CW: Sui, Possible Transantagonism, COVID-19
All of my life, I've been consumed by an anxiety around people. The unpredictability of how they act, why they do what they do and the sudden emotional shifts of others, has frightened me as I spent a large amount of it seeking connection, care and companionship. As such, my encounters with people have been littered with everyday fears that festered silently amongst a field of caution within.
And then, the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic rendered people no longer just frightening but avatars of illness and death. Everyone wasn't just an emotional unknown, but a physical one, where isolation brought loneliness but company brought the fears of somethings far worse. It was no longer just a fear of people as an experience, but also on a conceptual level that drove me further inside and afraid of the world. And in the wake of that, came the early release of World of Horror.
World of Horror is a roguelike, point and click adventure game in which your choice of character must stop an Old God, corresponding to ideas and myths built around the drab and dreary Lovecraft canon or the works of horror creators like Junji Ito, George Romero, Sam Raimi and so forth, by stopping the summoning of this being who you cannot defeat by those who wish them brought here more than anything; cultists, rapt lovers of the end of the world and those who think the end of us as people is what is best for us all. And in it is in this timeframe, with the mindset I have told you, in a world filled with people ushering on endings for people without any semblance of remorse of understanding, that World of Horror so perfectly captured me.
The game itself is drenched in atmosphere, from the use of classic black and white colour palette's that seem reminiscent of old manga to the use of creased, greasy looking and smudged character art and designs that remain moulded in emulation of the dark works that they so adore. Whether this veers deeply into plagiarism over homage, is something I am unsure of, as the experience I've had directly of Ito's work among the others is limited. As I say, the inspirations clearly strike many people but for me, the experience of solving mysteries, and stopping a great evil with you and a few friends, not only felt loose enough to impart myself into, but the feeling of hope even among the dark it grasped was one I desperately needed in the place I found myself in.
Flash forward to 2023 and the full release of the game; and I've found I've changed a little. While the world is no less under threat from ignorant people hastening a doom for others they believe is deserved and that desire to save the world, to stop the darkness keeps my passion for the game burning, the flaws of the game and the real world horrors it attempts to deal with, perhaps in a clumsy manner, stick with me. It's use of sui in both a focused case and as a status effect confound me with how it still feels like it doesn't quite feel right to do. One of its characters backstories makes me worry it's echoing transantagonism tropes of trans 'serial killers' or those who kill those of the identity they want out of jealousy or desire. And the bugs, the still quite bugged mysteries in some cases, the new release feeling only a little more expanded then where it started, the inherently too RNG based experience leading to experiences that feel almost too unfocused. At some point, the horror is bypassed to become essentially a speedrun game and while that's no bad thing, it means that as I've become more fluidly good at the game, the less enjoyable it's been for me. I found that maybe, what drew me most to the game, was it was the right experience for the right time and the right moment. The world now may still be horrible for people, but I've found better ways to see it through, with friends that anchor me once again to people, then getting stuck in this game. And I am thankful for that, to be able to move past World of Horror, thankful for what it's given me, then simply staying stuck in that endless cycle of trying to save a world I no longer wish to obsess over.
All of my life, I've been consumed by an anxiety around people. The unpredictability of how they act, why they do what they do and the sudden emotional shifts of others, has frightened me as I spent a large amount of it seeking connection, care and companionship. As such, my encounters with people have been littered with everyday fears that festered silently amongst a field of caution within.
And then, the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic rendered people no longer just frightening but avatars of illness and death. Everyone wasn't just an emotional unknown, but a physical one, where isolation brought loneliness but company brought the fears of somethings far worse. It was no longer just a fear of people as an experience, but also on a conceptual level that drove me further inside and afraid of the world. And in the wake of that, came the early release of World of Horror.
World of Horror is a roguelike, point and click adventure game in which your choice of character must stop an Old God, corresponding to ideas and myths built around the drab and dreary Lovecraft canon or the works of horror creators like Junji Ito, George Romero, Sam Raimi and so forth, by stopping the summoning of this being who you cannot defeat by those who wish them brought here more than anything; cultists, rapt lovers of the end of the world and those who think the end of us as people is what is best for us all. And in it is in this timeframe, with the mindset I have told you, in a world filled with people ushering on endings for people without any semblance of remorse of understanding, that World of Horror so perfectly captured me.
The game itself is drenched in atmosphere, from the use of classic black and white colour palette's that seem reminiscent of old manga to the use of creased, greasy looking and smudged character art and designs that remain moulded in emulation of the dark works that they so adore. Whether this veers deeply into plagiarism over homage, is something I am unsure of, as the experience I've had directly of Ito's work among the others is limited. As I say, the inspirations clearly strike many people but for me, the experience of solving mysteries, and stopping a great evil with you and a few friends, not only felt loose enough to impart myself into, but the feeling of hope even among the dark it grasped was one I desperately needed in the place I found myself in.
Flash forward to 2023 and the full release of the game; and I've found I've changed a little. While the world is no less under threat from ignorant people hastening a doom for others they believe is deserved and that desire to save the world, to stop the darkness keeps my passion for the game burning, the flaws of the game and the real world horrors it attempts to deal with, perhaps in a clumsy manner, stick with me. It's use of sui in both a focused case and as a status effect confound me with how it still feels like it doesn't quite feel right to do. One of its characters backstories makes me worry it's echoing transantagonism tropes of trans 'serial killers' or those who kill those of the identity they want out of jealousy or desire. And the bugs, the still quite bugged mysteries in some cases, the new release feeling only a little more expanded then where it started, the inherently too RNG based experience leading to experiences that feel almost too unfocused. At some point, the horror is bypassed to become essentially a speedrun game and while that's no bad thing, it means that as I've become more fluidly good at the game, the less enjoyable it's been for me. I found that maybe, what drew me most to the game, was it was the right experience for the right time and the right moment. The world now may still be horrible for people, but I've found better ways to see it through, with friends that anchor me once again to people, then getting stuck in this game. And I am thankful for that, to be able to move past World of Horror, thankful for what it's given me, then simply staying stuck in that endless cycle of trying to save a world I no longer wish to obsess over.
2 Comments
damn
Rika84
6 months ago