Deep web horror
July 1, 2015 7:55 PM   Subscribe

Someone apparently found a strange horror "game" that was uploaded to a remote corner of the deep web, accessible only via anonymizing tools like Tor. No one seems to know what it is or who made it, and apparently the link hosting the file is now down. All we have to go by at the moment is part of a playthrough (note: potentially unsettling material): Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
posted by naju (39 comments total) 26 users marked this as a favorite
 
Frog Fractions Boooooooo?
posted by rifflesby at 8:04 PM on July 1, 2015 [7 favorites]


OH DEAR GOD NO! It's... it's... starting...
posted by mattoxic at 8:14 PM on July 1, 2015


As linked in the comments of the Kotaku article, Reddit is having a go.
posted by Celsius1414 at 8:24 PM on July 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


Hey, I know that song—it's tcp d1 1 the swedish rhapsody irdial played in reverse.
posted by metaphorever at 8:29 PM on July 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


Needs more Satan
posted by greenhornet at 8:47 PM on July 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


Duh - it's obviously a Hexagon Sun art project.
posted by symbioid at 8:53 PM on July 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


Or - well, you know ... It's just the net becoming sentient. It's boot up sequence is HAL-9000 in reverse.

Because if there's one place for The AI to begin, it's in the dark dirty subconscious recesses of the internet where the seediness of humanity abounds. Heaven forbid we should get a nice happy AI that was fed on love and Sesame Street.

We get the murderous AI we deserve, not the loving AI we want.
posted by symbioid at 9:01 PM on July 1, 2015 [5 favorites]


Having watched all 3 parts, judged as horror it comes off as amateurish, to say the least. Satanic imagery, a reversed Hitler speech, Charles Manson... this is stuff that's so far into cliche "evil rawr" that I don't quite know what to do with it or imagine why someone thought it would be a good idea. On the other hand, that girl's scream in Part 2 really gave me an unpleasant feeling. Judged within the context we've received it, the whole thing does have a "wrong, this should NOT exist" feeling to it that's rather compelling. The guy who recorded that playthrough is brave. I wouldn't just have deleted the file, I would've formatted my hard drive and set it on fire just to be safe.
posted by naju at 9:09 PM on July 1, 2015 [4 favorites]


I dunno, not to be a jerk about it but to me this comes off as Friend of a Friend's Shitty Noise Band: the Game: the Movie.
posted by whir at 9:28 PM on July 1, 2015 [21 favorites]


Calling it now: ARG for the Trump campaign.
posted by aaronetc at 9:53 PM on July 1, 2015 [25 favorites]


Is this a CDROM with FMV and Dennis Hopper produced in 1995 and also one that I bought in a thrift store for $0.50 in 2012?
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:59 PM on July 1, 2015 [4 favorites]


Black Dahlia?
posted by I-baLL at 10:14 PM on July 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


If you're going to try hard to fab together a mysterious horror game full of noises and a story about how it came from teh deeeeepest webz, I'd hope you'd actually put in the effort to try hard. This is some middle school doom mod plus default setting vid filter fx amateur hour. ::harrumphs, goes back to watching Begotten::
posted by FatherDagon at 10:14 PM on July 1, 2015 [6 favorites]


Is this a CDROM with FMV and Dennis Hopper produced in 1995 and also one that I bought in a thrift store for $0.50 in 2012?

The one that also has Grace Jones as the evil Cyberpope? No this game is not a tenth as awesome as that game.
posted by rifflesby at 10:15 PM on July 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


A lot of good creepypasta stuff starts a bit over the top in that you're like duh this is just so obvious, then it sinks in. And it keeps settling it's claws until you get up and turn on the lamp. You don't check your peripheral vision while you do so. You wonder what your cat is staring at, but you don't dare turn around.

>.>

<.<
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 10:18 PM on July 1, 2015 [6 favorites]


Sort of reminds me of House of Leaves a little bit, except the satanic imagery or what have you.
posted by gucci mane at 10:19 PM on July 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


A lot of good creepypasta stuff starts a bit over the top in that you're like duh this is just so obvious, then it sinks in.

And then the bad creepypasta just does this.
posted by FatherDagon at 10:27 PM on July 1, 2015


This sounds like the pitch for a semi-great TV movie.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:58 PM on July 1, 2015


™HCIWDNAS TIHS
posted by dbiedny at 11:12 PM on July 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


I was totally down with the concept of an obscure deep web horror game, but yeah, this is some really basic stuff. Everyone who's into internet horror knows about numbers stations already. If you're trying to maintain an otherworldly air of mystery, you can't just slap a Conet Project recording onto your game. The moment I heard that, the game became less like a strange lurking terror and more like a 4chan thread.

For an experience along these lines that has some real artfulness to it, I recommend Crypt Worlds. It's not as horror oriented, but it brings the creeps on occasion.

