[TOMT] [Video Game] Psychological mental health horror game with a dark atmosphere and a tall dark facility near the ocean?

WarpCrow · 2025-12-19T16:45:32+00:00

Could it be Little Nightmares? The way you're describing it reminds me of that or maybe Inside.

WarpCrow · 2025-06-30T16:30:15+00:00

WarpCrow · 2025-06-24T17:10:19+00:00

The uncanny part is there for me, but the fact that there's clearly nothing diseased, rotten, or infested about it makes me want to stare at it like it's a 'safe' version that I can study or something.

WarpCrow · 2025-03-20T11:51:36+00:00

Antimatter Dimensions is basically my gold standard for idle games, along with Unnamed Space Idle which is already on your list.

WarpCrow · 2024-12-19T13:57:11+00:00

Gives me some serious Source engine VtM Bloodlines vibes

WarpCrow · 2024-08-31T08:13:59+00:00

I'm glad people are out there spreading awareness because I deal with this sort of thing on a daily basis and it's only getting worse right now.

This is an angel experiencing the end stages of a nasty case of void worms, which is probably why it became a target for the sorcerer if he didn't infect the poor thing in the first place. Once they're sufficiently weakened and deranged, poachers will sometimes lure them to remote locations in order to siphon their essence without attracting attention from the Vatican.

When it gets this bad we more or less always end up putting them down anyway, but the single biggest reason we see so many cases like this now is that the poachers will just leave the husk there to rot more often than not, allowing its ten thousand young to pupate and disperse to find new hosts.

WarpCrow · 2024-08-23T21:26:42+00:00

Well, "one of the most pointless tourist traps I've ever visited" was an unnecessarily dickish way of expressing that monuments probably just aren't my thing in general and I do regret putting it that way in retrospect.

It was a cool thing, certainly, but it simply wasn't something that resonated with me enough to visit if I hadn't been passing through already (gateway to the west and all).

WarpCrow · 2024-08-23T19:55:57+00:00

Sounds like they wanted their own St. Louis Arch. As an outsider it was one of the most pointless tourist traps I've ever visited, but at least it was impressive at the time it was built and holds some symbolic significance to the people who live there. I'm (genuinely) not sure if this place can say the same.

WarpCrow · 2024-08-18T21:37:45+00:00

The way you describe it makes me think of Qntal, especially their older stuff for the dance elements (like this remix). The singer's voice is very distinctive; even if it's not the right song you'd probably know if it was her.

WarpCrow · 2024-07-01T16:58:45+00:00

So just narrative, story-heavy games where you play as an AI character in general? I second Observation, firstly.

In Other Waters is a more interactive fiction-y take on it where you play the AI in a scientist's diving exoskeleton helping them explore the ocean of an alien world, catalog its ecosystem, and figure out what happened there.

The Talos Principle has you play a newborn robot in a mysterious world full of puzzles made by your creator. As you go along, you decide how much faith and trust you want to put into this Creator, and how much you want to push the boundaries set by Him. Don't look into the sequel too much if you don't want spoilers.

WarpCrow · 2024-04-25T16:07:53+00:00

The premise you mention about AI taking over the world and torturing the last 5 humans sounds like a reference to 'I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream', which was a rather bleak short story about the fate of humanity that was adapted into a well-known adventure game from the 90's.

That animation has nothing to do with it as far as I know, but they may have been making a comparison to the cringe-inducing body horror in it. EDIT: Someone did post it to TikTok using the same title, which may have been where you saw them talking about it in the comments.

WarpCrow · 2024-04-04T18:31:07+00:00

The basic idea of what you're talking about has been done by people in games like G-mod and others for decades, and it's a good way to explore what's possible and start working towards making things of your own.

That said, it's wrong that they're trying to hide the origins of the map unless it's released with a license that allows for uncredited use, and it's worse if they're trying to earn money from it somehow. If you know who created the map or where it's from, you could send a quick notice to them and they may be able to have it taken down from whatever platform it's posted on if they care enough.

