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I wasn’t as sold on Half Mermaid’s Immortality as the internet at large, but I’ll give Sam Barlow as much rope for his FMV games as anyone else. He recently Xeeted about the studio’s upcoming projects C and D, described as “next level FMV, hold onto your seats”, and “reinventing 3rd person horror again”, respectively. The games now have heavily redacted Steam pages, and Barlow revealed a few more details on Kinda Funny Games (helpfully transcribed a bit by VGC if you can’t be arsed watching).
Sci-fi horror Project C’s Steam store description starts “Gifted with the”, and I’m fairly confident it’ll continue “ability to see”, based on all the eye imagery and size of the redactions. My prediction is that it’ll be a girl who can see alternate versions of the present, using the same kind of layering, and pushing through those layers, that we saw in Immortality. This prediction is strengthened by the fact Barlow says that it’s “in the tradition of Immortality, building on some of that tech but going in a cool direction.” The description also says “kaleidoscopic” and “future”, so perhaps you need to find the path through the shifting options to reach the right future. Barlow also described it as a “cool little puzzle box”, and “the chunkiest mechanic we’ve come up with” – although I don’t know what that last point means. Of the two games, I think I’m more interested in this one.
Project D’s store page just says “Something bad”, “Some doors” twice, and then “home?”. So, you get stuck going through doors, which can lead you to different places, and have to try to get home? It seems to be set in or around 1983, and maybe you play a nurse. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it isn’t reinventing horror tropes, at any rate. “This is a third-person survival horror game,” Barlow says on Kinda Funny, “but like, take that and then imagine what happens if the Immortality team fuses with a third-person survival horror game.” That could be very cool, because I kind of can’t imagine how that team would do survival horror, and I like that I can’t.
Barlow also references Silent Hill: Shattered Memories in relation to Project D, a 2009 Wii game that got middling reviews. If that’s the original reinvention of third-person horror he’s referencing then I will just smile and nod politely. Barlow’s tweet about the games also says they have shelved a “Project B(astille)” because “the world isn’t ready for our take on the French Revolution yet”. Like, okay, dude. Is it about Marie Antoinette or a sexy tricoteuse?
I said I’ll give Half Mermaid rope and I’ve been a bit snarky, haven’t I? I don’t not like Half Mermaid and Barlow’s games! Perhaps I have a bit of tall poppy syndrome, here. My natural impulse is to be a bit apologetic when I present something I’ve done, so when I see someone give it the Charlie big potato about how they’re reinventing a genre (for the second time, no less) before the thing is even done it feels a bit, I dunno, tacky? I suppose Sam Barlow is better placed than me to make claims about these games, because I know nothing about them. I’m at least hoping he’s moving away from his favourite theme of girls on film, becau-oh what’s that? The games both have female protagonists and content warnings for nudity and sexual content?
I’ll stop. Predictions? Which do you think looks better? And what do you think C and D stand for? Because I can only think of rude words.