chilla's art finds supernatural horror in the most mundane of every day tasks. maybe over half of their games deal with something terrible happening to the protagonist while they're on the clock: the closing shift, the convenience store, the caregiver, night delivery-- and many more, but each of these titles takes place in some form of workplace environment, or leads you somewhere because of work that turns out to be dangerous. the aforementioned titles are also some of chilla's arts best; being forced into situations because of work, i guess, is it's own kind of horror.

the bathhouse is no different. the protagonist character finds herself in the epicenter of a haunting when she stumbles upon an ad for a job: live in an apartment in the country-side, rent free, as long as you work at the local bathhouse. craving freedom from the current state of her life, she jumps onto it, not realizing that the tiny village is a spiritual vortex that plans to swallow her whole. on paper, it's got all the markings of a chilla's art game that should succeed: atmosphere, fun characters, cheeky scares, interesting visuals, and a gooey, ghoulish center.

in execution, the game flounders on more than one level. the most egregious is performance, which also affects how the game looks; the eerie trademark character models look wonky in a way that doesn't feel intentional, but rather like a mistake. more often than not, it's hard to really tell what you're looking at, as the game feels like a blob of neutral tones. it stutters, crashes, fails to keep itself together. i'm not tech-y enough to guess why this is the case, but it's a shame: the lighting system this time around looks very refined, and like they're trying something new.

maybe if the game were functioning, it would be something you could lose yourself to, but the atmosphere never clicked for me. i didn't care for the storyline as much as i tried, and i found that what was conveyed about the story was done so in a way that left me confused. it isn't particularly hard to follow, but maybe the speed and progression is to blame here; the game runs for around two and a half hours if you decide to go back in for both endings, and with the job simulator portions feeling both too fast and too slow. the simplicity of it perhaps is to blame: the closing shift had you memorizing and checking how to make certain drinks, but there's nothing here but clicking and running back and forth. it's monotonous.

every once in a while, usually after dropping a Big title, chilla's art will drop another game that reminds me of the end of the week dinner you make to stretch your grocery run. it tosses in all your favorites with a few extra seasonings for flavor, but the mish-mash of them never quite harmonizes. this is that game. maybe it'll work more for you, than me, though.

you never forget the first corpse you embalm. for me, it was a 29 year old woman named jade. she had three deep scratches on her back, and i thought she was marked for demonic possession. while i was entering her information into the computer system, jade sat up to stare at me. i didn't really like that.

talking about the mortuary assistant in detail is hard. this is primarily because i think it is best experienced with as little information as possible; every step of this game was remarkably unique in how it was used as a game mechanic. procedurally generated hauntings and bodies don't always keep it feeling fresh, and with five endings to find, this is one of those games i think people will struggle to finish. it doesn't take away from the experience, though.

it's a crying shame this came out in august. there's no bad time to launch a horror game, i think, and it's not like the game's being overshadowed by something else, but with mechanics and a storyline like this? the mortuary assistant is the perfect halloween night stream game. here's hoping that it totters all the way there. i think there's something special here, and a potential for something like a minor P.T. moment. there's scares in this one that'll stick with me for ages.

with an art style reminiscent of 90's nickelodeon cartoons and a storyline on the cusp of bleeding edge, sally face seemed poised to be the new Hot Topic It Girl. it slotted nicely in with invader zim, next to nightmare before christmas. it had nostalgia for people older than me, people the same age as me, and the appeal of the metal and grunge subculture of yesteryear for the current generation of alt tweens and teens. the 90's are in, and sally face was ahead of the curve.

so what happened? why don't you see sal fisher next to zim and jack skellington and kuromi and my chemical romance's the black parade? it's not like they didn't try on some level, you can find tiny little smatterings of sally face on the website. like with many things, it's not a very climatic story.

