Nalabox Loves: The Cat Lady

Some may note a while back I was seeking a horror 'experience' whether that is a movie or game. Horror as a form of entertainment that makes a lasting impression. Something that makes you forget that you are playing a game. Something that you realise truly disturbed you months after playing it when trying to convince a friend to play it. It wasn't until that time I fully appreciated everything about the story of Susan Ashworth.

*CAUTION* Contains spoilers and topics that some may find uncomfortable

We meet Susan at a dark point of her life. We are carried along the turbulent ocean of emotions that a single human being faces when seeking their own oblivion. We accompany Susan through each harrowing chapter of her story and her road to recovery.

Are you Ready? /Pic Creds

The crux of good story telling is the ability to instil a lasting emotional response in the audience. The topics raised in this game are difficult to portray in any medium such as Suicide, Self-harm, Depression, Psychosis and even Death. As unsettling as this may sound, everything about Susan's experience is wonderfully articulated right down to the level designs, music and as well as the dialogue. Those types of feelings are often only felt by a single person and for them to be so well presented in a game no less, I find remarkable. Again, I didn't realise how well it had conveyed those experiences until I was talking about the game months after playing.

The Cat Lady is named as such as Susan has been given 9 lives by an other-worldly character and she falls into different scenarios where she has to collect what is owed. There is an all-round "wrongness" feeling to this game as you progress through each chapter, it's designed to make you feel uneasy and as helpless as Susan does. I often felt like I was journeying though each stage of Psychosis or each level was a representation of the darker side of human emotions. It’s dark in the sense of black and white stills and jittered animation, like marionettes on strings. Simplistic art style and yet bright splashes of colour used to draw the eye from the horrors that lurk just outside your vision.

Alan is that you? Pic Creds: ME!

There is a section of the game where you are trapped in a house and you have to escape without the occupants making sausages out of you. Susan finds a telephone and tries to ring for rescue. The person on the other end is supposed to be a police responder I think? Susan tries her best to explain her very real and very life threatening predicament. Now, previously in game Susan was in a secured unit and made her escape from there using someone else's information, so when the police person looks up Susan's info their attitude towards her changes. Oh you were recently signed into psychiatric care, are you sure you're not making this up? Several things wrong with this: You're clearly not phoning them from inside the unit, that shit would show on their display, so shouldn't alarm bells be ringing that a vulnerable person is on the loose? Most obviously is the way people with mental health issues are treated by others, whether they be in the "protecting" services or not. This whole scene was made to make you feel as helpless as Susan. This resonated with me deeply. 

There are other sections of the game where I could get through them no problem but I think it counts on its audience to at least have some emotional connection to the theme its presenting. This game became oddly personal, which made it more uncomfortable to play, but I enjoyed playing it. 

I keep mentioning the "experience" aspect as there wasn't much gameplay. It's tagged as Story-Rich Adventure Horror on Steam. I'd loosely call it a game as it's more of an exploratory piece of art. It will introduce game play elements for one section then never use them again or show you content that you can't do anything with but you know is linked to the story. Oh man that wedding dress...I knew it was down there for a reason *shivers*. Typical point and click adventure you have to gather items in order to scare your neighbour because reasons. We break into the basement which is tense on its own and the colour palette in this area is grey and dark, everything is eerie, apart from a manikin wearing a pristine Wedding dress. Everything about it is screaming “don’t touch totes a jump scare” but nothing. Later in the story, there is a cut-scene that takes you back to that dank little room and completely changes the atmosphere as a chilling secret is revealed. That aggravated me somewhat as you could tell there was something else back there but access DENIED.

You touch it, I'll wait right here..-Mitzi /Pic Creds: ME!

But some elements of this game go beyond just disturbing you but downright mess you up!

The whole dialogue between the Wife and Susan when we visit a strange dream world creeped me the fuck out. The use of sound distortion to make your skin crawl is very well done in this chapter. It’s like they experimented with different psychological techniques to induce a fear response in each chapter. This was one of the more successful ones; I had to stop playing to a few days before I could progress in the story. Eeeeerrrrkflibble!   

