I finally got around to this OSR classic though I'm not quite finished reading it. It feels to me very Clark Ashton Smith-ish in it's far-flung, East Asian inspired setting and even shares Smith's love of exotic cruelty and unwholesome monsters. I've made it through the book's initial lore dump (a crude way to describe something so beautifully written) and I'm wandering in the more game-y portion of the book. I'm not a "rules guy" but there's so much great world here I may indeed end up pouring over every little encounter. Is it me or does Noisms (aka David McGrogan) have a thing for velvet worms? There are at least three varieties I remember in the bestiary. Don't get me wrong, I COMPLETELY get it—I myself have been fascinated with the things for years. Fascinated in a disgusted sort of way. I find velvet worms to be such completely reprehensible nightmares that I wouldn't want within two miles of me in real life, but watch Youtube videos of them with morbid attention.
Yoon Suin will get a full post in the near future. The authors blog is linked above.
Yoon Suin will get a full post in the near future. The authors blog is linked above.
Amid Evil
This a throw-back FPS video game, meaning it was released in 2019 but the graphics look like they are from 1997. It's inspired by the extreme, horror-tinged fantasy worlds of actual 90's games like Heretic and Hexen, where you run around creepy, polygonal labyrinths hunting fiends with melee weapons that can shoot magic projectiles. It is a difficult game and I'm not ashamed to say I played on "easy". Gameplay is usually is the least of my concerns when I play video games these days. I played Amid Evil for one reason: the downright inspired level design. Of all of these visually stunning levels, the final series, dubbed The Void, were my favorite. We've all seen "voids" before in various media—basically "alternative hell"—dark, vacuous places, haunted by abstract, alien intelligences that are usually just grotesque heads floating in the ether. Amid Evil's The Void is a void of precarious and impossibly tilted pathways that seem to end in empty space, only have a new section of path zoom into place at the last second. A void where M. C. Esher stairways meander through a forest of glistening monoliths, ending on a plane upside down to the one you just left. It's not a dull, colorless void, it's full of color...but it's a lurid Suspiria style of color. All of this culminates in The Enigma Gate, the last level before the final boss. It's frantic level where you try to hit all of the switches to a titanic gate while being accosted an ever-multiplying horde of shadow men and void dragons. I found this level to be, at points, flat-out distressing. The the constant scrambling from enemies, the disorienting layout, and the ungodly noise. In other words, the best void ever.
Here's a nice little video of The Enigma Gate with no commentary. Honorable mention also goes to the section of the game referred to as The Forges which for some reason reminded me of those nightmare inducing final levels of the Sega Genesis masterpiece Ecco the Dolphin.
Amid Evil is on Steam and probably most other digital games services. I hope to get a chance to write about it more.
Amid Evil is on Steam and probably most other digital games services. I hope to get a chance to write about it more.