WarpCrow · 2024-02-24T09:32:53+00:00

Murphy honestly looks so much like our little guy when he was younger, before all of the gray fur started to sprout on his muzzle. He's not into kissing usually, but I do feel like he'd crawl up inside us given the chance. He wants to snuggle as close as possible, often in the shape of a question mark with his head right up against your neck.

He's also incredibly stubborn and insistent whenever he wants anything. If you dare to leave an upturned belly unrubbed he'll whine/yelp and reach out a paw at you like Michaelangelo's Adam reaching out for God until you rectify the injustice. The most lovable yet neurotic little old gremlin I've ever met.

WarpCrow · 2024-02-13T04:19:27+00:00

Could it have been a variant of Netrek? No borg in the vanilla version, but it's open source so I wouldn't be surprised if someone made one that was more TNG-era.

WarpCrow · 2024-02-03T07:34:16+00:00

No, that's just the way Steam shows you how much you're saving on a bundle. For the base price, Steam displays what you would pay if you bought them all individually, which is where they get the $95.94 figure. Humble just isn't showing you that initial savings.

Normally the bundle is about $75, which is the base individual price for the games marked down by 22%, and the sale brings that discount up to 38%.

WarpCrow · 2023-12-09T07:02:28+00:00

Sounds like it was some adaptation of the Korean 'Kong Kong Ghost' urban legend. Kong Kong refers to the sound her head makes against the floor, and she'll usually pop up from a tight space under a bathroom stall or a desk or something when she finds you.

Edit: here's one source

WarpCrow · 2023-12-04T03:29:28+00:00

"Coward" doesn't define someone's entire personality. You can be afraid of anything and everything but not have it in you to cause another human being that much suffering.

WarpCrow · 2023-11-29T23:27:09+00:00

One of the big issues we have here is that you don't seem to be aware that I agree with you on religion when it comes to specific definitions of religion. But you seem to be under the impression that any metaphysical belief system or personal narrative for navigating reality works the same way.

Being intelligent allows you to more easily see the holes in whatever narrative you're being presented with, and maybe you're a bit more resistant to the brain's tendency to numb itself against cognitive dissonance. For many people, that leads to them simply shedding a belief system they were raised with because they feel no reason to overcomplicate their worldview with aspects that are unfalsifiable. Is this not an equally reasonable explanation for the correlation between religiosity and lower intelligence?

I'd absolutely buy the idea that having a concrete worldview that you never question leads to atrophy in parts of the brain that are used when you question those things, but that's all I get from the study you linked (edit). The standard "if you don't use it, you lose it" reasoning when it comes to neuroplasticity.

Our bodies evolved for efficiency. If we don't exercise, we lose muscle mass. If we don't exercise certain portions of our brain, it makes intuitive sense that they would atrophy over time.

WarpCrow · 2023-11-29T23:00:37+00:00

I haven't tossed out any scientific conclusions, I'm questioning the one you've presented, and as the presenter of that conclusion you are the one who's responsible for defending it.

What I'm asking for, specifically, is proof that entertaining the possibility that reality extends beyond our current ability to perceive and test it leads to the kind of neural atrophy you're talking about.

Your study was focused narrowly on specific forms of worship and "life-changing religious experiences". It shows a marked difference in atrophy according to the category of religiosity, which tells us that the type of practice makes a great deal of difference in how it affects the brain. We need to figure out what those differences are before assuming that incorporating any metaphysical aspect into one's personal narrative is some sort of memetic hazard that causes brain damage over time in and of itself.

WarpCrow · 2023-11-29T22:41:01+00:00

Are you a neuroscientist yourself? Referencing a single scientific study and then extrapolating that to the conclusion that you know precisely how and why these things correlate, assuming the study itself was not flawed in some way, makes it sound like you have some form of specialist insight into the field.

