Darkest Dreaming

Category: Stuff

  • Limbo & Inside: Film Noir Horror Masterpieces

    Limbo & Inside: Film Noir Horror Masterpieces

    Different people play computer games for very different reasons. Some play for fun, some play to win, and some play to let off steam. I play video games for a chance to briefly disconnect from this world and transcend to another, perhaps totally different one. Given this, you can guess that atmosphere and immersion into that other digital universe are crucial factors I look for in a video game. Crucial, but not the only ones, since there are many elements from which a gaming masterpiece is assembled: for instance, graphics or art, music, sound effects, story, and many others.

    When I got two games I had previously never heard of, Limbo and Inside from a developer called “Playdead“, for just a couple of bucks in a Steam sale, I never imagined that these little gems would excel in most of the aspects that differentiate a regular game from a masterpiece.

    Limbo

    Chronologically, Limbo came first of the two games, published in July 2010. Its completely monochromatic style reminded me of film noir (in its color palette and film grain effect) and German expressionism (with apparently simple shapes that tell a complex story or turn out to be complex themselves). In the game, the player controls an anonymous and faceless boy through numerous perilous environments and encounters with dangerous creatures in pursuit of finding his sister. He advances through the game by completing various puzzles designed to teach the player how to solve them after numerous failed attempts (that often lead to the boy’s demise).

    Playdead called this game mechanic “trial and death,” stating that they used gruesome depictions of the boy’s deaths to make players think twice (and harder) before making their next attempt. Interested parties made serious attempts to influence the developer to water down the horror elements of the game or to make it more acceptable, but Playdead continued with their original vision. The ending, which is the most criticized part of the game, in my opinion does justice to the whole experience. Limbo, it seems, just doesn’t deserve to end.

    Inside

    Inside (2016) by Playdead
    Inside (2016) by Playdead

    After Limbo’s significant success, Playdead started working on a (kind of) sequel. They switched from their custom engine to Unity, but added their own rendering routines to create Inside’s signature look. This time, the game wasn’t exclusively monochrome, and the environment wasn’t just a simple 2D platform. However, the art style and atmosphere still treat players to another unique experience. The main character is once again a boy in a dark environment (once again) full of hostile creatures and mechanical and environmental puzzles.

    If this sounds a lot like Limbo, well, it is – but in my opinion, this similarity isn’t a downside. The game’s ending is, like the first time, open to interpretation (and there are lots of them out on the internet). In my opinion, it completely fits the game’s general atmosphere (although, this time there are two endings).

    Inside the Limbo

    After “Inside” came out (and achieved considerable success in sales), Playdead hasn’t published any other games. Checking their site recently, I saw that they’re hiring people left and right, and made a promising statement in their introductory text for open positions: “Our current project is a 3rd-person science fiction adventure set in a remote corner of the universe.” I’m a pessimist by nature and generally don’t trust people, but Playdead’s new title – I’ll buy it blindly, without question, remorse, or regret.

  • Outlast: So Immersive, It Will Force You to Turn the Lights On

    Outlast: So Immersive, It Will Force You to Turn the Lights On

    Slasher horror movies are far more terrifying when you’re young. As a child, you’re genuinely frightened by the on-screen action, almost feeling as if you’re there with the unfortunate victims fleeing from the killer. But as you grow older, you become gradually yet steadily desensitized by the plethora of horror films you’ve watched. Somewhere along the path to adulthood, you realize that those ill-fated souls didn’t actually slaugtered during those horrific scenes—they’re alive and well, ready to star in another movie. By the time you hit thirty, little remains of that genuine terror you once experienced while watching “Halloween” on a late summer night as a naive child. You believed that feeling was gone for good.

    You were wrong.

    In 2013, developer Red Barrels offered you the opportunity to relive all your slasher movie fears once again by putting you in the shoes of a slasher film’s protagonist. But you’re not an ordinary protagonist, and this is no ordinary movie. In their immersive masterpiece “Outlast“, you won’t just rekindle your childhood fears and thrills—you’ll experience them a hundredfold stronger.

