck with players. His popularity coincided with the birth of the indie renaissance that’s attributed to the rise of YouTube let’s-players. Presentable Liberty also saw a popular resurgence during the COVID-19 pandemic, as players were able to connect with the protagonist’s sense of isolation and helplessness due to quarantines and lockdowns. Though he is not around to see it, Wertpol’s surreal, anticapitalist games are still creating conversation and leaving people completely and emotionally devastated.

Case Study: Wendell & Wild

I know, I know, you’re gonna be like: “Anna, this isn’t a video game.” And it’s not! But 2022’s Wendell & Wild by the power-duo of Jordan Peele (of Get Out and Nope fame) and Henry Selick (of Coraline and The Nightmare Before Christmas) is masterful at its critique of private prisons, and does so in a way that children can understand.

Unfortunately, children are also victims of mass-incarceration in a variety of ways: from being one of the 1.25 million children having to cope with an incarcerated family member to the school-to-prison-pipeline. Peele and Selick create a visualization of private prisons that is both developmentally and socially appropriate for the age of the primary audience (but adults might learn some things too).

The story of Wendell & Wild follows protagonist Kat Elliott, a thirteen-year old juvenile delinquent who has spent the past few years in various foster homes after the passing of her parents. Kat, struggling with her grief and the conditions of the foster care system, has a history of acting out. But she’s been given one last chance to get things right - she’s been admitted to a fancy boarding school back at her hometown of Rustbank as a part of a program called “Break the Cycle.” The intention of the program, or so she’s told, is to help troubled kids find their way back onto the path of the straight and narrow (and thus, avoiding returning to juvey).

Naturally, as her hometown before her parents’ passing, Rustbank carries many painful memories. And it oddly isn’t anything like she remembered it being - instead, it’s a shell of itself. The root beer brewery that her parents owned has burned down, and the Klaxon family (of “Klax Korp”) intend to build a new prison on the land where it once stood. If the community votes that it’s acceptable, of course. The Klaxons insist that it will bring many jobs to the once-bustling area, which could revitalize the town. But Kat isn’t buying it. She knows better.

Siobhan Klaxon (yes, of the Klaxons of Klax Korp), the platinum blonde on the right, takes Kat under her wing, giving her the nickname of “Kay-Kay” (much to Kat’s dismay). Siobhan is your typical smarty-pants mean girl. Born with a silver spoon, Siobhan is primarily concerned about her self-image - and is blissfully unaware of what her parents do for a living. She’s been insulated within a capitalist bubble, but befriending Kat gives her the first glimpse of what life is like for those who have previously been incarcerated… and living with the constant risk of ending back up behind bars. She even goes so far to confront her parents about it, and they respond with a gleeful confirmation - just think of all the cash that will come to their pockets from all those convicts!

There’s also demons involved. And a journey about grief and self-blame. But I can’t give away everything!

If you’d like to watch it for yourself, Wendell & Wild is available on Netflix. Definitely some content warnings for discussions of grief and loss, and there is one scene where a trans character gets deadnamed. But overall, it’s a great, spooky film if you want to watch a claymation movie that certainly doesn’t pull any punches regarding standing up for what it believes in.

Conclusion

The Callisto Protocol inherited much of the DNA of the Dead Space franchise: including the various ways in which it was considered a disappointment - from sales figures to reviews. But for me, the disappointment with The Callisto Protocol runs deeper. It is a deep-seated disappointment with the lack of bravery to really say anything.

As a writer, I don’t have much purview into the world of bizdev: would having taken a firm stance against the horrors of incarceration have helped them escape the shadow of Dead Space? Would it have helped establish the game as a spiritual successor that could stand on its own two feet? Would it have helped sales figures? I don’t know. Maybe. But it certainly would have made it a better horror game.

Horror as a genre works because it provides an opportunity to confront that which is disgusting and uncomfortable: but it can only do so if we truly see the opportunity and seize it with both GRPs.

Thank you for reading this very important entry of Resident Anna. This one definitely got a bit more op-ed-y than I typically try to be, but I think it’s for a good cause.

If you’d like to learn about ways you can help dismantle the prison-industrial system and help end mass incarceration, please see the following resources:

• Readers in the USA: find and contact your representatives in government. (Are you registered to vote? You should be!)

  • Find your representatives in all levels of government through this handy website.