Alternatively, boot up a PSX emulator and try out the Japanese-only game LSD: Dream Emulator, which Sad Satan seems like a pale imitation of.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 11:27 PM on July 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


I guess I tend to agree with Patricia in that some amateurish/crude things can work not just in spite of, but because of that crudeness.
posted by naju at 12:00 AM on July 2, 2015 [4 favorites]


You got your sobel filter in my horror game!

You got your horror game in my sobel filter!
posted by The Power Nap at 12:38 AM on July 2, 2015 [2 favorites]


Oh found it on the deep web did you. Riiiiiiiiight.

#marketing
posted by GallonOfAlan at 12:54 AM on July 2, 2015 [3 favorites]


You're in the butter zone now, baby.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 3:14 AM on July 2, 2015 [4 favorites]


This is probably just an ad for a ski resort.

What if... what if... Frog Fractions 2 is an actual ski resort?
posted by EndsOfInvention at 5:33 AM on July 2, 2015 [3 favorites]


I think, to me, it was the combination of that girl's scream (that was really... something) and then the fact that, you know, Thatcher and Saville were in it, along with mentions of an anti-child abuse video, and it seems so... That's what got me, like - what if this is a child abuser taunting the world?

What if the deepAI sees itself as OUR child, and it sees the way we treat it as abuse, and is trying to tell us this. The scream we hear is not just the scream of a 3d modeled girl and sampled, but an authentic scream of an AI within this artifact?

It's not the "oh this is amateur hour" creep. It's more "what could this be? What is the tale I will tell myself about this?" That's what makes it compelling. THAT is what makes the mystery, not the crappy backmasking and image filters, hell not even the scream. It's not like you can't believe that the guy who "found" it actually just made it as his own creepypasta and STILL find it creepy if you pretend to buy into the story and ask questions like above.
posted by symbioid at 5:47 AM on July 2, 2015 [3 favorites]


"...and then he turned the corner and found..."

*boy scouts all lean in, excited *

"...ANOTHER HALLWAY!"

* boy scouts scream, one wets himself *
posted by Legomancer at 6:00 AM on July 2, 2015 [3 favorites]


Calling it now: ARG for the Trump campaign.

That would take a level of competence heretofore not displayed by anyone in the Trump campaign.
posted by leotrotsky at 6:18 AM on July 2, 2015 [3 favorites]


Yeah, the whole "and it was writing gibberish into a file which was TOO SPOOPY so I had to uninstall the game" bit really pushed it into definitely-ARG territory for me. And in all the web, there's only one person who downloaded the installer? And he was forwarded the link from one anonymous person on the Deep WebTM who found it on a forum posted by another anonymous person, and nobody is willing to offer ANY evidence that the forum, the link, the users, or the game actually exist?

It's almost a shame. It seems like it would be an actually scary game, if it wasn't padded with the So Mysterious Anonymous Creepy User backstory.
posted by specialagentwebb at 6:22 AM on July 2, 2015


Metafiler: We aint scared of no deepweb marketing



unless we are
posted by Jacen at 6:55 AM on July 2, 2015


Reminded me a lot of that IMSCARED game, both in general look and (what passes for) gameplay, and in metanarrative. Watching the videos of somebody walking down a hallway I could barely see, I kept having deja vu experiences.
posted by penduluum at 7:10 AM on July 2, 2015


Feels like an extension of /r/findinghekatestation (/r/whydidyoustoprunning, etc.) Kid school satanism included.
posted by charred husk at 7:43 AM on July 2, 2015


It appears the jig is not yet up.
posted by Nelson at 9:02 AM on July 2, 2015


I couldn't stop giggling while watching this. It is so by-the-numbers spooky. Reversed samples of a numbers station! Reversed samples of 'Stairway to Heaven'! It's just... here are some things that are Spooky, let me throw them together into a little environment. Ooh! Child abuse! Let's put some hints of that in too. Satanic child abuse. That's pretty creepy. Mix in some disorienting video filters, creatively play with the frame rate now and then (that's a nice touch, I think) and we have a definite mood happening. What will people read into the huge holes left between these data points? Spooky!
posted by egypturnash at 12:59 PM on July 2, 2015 [2 favorites]


goes back to watching Begotten

Urg. Thanks for reminding me of that cheery little film. It's casu marzu For the mind.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:22 PM on July 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


It's almost a shame. It seems like it would be an actually scary game, if it wasn't padded with the So Mysterious Anonymous Creepy User backstory.

Like, if it was posted to an Onion site, just post it to an Onion site and share the link! No one can track it back to you, Marketing Guy, so leave it up! Stop with the my best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw the game for download.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:17 PM on July 2, 2015


The 80s were right! There are satanist child abusers everywhere! EVERYWHERE! SUSPECT YOUR FAMILY!
posted by lumpenprole at 2:28 PM on July 2, 2015


Johnny Wallflower: "goes back to watching Begotten

Urg. Thanks for reminding me of that cheery little film. It's casu marzu For the mind.
"

Ever watch it on acid? I have. It's... something.
posted by symbioid at 4:30 PM on July 2, 2015


On...acid?!

😳 😱 🙀 💀 ♨️
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:36 PM on July 2, 2015 [2 favorites]


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