    Your Goal: Outlast

    The game starts like this: You step into the shoes of Miles Upshur, a freelance investigative journalist drawn to the Mount Massive Asylum by an anonymous tip. Armed with nothing but a camcorder and your wits, you infiltrate the seemingly abandoned facility under cover of night. What begins as a routine investigation quickly spirals into a nightmare beyond comprehension. The asylum, you discover, is far from empty. Its halls teem with deranged inmates, twisted orderlies, and something far more sinister lurking in the shadows. As you delve deeper into the bowels of Mount Massive, you uncover a horrifying conspiracy involving unethical experiments, corporate corruption, and forces that defy rational explanation. With no weapons to defend yourself, your only options are to run, hide, and desperately search for a way out of this hell on earth. But escape won’t be easy – the asylum has no intention of letting its secrets, or you, slip away.

    If this sounds to you like an “ordinary” horror game, chances are you’ll be quite surprised by the road that lies ahead. “Outlast” wasn’t the first game in this immersive “survival horror” genre (“Resident Evil” or “Silent Hill” aren’t comparable because they had guns). For me, the first game of this kind was “Amnesia: The Dark Descent,” which I wrote about in one of my previous articles, and which left me hungry for a similar experience. It wasn’t that I didn’t know what to expect from “Outlast,” but my expectations turned out to be too mild. In “Outlast,” you’re truly put in the shoes of a horror movie protagonist, and if you play in a darkened room with headphones on, it feels extremely real. Philippe Morin, Red Barrels’ co-founder, said, “The core gameplay experience is about no combat. It’s about having the player suffer,” and I cannot emphasize enough how successfully his studio achieved that goal.

    I hope you’ll believe me when I say that more than once, I found myself getting up from my chair and turning on the lights, just to make sure I was truly alone in my room.

    Is there someone under my bed?
    Is there someone under my bed?

    Saturday Night Fever

    It happens that I’m usually annoyed by jump-scares, as I find them to be the cheapest way to startle someone. But, strangely enough, I don’t mind quite a few of those in “Outlast” because they’re used only as a starter to ignite something much more intense.

    The plot and story that the game pulls you through may seem stereotypical, although it resembles real-life experiments allegedly performed by one (or possibly more) major governments. Again, strangely enough, while I typically value a good and original story, I don’t think the existing plot does anything particularly detrimental to the “Outlast” experience. I’m not sure the game would benefit from a much better or more original story; it might even detract from it. What I do know is that the existing narrative perfectly glues the gaming action around the only thing that matters in the game: staying alive.

    Turn off the lights

    If you haven’t played “Outlast” yet and you’re fond of immersive entertainment that can take you on a rollercoaster of (scary) emotions, look no further. This game will provide you with 10-15 hours of genuine, distilled fear.

  • Alone in a Darkened Room. The Count.

    Alone in a Darkened Room. The Count.

    When you’re a kid, you’re scared by a lot of things. You’re scared of a plain dark room. You’re scared of special effects in old movies that look silly when you grow up. You’re scared of the forest in bad weather. On this endless list, as far as I’m concerned, you could add Bauhaus’ dark first single, recorded in just one take: Bela Lugosi’s Dead.

    I had the experience that the first time I heard ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ it was on a scratchy radio late one night. The slow, echoing guitar and the steady, ominous beat seemed to creep out of the speakers and fill the room that I shared with my brother. Peter Murphy’s deep, haunting voice made me imagine things, and forced me to get up from the sofa and turn on the lights when the vocals kicked in.

    Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead (official video)
    Bauhaus – Bela Lugosi’s Dead (official video)

    Old man rambles: “they don’t make them like this anymore”!

    While I’m reluctant to say it, the truth is: ‘they do not make songs like this anymore’. Why? First of all, like the gradual reveal in a horror movie, the song builds tension slowly (there are good three minutes of instrumental introduction before vocals kicked in). It doesn’t startle with sudden scares, but weaves an unsettling atmosphere that lingers long after the final note fades. The near-ten-minute runtime feels like an eternity, a slow motion scene from a horror movie where you are the main character. Slow burning masterpiece in a world with attention span of a millisecond. This song is from some other time.

    In 1979, when Bauhaus released this track, the punk movement was giving way to something darker. ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ wasn’t just a song; it was a manifesto for a new genre. It painted in sound what Bela Lugosi had done on screen decades earlier – it gave form to generation nightmares.

    Alone in a darkened room. The count.Bauhaus, Bela Lugosi’s Dead

    Bela’s undead

    Revisiting the song now, I’m struck by how it still holds power. And not just that, more than ever, after forty years, I am convinced that Bauhaus first single is a masterpiece (and I am very reluctant in using the terms like cult and masterpiece). The fear it once instilled has transformed into appreciation for its artistry. Like the vampire count it references, ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ seems immortal, forever young in its ability to chill and captivate whoever decide to listen it to the very end.