  • Write to them to encourage “second-chance” legislation, clemency for those behind bars with cannabis-related convictions, ending mandatory sentencing minimums, ending cash bail, restore voting rights for the formerly incarcerated… - urge them to do anything they can to stop the for-profit warehousing of citizens in your community.

• Check out the ALCU’s “Take Action” page, where they suggest actions individuals can take based on their available time/energy levels, and allows people to sign up to be notified when new “take action” opportunities arise.

• Volunteer or send books to incarcerated people through the Prison Literature Project. This grassroots organization has been sending literature (such as books to help study for certifications, education-level exams, etc) to incarcerated people for over 30 years with the aim of helping to prepare them for reintegrating back into the community. They do great work: they regularly post the thank-you letters they receive from those who have been sent materials, and you can see what a difference it makes.

Content Warning: please be aware that this article contains detailed discussion and analysis of various phobias and anxiety-related conditions such as claustrophobia, panic attacks, generalized anxiety, thalassophobia, agoraphobia, etc. Examples of scenes from video games deliberately evoking these fears are discussed. In some cases the material is shown via embedded YouTube videos - please use your discretion in terms of linked/embedded content.

Overview:

Claustrophobia, derived from the Latin claustrum meaning “a shut-in place” and the Greek phobos meaning “fear,” is most commonly defined as a fear of enclosed spaces. While this term is used colloquially in both its noun and adjective forms, claustrophobia is an intense psychological phenomenon which can impair an individual’s ability to participate in the world around them.

Phobias, as opposed to more everyday objects of fear or dread (such as having to go to the dentist or taking a big test), are marked by “an overwhelming and unreasonable fear of objects or situations that pose little real danger but provoke anxiety and avoidance.” Like most psychological phenomena under the bio-psycho-social model, a combination of nature and nurture is likely involved in the development of such phobias. This includes things like genetics, socialization, traumatic experiences, etc.

An overview of Claustrophobia from the medical reference StatPearls clarifies that defining claustrophobia as merely a fear “enclosed spaces” is somewhat inaccurate. Instead, “claustrophobic people are not frightened of enclosed spaces per se but of what could happen in the enclosed space.” The overview also showcases the wide variety of what this “closed space” could be, citing examples such as “engine rooms, small or locked rooms, cellars, tunnels, elevators, MRI machines, subway trains, crowded places” etc.

In this way, claustrophobia is very akin to its polar opposite: agoraphobia, roughly translated from its Greek roots as “fear of the marketplace,” but commonly defined as “a fear of open spaces.” However it is more accurately an anxiety about being in a place “from which a potential escape is difficult, or help may not be readily available.” In short: both are about the ability to achieve safety when in a particular space, be it a wide open one or a shut-in one - more on that later.

Those who experience claustrophobia report a wide variety of psychological and somatic symptoms during an “attack,” which are fairly consistent with the fight-or-flight response of the sympathetic nervous system.

Like with most phobias and anxiety conditions, in instances of claustrophobia the fight-or-flight response is engaged as a survival mechanism. It’s a raw, ancient sense of self-preservation kicking in, with the amygdala (the “fear center” of the brain) essentially screaming “GET OUT OF THERE!”

Now, Resident Anna is a Maslow’s-Hierarchy-of-Needs-free-zone as it has been largely discredited in its traditional form by the psychological community. This is for a multitude of reasons (including the ridiculous allonormative notion that if you don’t have sex, you as an individual will die), but the concept of base survival needs remains very real. Depending on who you ask, what these “basic survival concerns” are is up for debate, but a brief survey of sources indicates that can typically be sorted into the following categories:

• Air

• Food and Water

• Shelter (warmth, or in survival situations, fire)

• Sleep

• Connection (human interaction) and Safety (physical and emotional)

These base needs are so critical for survival that even simulated or theoretical threats can be frightening: just take a look at video games. When developers are able to create a sense of claustrophobia within a digital environment, it also echoes the claustrophobic/agoraphobic tenant that despite the fear, the person experiencing it is in no danger whatsoever. Logically, the individual may even be acutely aware that their fear is irrational, but it is still impossible to shake.

This is why we can make games out of it. The player may feel threatened, when in fact there is nothing even remotely unsafe happening - most are merely sitting at their computer or on their couch in their current abode. But still, a sense of danger can be induced to a degree that a player feels that sense of “I need to escape. I am unsafe.”

