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Fortean Computer Games

Strange when you think about it. The thirst for porn fuelled early renaissance art of topless ladies festooned with wind blown gauze and naked cherubim and seraphim yet failed to fuel the creativity of what could have been a truly mediocre game.
 
10.05.16
A game about sacrificing villagers will challenge belief systems
by Nicole Carpenter
@sweetpotatoes

Sometimes you have to make sacrifices. In publisher Kitfox Games’s upcoming The Shrouded Isle, those sacrifices are lives. It’s a cult village management game to be released in February 2017 by design lead Jongwoo Kim, writer Tanya Short, and artist Erica Lahaie.

The Shrouded Isle is meant as a haunting game that forces players to contemplate the lengths they’d go to provide for their people. This goes beyond the food and shelter they must provide for those who live in the village, as the player must placate the gods, too—by offering up a human life. It’ll be a game that evokes apathetic power outside of human grasp according to its creators. “Chernobog is a Slavic deity that conjures up such a potent image that it inspires everyone on the team,” Short said, referring to one of the team’s inspirations.
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https://killscreen.com/articles/game-sacrificing-villagers-will-challenge-belief-systems/
 
Really looking forward to playing this one. I discovered the first Barrow Hill game when it was advertised in an FT a few years back, and thought it was a brilliant game.

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http://www.thedarkpath.co.uk/
 
There might be a better thread for this? Feel free to move it-

How the ZX Spectrum helped bring about famed pop parody Frank Sidebottom
The late Chris Sievey knew this better than most. Frontman of new wave band The Freshies, he restlessly experimented with new ideas, including self-produced videos. In 1983, with the band on hiatus, Sievey went solo. His single Camouflage saw his producer Martin Hannett at his most commercial on an expansive, hook-heavy track which used the Cold War as a metaphor for love’s frustrations.

Camouflage’s B-side was even more significant, as it contained three programs written by Sievey on his newly-gifted Sinclair ZX81. Software on vinyl wasn’t a new concept, but the true innovation was the first of the programs: a computerised promo video for Camouflage itself.
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Once loaded, the user was asked to press a button on the ZX81 when the first chord of the record kicked in. Thanks to Sievey’s graft, Camouflage’s lyrics were then perfectly synchronised. With the length of each delay loop decided by his trial-and-error, and the ZX81’s frame rolls made into art, Camouflage – though it was a flop on release – remains an inspiration today.

After moving to Sinclair’s Spectrum, Sievey wrote The Biz, a tongue-in-cheek simulation of the music industry, the aim of which is to propel your band to number one in the charts. Originally a board game, its computerised version shared similarities with Kevin Toms’ Football Manager series, one of Sievey’s favourites.
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https://theconversation.com/how-the...about-famed-pop-parody-frank-sidebottom-74863
 
That Camouflage track is great, a real lost hit.

On a related ZX Spectrum and pop music theme, I was just playing the Frankie Goes to Hollywood game from 1985, which was much lauded at the time for its out of the ordinary quality. I couldn't get very far, and don't know how to play the games within the game, and certainly didn't find the dead body, but it was peculiar enough to be mesmerising in its primitive way. I could just watch the walk through video on YouTube, but I wanted a try at it myself. Oddly, nothing about the band's music is included, aside from references to lyrics. Paul Morley was the big brain behind it, so they say.
 
GNC said:
On a related ZX Spectrum and pop music theme, I was just playing the Frankie Goes to Hollywood game from 1985
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I play it online from time to time. Same as GNC, I am not progressing too much into it, certainly never found the body but... there is something even mystical about this game. Don't know how to explain....

I usually end it abruptly with quick "Match Point" tournament or few levels of "Jumping Jack" :)
 
It's weirdly mundane, but also weird at the same time. I have read the ending is really disappointing - not that I'll ever get to it.
 
Try The Secret World - https://secretworldlegends.com/ - it was an MMO that is transforming into a non-MMO/RPG.
The original game had Lovecraft, conspiracies, urban legends, ghosts, puzzles and loads more.
The new game should be available early 2017.
 
sherbetbizarre said:
Are there a lot of Spectrum games you can play online?
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There used to be a lot of emulators you could do that with, but I can't find them now. I have a ZX Vega that I play them on through the TV, I download various games I'm nostalgic about, or never got to play but was curious about, and they usually work with that. The Vega is becoming very controversial thanks to royalties issues at the moment, however.
 
I just heard of the PS4 game "Everybogy's gone to the rapture" where the population of an entire English village disappears. A modern day Mary Celeste tale with spirits and god know what. You basically walk around the village trying to figure out what's what. It's got great reviews from Critcis but bad reviews from gamers. I think it's one or two years old now. Anyone played it?

 
Ringo said:
I just heard of the PS4 game "Everybogy's gone to the rapture" where the population of an entire English village disappears. A modern day Mary Celeste tale with spirits and god know what. You basically walk around the village trying to figure out what's what. It's got great reviews from Critcis but bad reviews from gamers. I think it's one or two years old now. Anyone played it?

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I had to google this, sounds incredible! It doesn't appear to be available for the PS3 however, which is unfortunate for me :(
 
It's on my HDD but I haven't played it yet - it was a free PS+ game a couple of months back.
 
Here’s a look at ‘dieselpunk mech’ game Iron Harvest in action

We’ve been looking forward to real-time strategy game Iron Harvest for years, mainly on the strength of the game’s premise and its gorgeous concept art. It’s an alternate-history, World War I-era game with 1920s-style mechs, a beautiful juxtaposition of war machines and rural European settings.
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https://www.polygon.com/2018/3/12/17109628/iron-harvest-rts-gameplay-1920
 
Ringo said:
I just heard of the PS4 game "Everybogy's gone to the rapture" where the population of an entire English village disappears. A modern day Mary Celeste tale with spirits and god know what. You basically walk around the village trying to figure out what's what. It's got great reviews from Critcis but bad reviews from gamers. I think it's one or two years old now. Anyone played it?

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My sister recently completed it and has been raving over it, calling it the most creepily atmospheric game ever.
 
FrKadash said:
I'm currently working on producing a PC game for Windows under my Dorset based magickal order, Ordo Mizbe'ah.
I came up with the idea as I find it increasingly difficult to get scared by a video game as I get older, it's probably due to many years of becoming desensitised from daytime horror films as a kid/teenager.

So the title is going to be an occult horror type, but I have some unusual concepts of digital sigilisation and subliminal evocation to allow the game to seep into the real world, so my intention is to bring about weird real world occurrences during and after game-play. I haven't revealed details yet but the game will be a free download via the dark web, only for members of the O.M. But as FT is the one other place online that I have honest & open friendly internet relationships I'll keep you guys updated and when it's completed I'll make it available to any of you guys that are interested in it :)
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did this ever materialize? hello, from the future;)
 

Dead Static Drive: Grab your bat, steal a car, and take your chances against the unearthly horrors found along Route 666. Your family needs you alive.

“The long in development Americana Gothic style game stewing in atmosphere and dubbed “Grand Theft Cthulhu”...”

maximus otter​
 
Despite being a keen gamer, I hadn't heard of Station.exe, apparently the most mysterious computer game of all time (not that computer games are really that ancient), until reading about it on today's Quora.
Dating from the early 90s, Station.exe appeared to be a fairly superficial game, in which the player explores an abandoned station, with a particularly creepy background atmosphere, trying to avoid big white faces which, upon contact, end the game.

station.png


This all sounds rather boring, except for the fact that within the walls of the station are coordinates which, if inserted into Google Maps (which didn't go live until 2003), display a coastal location in Siberia containing an abandoned building with allegedly mysterious origins, including being a Soviet military complex where arcane research into genetics was carried out.
There are rumours of the game being either a repository of Soviet propaganda or a method of transferring secret information, akin to those enigmatic Numbers Stations.
Or is it just a load of BS?
I'm tending towards the latter explanation - unless any of you fellow forumists know better?
 
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