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  • Layers of Fear – It’s a thin line between love and hate

    Layers of Fear – It’s a thin line between love and hate

    To me, the hardest question on this Earth, besides the one about the meaning of life, is: Are Layers of Fear a good game? For that, I blame Japanese horror game developers and their philosophy: “If you want something to be scary, put a decent amount of blood and guts in the game. And if you want something to be twice as scary, put twice as much blood and guts in the game.” The human sense of fear, fortunately or not, doesn’t work that way.

    Who was Steve Strange?

    Allow me to start with a digression. Thirty years ago, in London, Mick Jagger came to the Blitz club one night. The Blitz was craving publicity, and that was a PR gift right from the heavens. But Steve Strange, the club host who was watching the door, knew that only one thing could be better than the story of Mick Jagger visiting the club: not letting Mick Jagger in at all.

    If you combine the previous “blood and guts” story with this one, you will understand the problem horror games encountered over a decade ago. Developers either gave players infinite ammunition or just a few bullets and threw a bunch of monsters and zombies at them. With enough blood and guts, this was supposed to be scary, and horror games were built on that premise for years. Everything worked fine until the increasing number of zombies and gore couldn’t scare people anymore. The whole genre came to a grinding halt until someone came up with a brilliant new idea.

    “Instead of giving players more and more advanced weapons and ammunition, what would happen if we gave them none at all?”

    Do you have Amnesia?

    Amnesia: The Dark Descent, from Frictional Games, took me by surprise. It was the first horror game that really frightened me. The first game ever where I stood for minutes in front of a dark corridor (in the game) and was too scared to go any further. With no weapons or any tools to defend myself, the horror of the game transcended from the computer screen into the space around me. In the middle of my play, I paused the game, turned the lights on, and checked if somebody was hiding on the terrace. It wasn’t long before the media coined a name for this new kind of game: psychological horror.

    Amnesia, the Dark Descent screenshot, Copyright by Frictional Games
    Amnesia, the Dark Descent screenshot, Copyright by Frictional Games

    Amnesia was a hard-to-match masterpiece. It took three years before another “psychological horror” experience forced me to turn on my apartment lights in the middle of play again. That game was Outlast by Red Barrels. Outlast was much more intense than Amnesia, setting the bar even higher for “psychological horror” games. After Outlast came the big-budget but excellent Alien: Isolation. After Alien, however, I grew a bit weary of the genre. It all started to feel the same. I tried Outlast: Whistleblower, and while it was scary, it was in the same way as the original game. For a while, I forgot about “psychological horror” games, convinced that only a unique masterpiece of the genre could drag me back into this hell.

    Fear have layers

    Layers of Fear, a game from 2016, was that “unique masterpiece.” It introduced an even more radical idea: “Why just take weapons and ammunition from the player? Remove the monsters from the game as well. Let the player be their own enemy. Let the player become their own, personal horror.” This idea fit the game perfectly. It wasn’t just original; it was brilliantly executed. Such a beautiful symbiosis of an original idea, design, and superb execution reminds me of masterpieces like Alan Parker’s Angel Heart (1987) or Piaget’s Last Fear (2018 novel).

    Don't Look Back. Layers of Fear © Bloober Team
    Don’t Look Back. Layers of Fear © Bloober Team

    The graphics and game atmosphere were so realistic that I felt as though I were truly there—in the game, in the mad painter’s house. The game design was fantastic, with rooms and scenery changing as you turned around, leaving you with the unsettling question: “Should I continue further?” If you do, and you really should, the story and art of the game unravel further, leading you to one of three possible endings.

    They say: “Jump!”

    “But if everything is that perfect, as you say,” you might ask, “what’s gone so horribly wrong to make you question the quality of the game?”

    Two words: jump scares.

    One significant weakness of this game drags it from sky-high excellence to an almost unplayable experience. Senseless and constant jump scares become both annoying and predictable as the game progresses. Using the “cheapest” fear factor in a game with such a superb story, music, visuals, and gameplay is like putting plastic bumpers on a Mercedes-Benz. It simply doesn’t fit together. And it’s a pity because if the developers had reduced the jump scares (or brought them down to the level seen in Outlast), Layers of Fear could stand proud, shoulder to shoulder with the giants of the genre.

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