Nope. NOPE. NOOOPE! /Pic Creds: ME!

I could harp on about this game all day.

I would recommend fellow Horror connoisseurs to play this game but be warned it goes there, where other games fear to tread. I admire the game makers more for that I think.

P.S I searched the net for a few pictures to add above and discovered who the characters related to the Wedding Dress scene were, let's just say they didn't have a happy ending...turns out they're actually from a game called Downfall, which is the story prequel to the Cat Lady! They are re-making it for a 2015 release so I'm super excited for that!

P.P.S omg this game is also amazing!  I find it very peculiar that the scenes that resonated with me the most in The Cat Lady are actually snippets/references from Downfall when I hadn't even known of its existence. Now that is some creepy shit!

Nalabox Loathes?: Haunted Memories

It's a horror game. I have high expectations when it comes to horror movies and games.

I want to be given an experience. A thrilling psychological, rock me to my core, re-evaluate my soul, experience. A little over the top perhaps, but I've watched so many movies long and short that have held no joy in finding that experience. Jump scares are okay but used too much and in obvious places gets a thumbs down from me. It just becomes almost comical. 

I heard about this Slender guy....

I watched vids of people of this now infamous figure blackening our screens and scaring the bejeebus out of them. I even saw those "notes" around my home town on Halloween. I gotta get in on this. 

Years later, Haunted Memories comes out. I get it. I pragmatically decide not to try it on Paranormal mode for my first funthrough. Need to look awesome when I record this/

First impressions: Looks pretty. More annoying than scary.

On account of after the intro played it was obvious I was going to encounter our anti-hero but not soon as I take two steps. My character froze and died. Reload. Managed to get past the gate this time He freaked out at a breeze and "died" from the game spinning him around straight into the slender figure. Hmm.

After a few more tries we progressed in the "story" without major incident. Then it updated.

Couldn't load me previous game. No biggie.

Wouldn't even load up the intro. Audio was there though.

Re-Verify? Nope. Reinstall? Nope.

NEXT!

Borked!

Such a good word!

I'm not sure where it comes from or what it's supposed to mean 'really' but I'm using it to described what I done to my wrists. BOTH of them. I borked them right up. One was Minecraft induced RSI (Repetitive strain injury) and the other I fell over my dog and in trying to protect my beautiful fa- my mouse hand I borked the other wrist- the WASD hand :( So I've been out of action for about 10 days! TEN WHOLE DAYS WITH NO GAMING! Fuck. My lovely hands are my paycheck too so I was a bit useless there too but fuck 10 days?

Luckily I've had a few funthrough episodes already recorded so it didn't take much to sling them all together and make a few YouTube posts so clicky clicky to see what I've been up to. Watching stuff is much more entertaining than reading online right?

Tomb Raider Playlist

Amnesia Playlist

Cheesy Shenanigans 

Take care chappydoodles!

Spooky Sunday!

Hey guys, sorry for the long absence. Life Happened.

I'm trying out a new game today called Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It's a survival puzzle horror game which I don't know much about besides watching videos of other poor souls trying to play it. My favourite rather entertaining video is of this guy:

even finding this again and watching it makes me laugh sooo HARD!

I watched this and thought "Hey I could totally play that game and not freak out, jeebus that guy is a pansy" so many years later I have a fully working pc and bam! Amnesia was purchased. Let's see how well I do huh?

Today I dub thee Spooky Sunday!

Clicky Amnesia Part One: Meet Daniel Clicky. 

Funthrough! Tomb Raider Part 3

Short post in comparison to the last one....

Today's Camping Adventures with Lara... Lots of panicking and a change of underwear! WARNING: I do skreech a lot in this episode! 

Clicky Tomb Raider Part 3 Clicky

I snorted a few times watching the footage back in a few places. My reactions to stuff for the first time are hilarious. I'm picking up a few of Lara's bad habits too.