sally face has an opening more gauche than ghoulish but it sets the tone well for a game that indulges in graphic gore with the same kind of zest as a child using finger paints. this isn't a bad thing, to be clear, i don't think teenagers are the target demographic for sally face but i do think it accrued a younger audience than initially intended. there's references to 80's cult horror movies through the game, understandably so with the time period. ash herself is simply a long, long set up for an evil dead reference that doesn't pay off until the last portion of the game.

there's not much here, really, that's new for the genre. it's a supernatural murder mystery with the twist of demonic possession. it doesn't set new standards but it does consistently meet them, with shocking twists and turns where it seems like everything that could go wrong does. it's part tragedy, really, watching sal and his friends try to save the world.

as far as a point and click adventure goes, it works well and accomplishes what it wants to do. it implements rhythm games eventually, if a bit wonkily but the attempt to shake up gameplay is appreciated. where the game really shines is the unique, colorful cast of characters in sal's apartment complex that steve gabry takes extra care in introducing you to. it's easy to get attached to a fair few of them. gabry's character writing is charming, and he brings a sort of refreshing and dark quirkiness to his characters that i don't think anyone would be able to copy. it's very distinct.

what actually stunk about sally face is that the gauche opening was more of a preview than an introduction. the ending of the game is dissatisfactory, raising more questions than answers. one problem is dealt with but the rest are ignored or implied to continue in a later installment. that installment never came, and if it does, i'll be surprised. steve seems more occupied right now with launching what looks like a board game adaption of the game than continuing it.

a number of things and characters are written up and implied to have more to do or say just to... not. maybe that's indicative of what gabry's actually writing about: the inevitableness of death, the way that those who have left us for the other side are always going to have unfinished business. that life itself is an ongoing story with no end in sight, until it simply does. death is a cornerstone in sal's life, something that defines him as much as he denies it. it's what makes sal a compelling protagonist, to be someone who fights despite his circumstances. seeing him grow into the person he does is part of the journey, if not the whole journey.

it's not really just that potential was wasted here. it was tossed aside, forgotten and ignored for a number of references that no one really wanted. sally face, just before the finish line, forgot what was fun about itself. it traded the fun of ghost hunting and mystery solving for straight cult horror and action, neither of which were pulled off well, in truth, and i knew this from the first scene. the mystery was always fun, but when it was solved with a blaze of glory, it lost all the charm.

maybe the reason you don't see sally face merchandise in hot topic is less because people lost interest in it. maybe it's more likely that the game is actually more similar to the mall store giant; it started out with a macabre niche that it filled nicely only to collapse under the weight of the things it kept trying to carry and sloughing them off, one by one, to make room just for the pop culture references it was desperate to make.

just watch the evil dead.

exactly fifty years ago, in 1972, the magnavox odyssey was released one September morning. the hardware was capable of displaying three blinking structures of polygons, and no more than that. to make use of the console, it came with two controllers, a stack of game cards, and a handful of overlays that you placed over your television screen, each of them correlating to a specific genre of game that was playable on the magnavox odyssey. as the very first video game console, it is an interesting point of history and something i consider necessary to know if you like games. unsurprising to anyone reading this: one of the plastic overlays was a "haunted house". in other words, magnavox odyssey's haunted house overlay was, arguably, the very first horror video game. a playthrough of it can be seen here, if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ltYIXh4BQI

there is a number of "benchmarks" in horror gaming history. the haunted house overlay for the magnavox odyssey is one, but there's a heavy sprinkling of scares through out the history of gaming. once we hit the 80's, an explosion of horror booms across home consoles. immediately, castlevania, released for the famicom in 1986 comes to mind. then, there's sweet home released in 1989 for the NES, notable because the brain behind it was tokuro fujiwara, who did ghosts n goblins before it and would do resident evil after it. but before RE was alone in the dark which dropped in 1992 and is in the DNA of every single psychological horror game whether they know it or not. clock tower came out in 1995 and then we see silent hill, fatal frame, parasite eve, and even later we would see amnesia: the dark descent. after amnesia is outlast and then we have the absolute titan that is p.t. (silent hills)...