When games are able to create that sensation, it’s a real feat: using design to hijack our biology by means of psychology? That’s bananas. But for horror games, that’s the average Tuesday.

So from here, let’s look at some case studies of video games that have been able to use claustrophobia - combined with some additional design tricks - to up the ante on tension. You know! For fun! :)

Case Study: Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018)

While this franchise is not inherently considered horror, Crystal Dynamics’ Shadow of the Tomb Raider really knocked it out of the park in the claustrophobia department. Tombs aren’t exactly known for their open-concept floorplans, so elements of claustrophobia have consistently been present within this franchise since its inception. Shimmying through small openings is just par for the course!

Shadow of the Tomb Raider really kicked it up a notch in the small spaces department. There are multiple sequences in the game where Lara must navigate rocky spaces mere inches wider than her own frame, including one where her leg is trapped by a fallen rock, inducing a 127 Hours-like moment where she must break free.

But where this particular title truly excels is its inclusion of underwater portions, which stacks the danger of small spaces with the potential of drowning. As someone who doesn’t experience claustrophobia, the first clip above doesn’t bother me that much… but this added element even manages to squick me out in a claustrophobic way… when I’m not absolutely dazzled by that gorgeous underwater lighting, of course!

Rich Briggs, Senior Brand Director of Crystal Dynamics during this title, told VentureBeat in 2018:

“We wanted it to feel like a survival situation. We wanted it to feel very claustrophobic at times, wondering if you were going to make it through that tunnel. That was modeled after some research we did. We looked at the cenotes down in Mexico, this tunnel system where people had to leave their oxygen behind to squeeze through these very narrow tunnels. They didn’t know what was on the other side, but they would do it to explore.”

- VentureBeat

Cool! I hate that.

But hot dang if they didn’t nail it.

But what is it about the underwater component that makes this literally the stuff of nightmares?

Ben Kuchera, previously of Kotaku, noted how the addition of water strips Lara - and thus, the player - of the thing that’s most commonly used to self-soothe in fight-or-flight situations: your breath.

“But you can’t stop and take a deep breath when you’re underwater. You can’t take a moment to calm yourself down. The clock is already running; if you don’t keep moving in a calm and purposeful manner, you’re dead. There is no way to take a moment and figure out your next move.”

- Ben Kuchera, Kotaku

The knowledge that breath is inexorably tied to anxiety and survival is ancient, but modern science has recently been able to back this up with data. As Kuchera notes, one of the instinctual things a person may do when in a moment of panic is attempt to take deep breaths - this stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system (sometimes referred to as the “rest and digest” response), indicating to the body that they are safe. This creates a cascade of effects to counteract any fight-or-flight processes already in motion, most notably that of an increased heartrate.

As seen in Figure 2, higher heart rate variability (HRV - the degree of change in the time between heartbeats) is typically seen with a higher breathing frequency, with a maximum HRV typically seen at around the rate of six breaths per minute. Essentially: the slower the breaths, the more chill you are and vice versa. And in Lara’s case? She doesn’t have any breaths to take while submerged.

But what about the player? They can take a breath.

Or… can they?

Have you ever experienced pain or a strange sensation when someone onscreen got hurt? If you’ve ever seen someone barf - have you also had the sudden urge to barf? Have you ever caught yourself making the same expression as someone is described as making in a book? Congratulations! You’re human!

“Mirror neurons” are a particular variety of neuron that responds to actions exhibited by others in exactly the same manner as if we had performed the action ourselves. Their discovery in the 1980s by an Italian team of neuroscientists is heralded as “one of the most important discoveries in the last decade of neuroscience,” with widespread implications on the processes by which we learn, interact, and empathize with those around us.

If you’re anything like me, you may have watched those clips of Lara and hadn’t even noticed that you were holding your breath as if you were in the water beside her. This is a result of those mirror neurons firing subconsciously. “This neural mechanism is involuntary and automatic," neuroscientist Vittorio Gallese, MD, PhD, told the American Psychological Association. Gallese continued about his own research, but I felt it was incredibly prescient for the medium of video games (and all other art forms) as well: “it seems we're wired to see other people as similar to us, rather than different… At the root, as humans we identify the person we're facing as someone like ourselves.”

If the player is so moved by the presented events onscreen that they find themselves subconsciously mirroring the situation, it perhaps should be considered the highest honor a designer can imagine. It brings the terror one more step closer into the real through the dedication and care of the developers.

