Game info: itch.io
Listening: Bandcamp, Steam
Info
Here’s a weird looking first-person platformer that seems to extremely unsubtly be about the corrosiveness and destructiveness of Christian nationalism. Very much the kind of random itch.io game I’d play if I could, but I couldn’t run this one on my computer so I skipped through a gameplay video instead. Lots of bizarre imagery, flashing lights, direct references to present political and past events (the atomic bombing of Japan???), and extremely loud noises. And why the hell are we here on this website, exactly, if not for extremely loud noises?
And when I say extremely loud noises, I’m not just referring to an occasional blast of dissonance or a random sound like I sometimes do; this soundtrack is harsh noise, which isn’t something we get full doses of in VGM very often and is therefore why this caught my attention. It’s not uniform in style and substance; sometimes you’ll get blasted in the face with an angry wall of distorted sounds, and sometimes you’ll be allowed to breathe a bit with more ambiently textural and melodic passages. Most of the tracks incorporate vocals, usually religious in nature: there’s a monologue from Lucifer (the titular light-bringer) trying to tempt you, a rosary prayer, a sermon, etc.
I rarely listen to this kinda music so I’m not super equipped to judge how exemplary or mold-breaking it is for the style, but it seemed fine to me. I tend to prefer more of a restrained and structural feel in my noise, like Ryoji Ikeda style, but I think you can pretty easily see how the more bombastic style fits the more shock-and-awe approach the game seems to have toward its themes. Some of the manipulation and sounds that are in there are pretty fun for sure.
Recommended tracks:
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“Where?” is the least noisy track in the game, much more in glitch ambient territory than everything surrounding it
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“These Heinous Sins” has a lot of big industrial bwomps that I like
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