it is 2022. the gaming landscape has changed. it has been held up by steam, and youtube, with the let's play being an absolute necessary part of modern video game culture. video games are more accessible than ever, with nearly everyone having at least one console of their own, or at least a PC, or a phone. it's easier to make a huge splash, but i struggle to think horror games that left an actual mark on gaming. layers of fear would probably be it, which speaks to the quality of what we're getting these days. we have highs, often marked by things like Happy's Humble Burger Farm, or lows, marked by Poppy Playtime.

where is MADiSON on this spectrum? what does it take from or give us? it's inspirations seem less like modern video games and more aligned with modern horror movies. insidious is a clear inspiration, but so is the babadook. this isn't a bad thing; there's a late game enemy that is clearly inspired by both of these things that i genuinely really like. i enjoyed the execution and found it spooky enough, but more so than anything, it felt different from what other games have been trying to do. the camera mechanic felt like a lifeline, and while i don't know if i'd call it scary, i don't need a horror game to really scare me these days. i like the tropes, the media, the style, and i think MADiSON does a good job of understanding what makes a big modern day horror summer blockbuster.

the problem i have with the game is that it's story is largely puzzled out haphazardly. it reminds me of throwing spaghetti at a wall until something sticks. the opening is strong, and the first segment that deals only with the house Luca is stuck in is beautifully atmospheric and well pulled off. i have some problems with some of the sound, but it isn't things other people have been mentioning. i'm tired of spooky noises for the sake of them, and i found volume levels to be a little weird, but it's not like these are things that break a game's immersion for me. i really liked the puzzle work at this point, i liked how the camera felt like a mechanic and not a gimmick. i thought i would hate the basement segment, but the way the camera is used to trigger progression there actually kept me from feeling like this was another attempt at P.T. that undermined what it did.

P.T. is probably the biggest inspiration for the game, a sequence in MADiSON's dna that is simple to see. for better or worse, there are attempts to understand why P.T. hit like it did. i don't think the game is entirely inspired by silent hill alone but i don't think it misses the mark on why silent hill mechanically works. it's the story that flops as hard it does, and it's because the story is an unfinished quilt. you're introduced to Luca, the player character, when he's drenched in blood and being kicked out of the house by his father. from there, you find yourself rummaging through the remains of Luca's grandfather's home while he tries to find a way out. he believes his father is going to harm him but something is in his late grandfather's home, hunting him and wearing him down, picking at his brain and slowly attaching itself to him like a parasite. this, alone, is all i needed. the game decides to have a bigger scope, but the foundation that it has isn't made for bigger buildings, and when all you need is an apartment, a mansion seems egregious.

MADiSON is a warped ghost story, stretched to fill the pants of a horror that spans across time and space. it doesn't need to do this, but eventually the game involves not just ghosts, but demons, and nazis, and the manifestation of a childhood fear. even the puzzles at the midpoint where all this starts to show is weak: i don't like mazes in games, and throwing a puzzle in plus an aggressive chasing enemy is less fun or even frustrating and more of a headscratcher. i was just confused. the whole segment feels like a wholly different game and not one i would personally seek out. there are attempts to connect them but they don't really land. they just kind of hover and never finish.

the nazi plotline is not really explained in particular. there's no real connection to the story, and the use of a real life historical figure is a sour decision that honestly makes me wonder what the point was. we know nazis were scary, but when you implement them shakily, it feels like a clumsy attempt to capitalize on the horrors real families went through and still struggle with the after-effects of today. nazi scary, ooga booga. are you frightened?

the game is beautiful and it handles itself with as much grace as it can, all things considered. the adventure game mechanic of inventory management was not always my favorite, but it made me feel a little more calculated about my playthrough, i'll give it that. i wish we had more time with Luca and Madison herself. i pieced together what was going on but only once i finished the game. it wasn't because it was trying to be artsy or vague, but because the game just doesn't seem to give a damn about it's own story in parts.