I also feel like there's a bit too many cut scenes, am I watching a movie or playing a game?

Funthrough! Tomb Raider Part Two!

Ha! Today I panic and argue with Lara in the Coastal Forest! 

Like I would have a clue really? About survival after a shipwreck or even being left on my own in the woods for a night. I should take some pointers from Ingo since he's had some training on the matter so I decided to Interview him:

Me: Okay so Ms Croft and I have washed up ashore on an island off the coast of Japan somewhere so that should give you a clue as to the environment, humidity etc. She's scruffy, wet, cold, been clocked in the head, tied up, fell about 50ft and landed on a bone shard which dug into her side, she's bleeding and exhausted. Me? I'm like her imaginary friend... So what should we do?

Ingo: Prioritise. I think even the most hardcore military trained survival nutcase would be more than a little shaken up by the experience and clarity of thought is a lifesaver. Concussion is in itself dangerous, but combined with the abdominal trauma just staying conscious would be a near superhuman feat. One, stop the bleeding. Ideally there I wouldn't be pulling a shard of anything back out of my torso. Looking at where it is, could be kidney, liver, punctured large intestine. Anything. Jamming my hands over the entry wound around the shard and whimpering to myself would probably be my main plan for the next half hour at least. I could assume from that half hour that I hadn't bled to death, and provided I hadn't also slipped into a coma from the head trauma it would be time to extract myself out of the hole I was in. Fans of 'Rambo' will reflect on the wince-inducing self surgery Stallone performs on screen, and while the reality would probably involve allot more swearing and crying, you really would have to make do with something similar.
      Controlling infection would also come to mind, and given the dire circumstances I think I would be trying to heat up some of the scrap metal that seems to be everywhere and cortorise AROUND the shard for the time being, probably while screaming and soiling myself. Then? stagger upwards hoping I'd done enough to continue living for the next hour or so, and distract myself by keeping a check on my breathing, internal bleeding being something that would make itself known now, best case being abdominal swelling and painful bruising, worst case either a punctured bowel leading to a septic wound and death, or bleeding into my upper abdomen/chest cavity and compressing my lungs. All happy thoughts. Assuming Lara is very lucky (and seriously mentally and physically tough) she could look forward to a very slow painful ascent through the caves. Out of the cave and on a tropical/temperate island, I would probably be both elated and worried. Tropical islands make for less harsh survival territory, providing water-shelter-heat-food needs (in that order) relatively easily. However, there's always something else, and in this case the humid climate would make it very very hard for me to keep my wound clean. I would stagger towards the beach and keep my eyes open for where water sources empties into the sea, this sort of outfall being ideal to find drinking water. Salty seawater would be great to irrigate and clean my injuries too, (winces) sore though. At this point, due to the concussion, it would be a real battle to stay awake. I'm inclined to say I would put a cold wet rag on my head wound, out of optimism that it would control the swelling, and pass out in the recovery position, hoping for the best.         

Me: One of the other characters told her to move towards his location but she hasn't got a clue where she is let alone how to navigate to him. Is this sound advice? What should people do in this situation?

Ingo: Madness. You're already in a bad way, adding 'lost and away from your little base camp' is suicidal. I remember a story about a pilot who was shot down, and by staying in the same quarter mile hiding from enemy patrols, an SAR (search and rescue) team was able to find him within a couple of days. If he'd wandered off he would probably have been impossible to find, and died of exposure before anything else. Unless you have a couple of landmarks that can be seen from miles away, you can use triangulation. for example, Lara is on the coast, so there's a reference point, and she can see a clifftop with a big broken tree on it that she estimates is four football fields away, and in the other direction she can see a trashed plane or something, and that's five football fields away, so marking those points and noting how far from her they are she could direct the other party to her (coastlines are pretty permanent so they would have a hard time walking past her location and out to sea) using this method to head inland... I'd be wary. we're still injured pretty badly. 

Me: Supplies are nil and Lara wants to go Deer hunting. How should you go about doing this?

