MARTYR ME

(I discuss some body horror stuff in this post, so squeamish may want to skip)

This is a speed-IF made for Ectocomp. In it, you play as a victim of a torturer who sadistically injures you.

The game is quite gory. There's a lot of things that various games can have that makes me uncomfortable and not play, but I don't really hear that as often from other players. So when several commenters on other websites had said this game made them feel deeply uncomfortable or stop playing, I was expecting perhaps the most horrible game ever created. With such foreboding expectations, the game itself, while still excessively gory, wasn't quite as bad as I thought.

For one, you are a very willing and happy participant in the events. While the descriptions are written to shock and horrify, is it all that different than a C-section, or a dentist visit? I go to the dentist, and they stab the roof of my mouth with a needle and then grab my tooth with pliers and pull as hard as they can, ripping out what's essentially a bone and leaving a bleeding cavity for weeks. So the game wasn't quite as bad as I expected; in fact, the part that turned me off the most was the first ending which had some unexpected misogynistic language.

Overall, the game captures a rapturous tone in a way that reminds me of some of Porpentine's work, specifically Their Angelic Understanding. The violent torture in exquisite detail reminded me of Paperblurt's The Urge.

I don't recommend this game in general, due to a few people having an adverse reaction (and me personally not being a huge fan of torture), but I think the craft is well-done and the writing is descriptive.

Bind, Torture, Klll Simulator 2022. You play the serial killer, with your victim narrating their own torture and murder to you as it happens: but it's clearly a voice in your head, as they describe the long drawn out torture as almost a consensual sexual coupling between the two of you, something they want and actively seek, and their eventual murder as a "martyrdom". Unless you screw up the "ritual" of course, then prepare to be berated and verbally abused. Strong meat, especially as the game never breaks out of the killer's gaze, there is no framing device, no switches to other perspectives. Just a single changing word in a hyperlink seems to betray the unreliability of these words. Very well presented, utilising colour, speed and positioning of text as further markers of utter derangement.

…dear lord.

I’m not sure how to describe this one. It’s a choice-based work from the perspective of a serial(?) killer and their latest victim, told in a half-religious half-erotic tone. The victim wants to be martyred. The killer wants to do it right. Do it wrong, fail to carry out the right process or let them die before it’s done, and the game is lost. Martyrdom must be done properly. If it is, the victim’s last moans are “thank you!” two thousand and fifty two times over.

It’s horrifying. I never want to touch it again. As another ECTOCOMP reviewer said, that’s a sign of a good horror game. It’s a short little work that’s deeply unsettling, and I want it as far away from me as possible. I’m not sure what it is about the writing that gets to me in this way, but it does.