{"id":288,"date":"2018-02-04T21:54:07","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T02:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fms321.olivialiccione.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/like-a-bad-dream-surrealist-horror-in-rusty-lake-roots\/"},"modified":"2018-02-04T22:09:18","modified_gmt":"2018-02-05T03:09:18","slug":"like-a-bad-dream-surrealist-horror-in-rusty-lake-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/games18\/2018\/02\/04\/like-a-bad-dream-surrealist-horror-in-rusty-lake-roots\/","title":{"rendered":"Like a Bad Dream: Surrealist Horror in Rusty Lake: Roots"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rusty Lake: Roots<\/i> in an escape-the-room puzzle game telling the story of the Vanderbloom family in 1860. \u00a0Dysfunctional to the extreme, this family is brimming with murder, suicide, cult-like rituals, sacrifice, and strange experiments. \u00a0What interests me the most about Rust Lake:\u00a0<\/em>Roots<\/i>, however, is its use of surrealist horror.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a lover of most things horror (the glaring exceptions being torture porn and anything with large spiders). \u00a0But spooky and scary generally delight me. \u00a0What makes Rusty Lake: Roots<\/i> so unsettling is that it just doesn\u2019t make sense. \u00a0The website TV Tropes<\/a> explains that surrealist horror is \u201cnot just nightmare-inducing, it’s nightmarish in a literal way, by being surreal, disjointed, dreamlike, and filled with bizarre imagery, usually saying goodbye to all logic and sanity in the process.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rusty Lake: Roots<\/i> definitely fits the bill. \u00a0Some levels are more frightening than others, certainly, but the whole game feels like an incomprehensible nightmare. \u00a0There\u2019s a recurring shadowy figure shaped like a large man with a bird\u2019s head. \u00a0In a birthing scene, you give one baby a bottle of blood, and it drinks it happily. \u00a0Albert, one of the main characters, is frequently depicted wearing strange, frightening masks that can sometimes control the weather. \u00a0In an otherwise romantic scene, James proposes to Mary with a message written in Mary\u2019s blood.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Mr. Crow lurking in the window. Personal screenshot.
\n\"\"<\/a>Mary goes to sniff a flower and her face promptly begins to bleed. My screenshot.<\/p>\n

What interests me most about this surrealist horror is its use in a puzzle game. \u00a0Puzzles are about figuring things out, finding clues and solving problems. \u00a0In Rusty Lake: Roots<\/i>, solving the puzzle often only brings about more puzzling results. \u00a0Mr. Crow, as the bird-man is called, will often appear at the very end of a level. \u00a0In one level, the final step to the puzzle involves cutting out a corpse\u2019s tongue and putting it in a jar, but you never know why. \u00a0The player solves the puzzle and figures something out only to be greeted with something incomprehensible. \u00a0I think this mismatch between the mechanics of the game and the theme is a really powerful choice. \u00a0Contrary to our usual experience, solving the puzzle often results in more questions than answers, enhancing the game\u2019s surreal, bizzarre atmosphere.<\/p>\n

<\/img><\/img><\/p>\n

Source: Like a Bad Dream: Surrealist Horror in Rusty Lake: Roots<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rusty Lake: Roots in an escape-the-room puzzle game telling the story of the Vanderbloom family in 1860. \u00a0Dysfunctional to the extreme, this family is brimming with murder, suicide, cult-like rituals, sacrifice, and strange experiments. \u00a0What interests me the most about Rust Lake:\u00a0Roots, however, is its use of surrealist horror. I\u2019m a lover of most things …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"item_id":"73c33b62ff04ea80cf748837515a4fc2","pf_source_link":"","item_date":"Fri, 02 Feb 2018 18:25:49 +0000","item_author":"admin","item_link":"http:\/\/fms321.olivialiccione.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/like-a-bad-dream-surrealist-horror-in-rusty-lake-roots\/","item_feat_img":"","item_wp_date":"Fri, 02 Feb 2018 18:25:49 +0000","item_tags":"","source_publication_name":"","source_publication_url":"","nomination_count":"1","sortable_item_date":"1517595949","item_description":"","pf_word_count":"498","pf_forward_to_origin":"no-forward","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[136,13,137,138,139],"class_list":["post-288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-round-1","tag-escape-the-room","tag-free-choice","tag-horror","tag-puzzle","tag-surreal-horror"],"nominators":{"1":{"user_id":1,"nomination_datetime":"2018-02-04 21:34:36","nomination_unixtime":1517798076}},"archiveOrgStatus":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9xw5i-4E","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/games18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/games18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/games18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/games18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/games18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/games18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/games18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions\/303"}],"feed":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/games18\/wp-json\/pf\/v1\/feeds\/213"}],"nominator":[{"embeddable":false,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/games18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/user\/1"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/games18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288"}],"wp:term":[{"attributes":{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true},"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/games18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288"},{"attributes":{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true},"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/games18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}