Ingo: Seriously? eat some fruit if there's any you can identify as safe, drink any water you can make potable, make a sharp stick and go get some fish. I have no idea how you could just up and make an accurate bow capable of delivering enough poundage to kill a deer. If venison was my one and only option? I'd make snares, a lot of snares. While eating fish. probably use a lot of cabling from the wrecks as cordage. Even then though, snares are hard to use with any reliability  you have to put out a large number to get a little return. Dressing (butchering) a deer is tough too, if i was injured already it would be very difficult. I'd have to kill the deer, bleed it (black pudding anyone?), slit it open, scoop out the guts like I was Han Solo so it didn't spoil the meat, then have to move the carcass to where my camp was. Definately a daunting task if you're not 100%

Me: Lara finds a bow, and in the game takes a small bit of venison, leaving most of the carcass behind. 

Ingo: In that case yes, Deer can be on the menu, cover yourself in mud and moss to hide your people scent and go stalking. This would still be physically demanding and I would be worried about having enough water and energy to go on. As for taking a small amount of meat and moving on? no, no way, an a-frame litter could be made out of dead fall and lashed together with intestine. A carcass is definitely too good a thing to waste any of, and preserving the meat can be a simple as cutting it into small strips and using your a frame to hang it over a fire. Tasty jerky. Boiling seawater down to get the salt would be a good way to go too. As always though, if you can't find or make potable water don't eat, your body uses up a lot of water digesting food and its always better to err on the side of being hydrated over being fed in the short term.       

Ingo raises some very interesting points about hydration, the dangers of concussion and Lara being in need of serious medical attention. In short, she should be dead. Survival immersion can become tedious and desperate and then you remember it's just a game but is accuracy about this type of stuff important? Considering Video Games are blamed for violent crimes and anti-social behaviour can you claim to be realistic when it is riddled with bad advice?

So I decided to look it up and see what other helpful tips you should remember if you ever find yourself stranded. I found this list from gcaptain.com:

1. Shelter yourself. Exposure can kill faster than thirst or hunger.

2. Do not drink urine. Or sea water. Or bird blood

3. Do not eat jellyfish. Or fish that have spikes. Or fish that have parrot like beaks. OR that puff up like balloons.

4. Turtles are an easy catch and make for excellent meals. Their blood is a good, nutritious, salt-free drink; their flesh is tasty and filling; their fat has many uses; and the castaway will find turtle eggs a real treat. Mind the beak and the claws.

5. If a castaway is injured, beware of well-meaning but ill-founded medical treatment. Ignorance is the worst doctor, while rest and sleep are the best nurses.

6. Put your feet up at least 5 minutes every hour

7. Do not go swimming. It wastes energy. Besides, a survival craft may drift faster than you can swim. Not to mention the danger of sea life. If you are hot, wet your clothes instead.

8. As long as no excessive water is lost through perspiration, the body can survive up to 14 days without water. If you are thirsty, suck a button.

9. Beware of far-off clouds that look like mountains. Look for green. Ultimately, a foot is the only good judge of land.

10. Don’t let your morale flag. Be daunted but not defeated. Remember: the spirit, above all else, counts. If you have the will to live, you will. Good luck

Now the site says they're from the novel Life of Pi by Yan Martel some seem to be very sensible but others don't feel that legit to me. I agree with ignorance not being the best medical practice since you all know how much I favoured Dr Ignorance but I'm sure as hell you shouldn't just go to sleep if your really badly injured and if you're by yourself too! Treat your wounds first and try to prevent infection. Also do not fall asleep if you have a concussion! With that in mind, number 5 is a perfect example of well meaning but ill-founded medical advice. This is just an example from another fictional source so again I ask the question if you're going to publish content on survival shouldn't you make sure it's accurate?

Following that Ingo suggested use your common sense, Prioritise and try not to panic!

Also check out this guy, he knows his shit! Ranger Rick

                           Clicky Funthrough! Tomb Raider part 2 Clicky