![]() Which, again, the whole first person feeling,” she says, pausing for a moment. And one of the cool things that it lets you do that other games from that era never did was that there was a spell you could cast on your creatures that would let you possess them and walk around in your dungeon in first person. It really makes you feel like you’ve created a structure. “I really enjoyed the feeling of creating my own little area in. You create rooms, traps and creatures to try and defeat a group of adventurers when they inevitably come to find treasure or defeat you. In Dungeon Keeper you play as the ubiquitous evil presence that creates the dungeons heroes adventure through in dungeon crawlers like Diablo. Dungeon Keeper was one of the games I poured the most hours into, just cause I loved the feeling of building my own dungeon and taking care of creatures and stuff like that,” she says. “I really liked games where I could be creative. She mentions influential works such as DOOM and Thief, but is especially fond of Dungeon Keeper. “The games that most engrossed me when I was little were the games that made me feel like I was being transported someplace, typically first person games, which is really telling if you look at the stuff I make routinely,” Horrorshow says, reminiscing on the games of yore (otherwise known as the ‘90s). I was an only child so my parents would buy me computer games to keep me occupied,” she says of her early gaming experiences. I was very fortunate when I was young because our family had a computer. “ have just always been a part of my life. “There’s a unique beauty to it that I’ve always been in love with.” “I played horror games at an early age and they scared me, but I would end up with this feeling of abject fascination I would be scared for a while but it would kind of preoccupy me and I would be like ‘More, I want to see more.’ That sensation was so unique and so enticing to me,” Horrorshow recalls. Experiences like this rarely made me jump, but they left me unsettled, thinking on the abstract themes of death and the uncanny long after they had ended. Each night, one of the villagers would disappear, leaving nothing but a trail of footprints to the pyramid’s walled-off entrance. Day after day, the villagers would stand at the pyramid’s base, until their skin blistered from the sun. Each day the pyramid slowly began to speak to the villagers in unheard whispers, compelling them to worship it. The village’s last survivor tells the story of what happened to his tribe, as you explore their remnants. In this game, a giant black pyramid has appeared at the foot of a small village. One of her games, Chyrza, invokes a biblical kind of horror, reminiscent of the plagues of Egypt. Her worlds range from ancient desert villages, to decrepit Midwestern towns, to utterly surreal, almost indescribable dimensions. And it’s kinda what gets me up in the morning,” she says. There’s just something so poignant about it to me. I want you to feel like you’re there, I want you to feel like it’s a place with a history and with stuff going on that you’re actually wandering through. I don’t want it to just feel like a story that’s happening to you or a thing that you’re spectating. “More than anything with any game I create, I want to create a sense of presence. There’s never a monster to confront, just the horrors inflicted on people who were once in the place you now stand. Her games are more concerned with creating a place for you to exist and feel terrified in. ![]() Horrorshow’s games don’t involve hiding and cowering like in Outlast or shooting monsters like in Resident Evil. ![]() Kitty Horrorshow, as her name would suggest, creates horror games but her work doesn’t share much with the genre mainstays. Her games aren’t destabilizing the industry, but they have caught hold in a community of people who are engrossed in the strange and unsettling worlds she has created, which are unlike anything found in mainstream spaces. Her games, along with the games of many more designers, are found on Itch.io, a game distribution platform geared towards independent creators. Horrorshow is an independent game creator in the alt games scene, a step further underground than “indie” games such as Inside or Hyper Light Drifter. And yet, she’s part of a quiet movement slowly coming more into the spotlight, thanks to new platforms and new voices. “I’m not trying to destabilize gaming, I’m really not that clever or profound,” Kitty Horrorshow says jokingly of her games. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |