Walking through the Past: The Mechanics and Player Experience of Haunting, Obsession and Trauma in Layers of Fear

Layers of Fear, a 2016 psychological horror game by Bloober Team, is a story-oriented walking simulator. While many walking simulators focus on uncovering the past, Layers of Fear centres on the experience of being haunted by the past. The gameplay narrates a tragic story and the complex relation of the protagonist with his past from which he cannot escape: his fear, his obsession and the endless cycle of his madness. Most importantly, this experience is not constructed in the game by providing the players with journal entries or letters to read, but by allowing them to literally walk through the past, among material representations of memories and emotions, as the house itself shifts through various layers and moments of time both before and after the tragic events that haunt the protagonist. This paper focuses on the unique delivery of experiencing past events used in Layers of Fear, as well as the concept of haunting, trauma and obsession central to both the game and gameplay

From the will to live European witchcraft: the evolution of Edgar Allan Poe's Ligea

Poe’s works have always enjoyed tremendous popularity within the film medium. Among a large number of adaptations, however, a very original, innovative short story Ligeia seems to remain rather obscure. The two most often referred film adaptations of the story are The Tomb of Ligeia, directed by Roger Corman in 1964, and Edgar Allan Poe’s Ligeia from 2008, directed by John Shirley. Both titles differ significantly, mainly plotwise, but also in other aspects, to an extent much greater than one would expect solely due to the over forty years of time gap between them. Although based on the same short story, each film constructs a narrative and a world of its own, resembling a mirror reflecting changes in modern world and its popular culture as well as the evolution of Edgar Allan Poe’s continuing influence on popular fiction

Walking through the Past: The Mechanics and Player Experience of Haunting, Obsession and Trauma in Layers of Fear

Layers of Fear, a 2016 psychological horror game by Bloober Team, is a story-oriented walking simulator. While many walking simulators focus on uncovering the past, Layers of Fear centres on the experience of being haunted by the past. The gameplay narrates a tragic story and the complex relation of the protagonist with his past from which he cannot escape: his fear, his obsession and the endless cycle of his madness. Most importantly, this experience is not constructed in the game by providing the players with journal entries or letters to read, but by allowing them to literally walk through the past, among material representations of memories and emotions, as the house itself shifts through various layers and moments of time both before and after the tragic events that haunt the protagonist. This paper focuses on the unique delivery of experiencing past events used in Layers of Fear, as well as the concept of haunting, trauma and obsession central to both the game and gameplay

The Confusing Spiral: The Adaptation of Junji Itō’s Uzumaki in the Eyes of Non-Japanese Audiences

This paper concerns Internet user narratives concerning the 2000 film adaptation of Junji Itō's manga, Uzumaki, of the same title and their characteristic traits. The focus are the individual testimonies of Internet users who make up the non-Japanese, English-speaking audience of the film, and the image of reception of it that they paint. A closer analysis of narratives about Uzumaki reveals a variety of ideas and attitudes regarding not only Japanese popular culture, but cinema and adaptations in general as well as specific patterns of response—including the technical aspects of the film text and more comprehensive cultural nuances

Independent horror games between 2010 and 2020: Selected characteristic features and discernible trends

The focus of this article are independent digital horror games and their characteristics; the goal was to briefly describe the independent horror scene and highlight some of the artistic and technical trends which manifest themselves in the titles belonging to that scene. Due to the sheer number of available games, the scope of the paper is narrowed down to only selected characteristics and trends distinguishable in game texts published between the years 2010 and 2020. The aim of the article is to present a selection of observations and conclusions concerning the independent games scene and to hopefully point to what these games can tell scholars about the way both the players and the developers perceive the horror genre.The focus of this article are independent digital horror games and their characteristics; the goal was to briefly describe the independent horror scene and highlight some of the artistic and technical trends which manifest themselves in the titles belonging to that scene. Due to the sheer number of available games, the scope of the paper is narrowed down to only selected characteristics and trends distinguishable in game texts published between the years 2010 and 2020. The aim of the article is to present a selection of observations and conclusions concerning the independent games scene and to hopefully point to what these games can tell scholars about the way both the players and the developers perceive the horror genre

Points of contact: cultural contexts in understanding Japanese literature and cinema

The article focuses on cultural influence and exchange between Japan and America—a process that can be observed in texts produced by those cultures and is facilitated by the global access to information and the active, critical reception of cultural texts by audiences. Both cultures keep interacting and changing due to the interest and activity of consumers, including the use of message boards and peer to peer file-sharing, fan-subbing communities and social networks. As a result, the interchange is moving away from official, controllable, and subject to censorship channels to amateur, unsupervised channels fuelled not by professionals, not even by fans, but potentially all consumers

Choices, affects and trans representation: An analysis of mechanics and gameplay in Tell Me Why

The article discusses selected aspects of the 2020 game Tell Me Why, focusing on particular gameplay mechanics pertaining to player choices and the manner in which they influence player emotions, as well as on the representation of trans experience in the game. The authors draw both on affect theory and on approaches derived from game studies concerning the presence of emotions in gameplay. In the final part of the text, trans representation in Tell Me Why is analysed and juxtaposed with the readings typically found in the game’s reviews.The article discusses selected aspects of the 2020 game Tell Me Why, focusing on particular gameplay mechanics pertaining to player choices and the manner in which they influence player emotions, as well as on the representation of trans experience in the game. The authors draw both on affect theory and on approaches derived from game studies concerning the presence of emotions in gameplay. In the final part of the text, trans representation in Tell Me Why is analysed and juxtaposed with the readings typically found in the game’s reviews

Odgłosy w bezgłosie: niesamowitość dźwięku według Davida Toopa

Podstawowym celem artykułu było wprowadzenie spostrzeżeń i refleksji Davida Toopa, jak również proponowanych przez niego podejść analitycznych, do polskich badań kulturoznawczych oraz literaturoznawczych; mimo iż Toop i jego prace są jednym z głównych punktów odniesienia dla sound studies, jego twórczość pozostaje w dużej mierze nieopisana w polskiej literaturze akademickiej. Niniejszy artykuł przedstawia zarys charakteru dzieł i rozważań Toopa, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem jego najważniejszych książek, jak również demonstruje zastosowanie jego refleksji i narzędzi analitycznych w kontekście literaturoznawczym, a konkretnie w kontekście badań nad fantastyką grozy

Wybrane fanowskie praktyki dochodzeniowe na przykładzie fandomu gier Silent Hill.

Serię gier Silent Hill można bez wątpienia zaliczyć do jednych z najbardziej popularnych i znanych serii gier wideo z gatunku survival horror. Dzięki narzędziom oferowanym przez Internet, gracze będący fanami tych gier mogą łączyć się w swoim dążeniu do lepszego zrozumienia gry, jak również pomagać sobie wzajemnie, dzieląc się znajomością fabuły czy oferując pomoc w jej zrozumieniu. Poświęcając czas na czynności takie jak spisywanie dogłębnych analiz gier czy tworzenie szczegółowych poradników lub fanowskich filmów dokumentalnych, omawianie tychże oraz poszukiwanie wciąż nowych informacji, gracze przyjmują role nie tylko odbiorców tekstów z serii Silent Hill, ale i krytyków i znawców

Horror w ujęciu komparatystycznym: wybrane motywy we współczesnej japońskiej i amerykańskiej fantastyce grozy

Horror fiction plays an important part in the cultural landscape of contemporary world, being integral to the popular culture in many modern societies. This chapter compares and contrasts the structure and characteristics of horror narratives from two distinct cultures—American and Japanese—with a focus on the mechanisms that make them successful, and on their culturally-specific aspects. The aim of this work is to shed light on the differences and similarities in the depiction of fear and horror in American and Japanese realities, while at the same time emphasizing narrative patterns in the context of their respective cultures