LogFAQs > #929848937

29. Bogeyman by Elizabeth Smyth (20 points)
Nominated by: PumpkinCoach (2/5 remaining)
https://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=ltwvgb2lubkx82yi

Importance: 3.5
Fear: 7
Snake: 9.5

Over the past decade, I feel like Twine has been on the forefront of making some of the most unique games in horror, achieving the perfect meld of descriptive literature and adventure-style game mechanics that expands beyond your typical CYOA style of book, often placing you in the shoes of dubious characters and asking you to plunge right into an unsettling and twisted world. Smyth's Bogeyman has you taking on the role of a little child, trapped by the titular antagonist with a roster of other children, all captured by the Bogeyman for doing various "bad" things, from a child's perspective. Early on, you think you're settling in for one particular story, simply trying to escape the clutches of this bad, bad man, but it slowly gets a lot more complex than that. I found myself consistently shocked and disgusted with myself as to what I found myself doing to appease the Bogeyman and make my entrapment more comfortable for myself, often at the expense of the other children. It's like Stockholm syndrome, the game. That alluring promise of being allowed to go home if I was good enough made me do these things, and I couldn't even be sure if the promise was real. Of course, this is just my experience, you can just as easily side with the kids but there was something very psychological about this game that just compelled me against doing that. Smyth's writing is amazing and obviously contributes to this immensely; you will smell every disgusting smell, you will taste the rottenness of the "food", & you will feel the pain of the slave-like chores because Smyth describes everything with unflinching and overly-descriptive details. This extends to the characters too. The way the Bogeyman can switch from cruel and abusive miser one day to having high-spirits the next makes choosing your next move all the more difficult. Likewise, you can feel the shifting nature of the childrens' attitudes towards you depending on your choices.

This game affected me deeply in a way I wasn't expecting. I felt my innocence crumble away over the course of the experience, as harrowing situations constantly broke my spirit and resolve. I recommend playing this in one go, maybe with some ambient music in the background like I had. I'd be very interested to see if other people were affected by this game the way I had been!
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What I am about to do has not been approved by the Vatican.
https://imgur.com/MmrKwGZ - https://imgur.com/ntWVGyh