This multifaceted nature truly brings maximum claustrophobia during these underwater sequences: fully cashing in on multiple base-fears that really bring out the “squick” factor. While Shadow of the Tomb Raider isn’t necessarily a horror game, it has absolutely earned its inclusion here.

Case Study: Outlast (2013)

Ah, the original Outlast. A horror game from a simpler time. This game, made by Montreal-based studio Red Barrels, is one of those games (or, honestly, entire series) that you should never ask me about my opinions on the narrative or I will scream. So let’s not talk about it in great detail. Ok? Ok. :)

In short: you play as investigative journalist Miles Upshur as he follows an anonymous tip and enters and subsequently documents the state of Mount Massive Asylum in the wilds of Colorado. As you can imagine: it’s a mess.

It’s also very, very dark. Despite my personal qualms with the narrative(s) of this franchise, Outlast is included on this list because it does some really neat things in regard to claustrophobic level design - including tampering with perception due to reduced field of vision.

You see, Miles, being a journalist, has brought his trusty camcorder with him. This camera goes from being the figurative lens a journalist might see the world through to a very literal one, as Miles relies on the night vision capabilities of his camera’s viewfinder in order to navigate the dilapidated hospital. This means that much of the art direction of the game is done via the ghostly green associated with night vision footage. It immediately made the game stand out in terms of aesthetics and gave the entire experience a sort of “found footage” feel.

The player can switch back and forth between night vision, regular vision (with camera), and regular vision (sans camera). This automatically creates a sense of disorientation - and the slight fuzziness in the depth of field in night vision means that even when the player has it engaged, they still don’t have all of their visual faculties. This very much replicates the visual effects real-world night vision technology, which notably tampers with depth perception. According to a 2015 safety briefing from the Federal Aviation Administration “users tend to overestimate distance and underestimate depth. That’s because loss of detail, which arises from the fact that the NVG [night vision goggle] user is viewing an object on a screen, can make users think objects are farther away.”

The oppressive darkness when in normal view and diminished depth of field in night vision already makes the environment of the hospital feel more claustrophobic: even if the geometry itself isn’t, the navigable space feels tighter. Outlast teaches us that it’s perhaps the perception of being in an enclosed space that matters as much as being in the space itself: as when you’re in a survival situation, the brain is much more apt to draw conclusions that current perceptions are, in fact, reality. No time to think or analyze - no capacity for perspective. Just go. Just run.

The feeling of being trapped rises as the player heads deeper into the hospital and discovers something vaguely supernatural is going on too. The player increasingly feels vulnerable throughout the gameplay - and since Outlast was released in a post-Amnesia: the Dark Descent world, it falls in line with the early 2010s trend of giving the protagonist no means to defend themselves whatsoever (save for running and hiding).

“The core gameplay experience is about no combat," Red Barrels' co-founder Philippe Morin told Polygon in 2013, "it's about having the player suffer."

Since combat is out of the question (at least for Miles, his opponents seem very very interested), Miles will often find himself squeezing through tight spaces such as between shelves, inside of air vents and lockers, and even hiding under patients’ beds in order to escape his pursuers. This creates the very real enclosed spaces as opposed to the perceived, meaning that it really doubles up on the claustrophobia. Couple all of that with traversing winding hallways, stairwells, and sewers… honestly, no wonder the patients are trying to leave!

Outlast even pokes fun at itself for this, as there is an achievement you can unlock if you complete the entire game without hiding in a locker or under a bed: Claustrophobe.

Iron Lung (2022)

If Outlast fucked around with limited visibility as a means of creating a sense of claustrophobia, then Iron Lung is finding out. This game, which received an honorable mention in the previous installment of Resident Anna, will get a full deep dive (pun intended) here.

Iron Lung (2022) is an indie psychological horror game and soon-to-be movie developed by David Szymanski that takes place entirely within the miniscule interior of a rickety submarine. The player assumes the role of a convicted prisoner, one of the few surviving members of humanity following an event known as the “Quiet Rapture.” They have been told that if they are able to navigate the literal ocean of blood on this planet and gather the requested intel, you will be rewarded for your efforts by being released. Simple enough, right?

It’s the simplicity of this game’s setup that betrays its brutality. In fact, there’s little psychological or textbook references I have for this one: the stripped-down bleakness of this game is in itself the delivery mechanism and the result. And the gameplay is simple enough, too: using a set of dials and meters, the player must navigate their submarine through a blood ocean they only have a crude map of.

They must approximate their location on said map via the above console - which they are conveniently told by the only garbled voiceover in the game, that they don’t have time to be trained on. The game begins by leaving the player to fend for themselves as the submarine sinks into the bloody depths. The only tools at their disposal are a combination of coordinates, alarm-based proximity sensors, and their only window to the outside: a camera which produces staticky black and white composite image (with a few-second delay, of course).

“Iron Lung almost seems like the terminal destination for sensory deprivation,” Zoey Handley wrote for Destructoid. “It can be tense when you suddenly hit something that didn’t show up on the proximity sensors, and you run back to hit the camera to see if it’s still there. Is it really more comforting if nothing is there?”

What Iron Lung does really well is simply provide no alternative. As discussed in the overview, the shared aspect of claustrophobia and agoraphobia is the inability to reach or achieve safety given the current circumstances. In Iron Lung, both of these fears evident: the interior of the sub is tiny and your only way out is to complete the task at hand - but the alternative, the out there that terrifying sounds keep coming from… is that really any better? You are safe in neither location. Achieving safety is merely not an option. In Iron Lung the player cannot press X to shimmy out of the situation like Lara or press E to hide in a locker or under a bed until the pursuer leaves like Miles.

The only option available to the player in Iron Lung is to endure: and the tension between the claustrophobia of the exterior and the foreign underwater exterior makes an atmosphere as oppressive as being under an ocean of blood itself. Stack that with terrifying sound design and completing a finnicky task, and it’ll put your blood pressure through the roof, even when you’re sitting in a comfy chair at home.

…Which of course, makes the real scary moments even worse.

“It’s a finicky process, but focusing on minutiae does a great job of lulling you into a rhythm and keeping you from bracing yourself for surprises,” Aaron Boehm wrote for Bloody Disgusting. “There are moments where you’re looking at the map and you feel like you shouldn’t be close to a wall, but for some reason, your motion sensor starts beeping at you. Do you have your calculations wrong, or could it be something else?”

The stakes could not be higher, the sense of claustrophobia could not be greater, and oh my gosh what was that noise? It’s fine. I’ll ignore it. It’s fine.

It has to be fine.

Thank you so much for reading Resident Anna. Everyone has been incredibly kind about my silly little blog so far, and I’m having a great time writing it. If you’re interested to learn more and keep up to date with future updates (I try to post an article at least once a month), feel free to hit the subscribe button to get future updates directly into your inbox.

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Welcome to the inaugural post of Resident Anna: a blog about horror games, theory, psychology… whatever! I thought this topic might be a great way to kick things off. Thank you for reading!

Please be aware that this article contains minor spoilers for The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow - I don’t give away too much, I promise!

I love horror games. A lot. And a question I often get is: “what do you look for in a good horror game?” And while my answer to this is naturally very subjective, I arrived at a somewhat unusual response to this question.

Now, if you're like me and you play a lot of horror games and have done so for years... you may find yourself with some degree of tolerance. This is known as habituation, a psychological phenomenon where increased exposure to a particular exciting stimuli eventually decreases the response. This is why many people who regularly engage with horror content can be “hard to scare.”

Once you’ve seen the playbook enough times, you’re almost able to predict when certain scares are going to occur. And while being able to deduce the mechanism of design is critical to anyone who wants to become a designer themselves - I honestly miss how much easier I used to be to scare. Now I’m too focused on the design or the theory of the whole thing.

So when your tolerance is high, when you’ve played the classics and know the tropes, what still makes a game stand out? What still gets your heart racing or palms sweating?

My answer? I like games that “give me the dread.”

The Psychology of Dread

Dread is a very particular type of anxiety. It isn’t necessarily the adrenaline-shot sensation of your heart pounding in your ears. It’s something else.

Merriam-Webster defines “dread” as:

Dread is a fear tinged with awe and trepidation: an anxiety that is slow, not fast. Anticipatory, not reactionary.

And us humans? We hate it.

Multiple studies have reproducibly found that humans are so resistant to experiencing dread that we would literally rather experience an unpleasant electric shock than have to sit with it. Using brain imaging, researchers have found that when given the choice of having an electric shock now (albeit one that was of a greater voltage), or merely wait for a smaller voltage shock to occur, more people chose to get the bigger shock than wait in anticipation.

