Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you had a great Christmas and a good and safe New Year's, and that any students who perchance on this are ready to go back to school. (Yeah, I'm not either.)
So, I came up with something to talk about!
Indie Horror RPGs. A video game, yep. Hear me out.
The Witch's House is a game made in RPG maker a few years ago and follows the story of a girl travelling through a malicious witch's house to find an escape route out of a forest. Being a horror, there are unsettling and gory elements involved. That's not what this is about though. This is about endings. I will tell you two things about the game's end:
1. You will be blissfully ignorant.
2. There are no happy endings.
A lack of a happy ending is something sometimes sought for (not by me - but maybe someday). The thing about it though is the ending is so abrupt, so unexpected, and so gut-wrenching that upon finishing you can do little more than stare speechlessly. Oh, yes, the game had foreshadowing - the smallest sprinklings of it - but not enough to guess what you could have possibly been doing.
The story told in this game is an unexpectedly powerful one and done in a very short amount of time. It's something that I think writers of all trades could learn from. I wanted to share this resource with anyone who might perchance on this blog despite there essentially being a two-year-hiatus.
A horror is something that involves a delicate balance. To truly frighten an audience, you have to grip onto their jaws and turn their head to look at one thing even though the real threat is out of the corner at their eye. Then, when the time is right, you let go and let them finally see the truth - the monster - whatever the subject of your horror may be.
There are probably a great many other examples I could have used, but I just watched a playthrough of this game not too long ago and I'm only just now beginning to recover from that sucker-punch of an ending. Anything that effects someone as much as that deserves a bit of recognition.
I wish you all a happy week, and again, Happy New Year!
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Hey, everyone, my Interview Saturday options are still open. Please feel free to shoot me a message if you want to have your character featured on my blog.
