Horror is a style I admire, however seldom will get below my pores and skin the best way it does for others. Tamashii, regardless of being a comparatively simple-looking puzzle platformer, jangles my nerves like a dozen spiders crawling throughout my face. Released right this moment and developed by Vikintor, I’ve had my eye on this one for some time after seeing some early footage on Twitter. The game has a weird video collage look mixed with some aggressive post-processing results that simply makes my pores and skin crawl, even when at its coronary heart, it’s not too uncommon as a game. Take a peek on the launch trailer under.
Tamashii jogs my memory a little bit of the digital body-horror nightmares of artist Sekitani Norihino, as seen on this INCREDIBLY UN-HUMAN-MIND SAFE MUSIC VIDEO. Of course, Tamashii doesn’t have a screaming grindcore observe and a thousand flashing lights. Instead, it performs issues straight, for probably the most half – stark, near-monochrome graphics, with the actually wild results and monster designs deployed for when issues get heavy. It’s an exhilarating strategy to painting supernatural ‘corruption’, warping each the picture itself however placing the sprites themselves by means of a lurid, fleshy blender.
Vikintor’s earlier outing was the free Ritualistic Madness, a first-person maze game impressed by one thing I solely only in the near past learnt of. Did you recognize that among the many ill-fated Virtual Boy’s tiny library was a Japanese-only lovecraftian horror maze FPS known as Innsmouth No Yakata? You can see a little bit of it on YouTube here. Eldritch horror in wonderful blood purple, beamed straight into your eyeballs – simply probably the most cursed factor on the system. Ritualistic Madness payments itself as a port of a misplaced, much more cursed little maze-crawler with an identical aesthetic.
There’s this basic public notion that Japanese horror is quieter and extra refined than its western counterpart, however there’s this explicit pressure that I’ve at all times cherished. The form that performs it quiet, refined up till the second it explodes right into a riot of body-horror noise and weirdness that you just instinctively recoil from, earlier than snapping again to normality simply as quick. It’s a method that I simply don’t see typically sufficient in games for my liking. More of this type of factor, and due to Vikintor for being impressed a lot by it.
Tamashii is out now on Itch for $4, with a Steam release planned. Ritualistic Madness is here and free, or no matter you need to pay.