“A primary motivating force in human nature is to avoid anxiety—unquestionably one of our most distressing emotions. So, when given the opportunity, we’d rather go ahead and process it than be paralyzed by it. If what we fear can’t be avoided, we’ll typically attempt either to short-circuit it (i.e., just get the bad news over with quickly, so we can then hear something more positive), or minimize it (by getting a shock right away rather than add to our trepidation by waiting for it).”

- Leon Seltzer, PhD - “The Fascinating Dynamics of Dread”

Dread pulls the strings of our most basic human neurological impulses. Anxiety is our lizard brain sounding an alarm that we are in danger, and makes its associated sensations so intolerable that we would do just about anything to get away from it. Anxiety is, in itself, a threat that must be neutralized, adding an additional hazard to whatever frightening circumstance we’re already dealing with. Being unable to escape it is one of the worst feelings imaginable. But I don’t need to tell you that.

Anyone alive in the current day is already deeply acquainted with the sensation of dread. Molly Jong-Fast wrote for The Atlantic: “low-level fear seems to have permeated everything these days, like the music you hear in elevators or in airport lounges. It’s the hum of dread, the lullaby of anxiety.” I mean, the Oxford English Dictionary literally made “doomscrolling” its 2020 word of the year. I’m preaching to the choir.

In real life, there is no shortage of dread - its flavors are as many as the modern horrors that are unfortunately very much within our comprehension. In fact, there’s almost a banality to it. It’s commonplace - it’s that constant hum as Jong-Fast described: like an old Frigidaire window unit while you’re trying to sleep.

Yet trying to intentionally replicate such an experience within a game feels strangely inactionable. It’s a sensation we know so well that we can often passively filter it out of our internal monologues… and yet trying to design an experience evoking that feeling is remarkably difficult. So when a game is able to achieve such a feat, it really stands out.

The Narratology of Dread: Feat. The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow

…Now let’s talk video games.

As established above, dread is inherently more atmospheric than its cousins terror, panic, fear, or fright. Rather than a singular moment such as a jumpscare or cinematic, dread consists of an enduring presence. Once the cutscene is over, or the jumpscare has come and gone, the player still feels it it over their shoulder. They are never truly “safe” from the threat - that sense of “impending” and “disagreeable.”

Essentially: the vibe has to be as immaculate as it is rancid.

“Vibes” (sometimes referred to as the much more official sounding “narrative resonance”) are obviously not quantifiable. There is no industry standard as vibes vary from project to project. There is no pipeline for vibes. No vibe QA. Because vibes are ultimately the end result of a convergence of the work of all disciplines (such as art, design, narrative, systems, music… basically everything). The work must seamlessly weave together to create a particular atmosphere - in this case, an uneasy one.

It’s easy to say that all elements must work together to create a singular experience… but the realities of production schedules, cuts, layoffs, and compromises can mean that the overall vibes or resonance of a project may take a hit. Making a game is hard. Making a game with exceptional vibes is even harder. So when a game is able to absolutely nail it, it’s something to really be celebrated.

The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow by Cloak and Dagger Games unexpectedly nabbed my 2022 GOTY in the fourth quarter last year. It’s a classic point-and-click adventure game with a delightfully pixelated art style, brilliant voice acting, and A24 folk-horror vibes all around. And it is a masterclass in dread.

You play as Thomasina Bateman, a plucky, queer-coded Victorian archeologist with a particular interest in barrows of Britain. She has been compiling her research into a book - and word of its publication has caused her to receive a letter from a man by the name of Leonard Shoulder. Mr. Shoulder tells her of a “Hob’s Barrow,” located in the fictional remote town of Bewlay, near the very real town of Bakewell, on the English moors. He invites her to come visit, as he says that she will be able to excavate the barrow if she so desires.

Her curiosity gets the better of her, and Thomasina is off to Bewlay in search of Hob’s Barrow.

It’s the classic Twin Peaks setup: a small, isolated town, an outsider investigating - and no one wants to give a straight answer. Thomasina quickly finds that things are not as they seem, for the Mr. Shoulder she has been corresponding with is nowhere to be found - even though some of the locals confirm that yes, such a man does live in the village.

What’s most peculiar is that some of the locals do not claim to know of a Hob’s Barrow at all, and are openly hostile towards Thomasina as an outsider - not to mention the very train that she came upon.