i guess they're looking to do a sequel of some kind, but i honestly just wish this had been half the length and half the price. it would have been worth that twice over. the shifting setting was unnecessary, and the art direction was never quite as good as silent hill's or layer of fear's. i've got issues with the latter but it set a stage and it knew how to do it.

so what is MADiSON, exactly? a haunting of some kind, on a metatextual level, i suppose. it an exercise for an up and coming developer who won't feel the need to do anything bigger and better than what they set out for in the future, i hope. it's a video game that starts out strong and chokes at the end.

it's mediocre.

spicy fried chicken

ETA 7/3: this game was kicking around in my brain this morning still so i ended up doing some light research to find out more about it. i realized that it's story is based on the horrific real life murder of a child, which casts the entirety of the game in a strange, uncomfortable and frankly unwelcome light. hindsight is 20/20-- the entire game is a flurry of ideas from other developers, pop culture, and horror tropes implemented shakily at best, or just outright boring at worst. no wonder they had to outsource the plot. it's a shame: i don't dislike the presentation of this game.

the list of pros is pretty short: there's a no jump scare mode, which is pretty funny because it means the developer knows the jump scares are largely worthless in their own game. a well executed jump scare pays off for the writer and the audience, and having a random BOO! in the middle of your gameplay loop is certainly a decision, and one that the developer was clearly aware they made. the cons list is nearly endless, though the crux of them all can be summarized easily: everything here has been done by someone else, and better. the microphone aspect doesn't work; you can yell into it and not have any response, for some reason. the child in the yellow rain coat is a horror trope that's been codified by other horror media the world over. the atmosphere is a ghost of other key hunt games (read: asset flips) from steam that cost $1.99. outlast and amnesia perfected the "hide from a monster" haunted house simulator style of gameplay, and this adds nothing to it. the VHS clips at the beginning are a shadow of kane pixel's short film. the experience was annoying, bottom line, and hampered further by the back story.

definitely recommend passing this up, because it's a waste of your time.

i'm an old crone at this point in my life, so i have fond memories of the internet prior to it's sanitization for advertisers. i spent a lot of time online in my youth and was practically raised on the old, moderated nickeloden forums on a diet of spongebob flash games. flash is now dead and in it's wake is links to subscribe to watch, or links to shops. advertisers' chokehold on the internet has forced people to congregate onto the same social media websites, meaning that while i grew up flipping krabby patties or helping blue solve clues, a lot of children are spending hours scrolling through tiktok or even watching not at all child-safe streams on twitch. meanwhile, it's near impossible to have adult spaces because of this. advertisers want everything to be family friendly, but remove all possible child friendly parts of the internet in an attempt to monetize further.

this advertiser friendly internet is the setting for needy streamer overload. the goal is to help ame achieve a seemingly impossible milestone of one million subscribers to her METUBE channel in one month. on it's surface level, nso is a critique of the clout chase or worse yet, Streamer Girl Culture. ame is a vapid young woman who believes her face is one of her better qualities and can do the heavy lifting for her budding streaming career. she concocts a character for her to act as, "OMGkawaiiangel" or "KAngel", the internet angel. prior to every stream, she has a tongue-in-cheek magical girl transformation to represent this change of character.

this separation of identity is a running theme in nso. ame has been raised by the internet, neglected by her family and is seemingly friendless in real life. p-chan is her only companion, and she deludes herself into thinking that they're the only person she truly needs. as an ol' biddy, i remember the pre-advertiser friendly internet being a wild west of sorts. you had your online life and your irl completely separated. now, parasocial relationships are a problem you can take to the bank. ame even counts on this and wants people to adopt a near idol-esque view of kangel. she hides she has a partner from her viewers, and there's even a few comments stating how upset people would be, in universe, if kangel did have a partner. to keep her career growing, she has to make sure this fictional character she acts as never entirely gets away from her, but still give the people what they want. it's a dynamic that sends her further spiraling in her addictive, delusional behaviors.

there are references to the current state of the internet and how things functioned in the past in game. ame dates herself by mentioning she used to record episodes of anime to VHS, a technological advancement that hasn't very relevant since the year 2000. i know plenty of young women like her, who are walking contradictions used to compartmentalizing parts of themselves to be accessible, friendly, or consumable. i'd count myself part of that demographic. it's a tactic born from either trauma or spending wholly too much time online. i spent the entirety of my teens hiding my internet on-goings from my parents, even though they definitely weren't unaware i had internet friends. this wedge between rl and internet has grown even bigger in the recent years as people scramble to figure out ways to monetize the internet further. now, everyone i know has a public twitter account and a locked twitter account. a public persona and a private persona, much like ame herself.

while there's definitely something the game wants to say about clout chasing, it also seems interested in discussing how the current state of the internet encourages people to indulge in the ways ame does. she very clearly has an internet addiction to go with her drug addiction because she just can't seem to log off. she always rises to the challenge of chat's insults, and can't walk away. tying herself to the internet as her way of making money to survive is more than counter-productive to her state of mind: it's actively hurting her. this is represented in her relationship with herself and with p-chan. self-harm through addictive behavior threads itself through needy streamer overload's narrative the same way sutures run along a wound. narratively speaking, i think the game is often misunderstood by people who love it and people who hate it. the core of the game is concerned with self-betterment and in order to get to that point, ame has to see the worst parts of herself. seeing it touted purely as an abusive relationship simulator is a gross misread of needy streamer overload. it's both about logging off as much as it is a small love letter to the internet of yore. i don't think it's a coincidence that NPCs chatter about how the internet doesn't feel like it has a place for people like them anymore. all the same, ame hasn't been helped by the internet before and her shaky sense of identity born out of loneliness is only fed to the wolves here.

despite the surprisingly expansive narrative and wealth of replayability, nso often feels like a slog and a half. i enjoy raising sims but something about this feels tedious. maybe it's ame herself and how uncomfortable it can be telling her what to do, but keeping track of her stats and trying to hold out to the end of the month is less stressful and more of an annoyance at times. some endings are just flat out unpleasant to get, for the wrong reasons. there's one ending in particular that is obviously a doki doki literature club nod and i would truly say it's probably my least favorite ending i've gotten in a game like this in years. in fact, the ddlc nods in nso are frankly just painful to sit through. buuuut maybe it's just me.

not all of nso's inspirations are as cringefail comp to me, though, because the menhera inspired aesthetic sticks the landing. pastel, girly colors accented by the blocky pixel art style reminiscent of both early 2000s anime and RPGmaker games from the same gives the impression of something released around five to ten years ago. i can't help but think of ib or hello charlotte when i look at needy streamer overload. menhera itself is a movement in japan similar to punk where those part of the subculture dress in cute, comfortable clothing with mental health awareness themed coords to beat down the stigma surrounding discussion of one's mental health. i wouldn't call it menhera themed so much as inspired, but mental heatlh is an important conversation in nso. regardless, it's very eye-catching and nice to look at. nyalra's nailed it with their designs and inspirations. the music is also exceptional. i found myself moving in time with the instrumentals often, aiobahn & is a very talented musician. ame is also a realistic depiction of a young internet addictive woman, and genuinely charming more often than not. i hope she logs off often!

reception to needy streamer overload has been a seesaw. people either think it's absolute dogshit or a complete masterpiece. personally, i think it's more of a middling experience with some standout moments from the narrative. it's also a shining example of what an excellent localization can do for a game; i think this would be a lot more niche than it is were it not for how good the adaption of memes and internet language as a whole is in nso. ultimately, i'm wishing the team behind it a long, fruitful career in game dev.