With the backdrop of the English moors, Hob’s Barrow paints an eerie otherworld. With bleak, flat topography, the constant spitting of rain, and droning, dissonant, but eerily beautiful soundtrack, Cloak and Dagger flawlessly cement Bewlay’s reputation as a “thin place” from the moment Thomasina steps off the train - long before the player hears the dialogue that names it as such.

Those with knowledge of British folklore will also immediately begin to notice things are very much Not Right (or “thin”) in Bewlay. Mushroom “fairy circles.” A crossroads. A cairn. An older “wise woman” (a member of the “cunningfolk”) who lives on the outskirts of town. Stories of a local goblin. All well-researched and threaded into the tapestry of the atmosphere, interspersed with anachronistic (but not out of place) neopaganist elements of the 20th century.

Thomasina, of course, as an antiquarian and woman of science, is not moved by such fairytales. She finds it quaint, but doesn’t share the locals’ sense of superstition. But what she can’t ignore is the hardly supernatural, but very pervasive sense of the uncanny: things that look almost right - but aren’t. Dreams that feel too realThings that logically should be impossible - but here they are. Thomasina’s time in Bewlay is filled with such moments: but I won’t spoil the fun for you.

One of the great tricks that Cloak and Dagger employs during major story beats is a sudden, jarring cut to realistic closeup. You know. Like in Spongebob?

The reason this works is that it’s disarming: the sudden change in art style and typical mode of delivery demands the attention from the viewer. In Hob’s Barrow, this works particularly well because of the art style’s choice of pixilation, which like its art-history cousin of pointillism, paints beautiful imagery via what the viewer sees in aggregate. By cutting to a detailed closeup, the sudden shift feels wrong - especially when it comes to the faces of the people of the town (who were mere pixels moments before). The sense of the uncanny rears its head for a moment… then disappears.

Things are definitely not right in Bewlay.

To make matters worse, as Thomasina slowly begins to befriend a few of the locals, she’s only left with more questions. Hob’s Barrow is real… as are the reasons why the locals are so hush-hush about it. The layers of interpersonal secrecy among the locals of Bewlay, Thomasina’s own mysterious past, and the rich folklore and uncanniness of the moorlands create a downright oppressive sense of dread that grows from the very start to reach a crescendo in the final moments.

And the pacing? It’s slow. In fact, though it received favorable reviews post-launch (PC Gamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer), the slow burn of the narrative was frequently sighted by critics as a sticking point. Consequently, the pace makes the shock of the ending seem rushed by comparison. But if you can stick it out and jive with the vibes, it’s a fantastic ride filled with dread doesn’t lift until the credits roll.

But after all that talk of anticipation and impending doom, it’s important not to forget the secondary definition of dread. It’s that sense of awe: both stunning and frightening in such a way that you can’t tear your eyes away from it. And Cloak and Dagger flawlessly captured these dual elements.

Hob’s Barrow is thoughtful. It takes its time.

And most importantly, no matter how much your lizard brain might be yelling at you to get out of there or get it over with: it doesn’t let up.

Other Games That “Give Me The Dread”:

• Scratches: Director’s Cut: a point and click game (also set in England but made by Argentinian developers) where the real horror is colonialism! This one actually isn’t available on most platforms anymore due to licensing issues, so the link is to a YouTube longplay sans-commentary. The dread is real in this one.

• The Path: growing up as a young woman sure is a trip! :)))

• Alien: Isolation: don’t play this one if you’re trying to keep your blood pressure down. This one is distinctly the most outright stressful horror game I have ever played. Content warnings for gore.

• Iron Lung: the only thing scarier than the deep ocean is the prison industrial system (but more on that from me later)! Recently announced to be made into a movie starring Markiplier???

• Five Nights at Freddy’s Sister Location: you didn’t think I was going to create a list about dread and not include this one, right? This spinoff of the main series asks terrifying questions like: do robots want to do what we want them to do? You don’t need any greater knowledge of the series for this one too, which is nice. While there is no explicit gore, the content is still disturbing.

• Spooky’s Jumpscare Mansion: just play it. Don’t think about it. Just play it. It’s changed a lot over the years, but is still iconic. Did I mention it’s free?????

• The Last Door: Collector’s Edition: this was actually used as a reference for Hob’s Barrow. This multi-episode series has some really creative puzzle design. Content warnings for suicide and suicidality.