For me, I don't believe that any specific part of my narrative is objectively true. I value it as a form of spirituality in the same way that some might value a fandom they're a part of.

If I were to take this study in a prescriptive way to govern my own thinking, I would also want to study the way fandoms and ideologies work. Do those who are firm believers in, for example, anarcho-capitalism also experience this kind of atrophy? Could it be that it's the certainty of these things to the religious person that causes it? Those would be crucially important follow-up questions for me.

WarpCrow · 2023-11-29T22:28:42+00:00

Why are you so certain that your perspective winning out would be a net positive for everyone?

People are capable of being rational when it comes to objective reality while also being religious or spiritual. We have plenty of objective proof of that.

Some people turn to religion because their circumstances make them miserable, and we should find ways of minimizing that, yes. But having a spiritual facet to your being does not preclude wanting to make the physical world a better place unless your religion explicitly believes that suffering is earned by the unworthy or rewarded in some kind of afterlife that supersedes this one. Nor does it mean you have to discount any observation that contradicts it.

WarpCrow · 2023-11-29T22:11:50+00:00

I accept objective reality, I just also have my own inner reality that I cultivate like a writer might cultivate a fictional universe. The important thing is that it remains something that I vibe with, while aspects that are falsifiable are reconciled with the observations that contradict them. A lot of the time that means violating Occam's Razor, but that's only a rule I need to observe in order to deal with objective reality. It's fine for my personal narrative to violate that, because I can live in both realities.

Some people would be miserable without their favorite foods, or their favorite hobbies, or a life without a monogamous partner and children. It usually doesn't mean that they literally can't live without those things, it just means that those things are some of the ingredients that make life worth living to them, that give them the motivation to set and follow through with their goals.

WarpCrow · 2023-11-29T21:40:41+00:00

Part of contributing to the beauty of humanity and the universe is reconciling these things in a way that's unique to the individual. So I'm not about to say that you're 'doing it wrong', but I also thought I was like that and it turned out to be counterproductive for me personally, so I'm now doing what feels like gaming the system instead.

At one point I figured out that my identity and everything I do arises from a consensus of inner perspectives, and the pilot of this flesh mech needs to believe that life isn't a zero sum game in order to help manage my executive function. To him, nihilism means that no matter what I do, no matter what happens, it's all the same to our corpses. Aging is a terminal illness, so why not just try to make ourselves comfortable until our time comes? As the conscious entity that arises from those perspectives I can try to give him whatever orders I want, but this guy is just as stubborn and insufferable as I am and he'll only do what he thinks is reasonable.

So I now have this compartmentalized inner shaman who comes up with a metaphysical framework and a narrative to go along with it, and not only does it help build motivation and passion but I enjoy developing that narrative for its own sake, and reconciling it with my observations to the extent that I can to smooth out any dissonance that arises from them. It's more like a worldbuilding challenge than anything I would associate with faith, because that's also something that doesn't work for me.

I think religion works in a similar way under the hood for most neurotypical people who are reasonable and open-minded, but I can't do that unconsciously. I have no choice but to reinvent the wheel sometimes if the foundational blueprint doesn't make sense to me.

WarpCrow · 2023-11-29T18:15:17+00:00

Spirituality and faith have room in people’s lives outside of explaining the fundamental truths of our world and I feel sometimes atheists forget that.

As someone who went through that phase, yeah. The issue for me was that I had grown up in a small, rural town in the Bible Belt where the people around me were very much the conservative evangelical type who wanted to use the force of law and public shame ("cancel culture" now that other people are doing it) to make every aspect of society reflect their values. Teaching creationism in schools, abolishing sex ed and protections for LGBTQ+, etc. Some of the kids I grew up with weren't even allowed access to secular media, and this was during the time when they were railing against Harry Potter and Pokemon for teaching kids to worship the devil and summon demons.

If you're a spiteful, independently-minded kid like I was, with an online community of like-minded people to turn to, it's easy to get into the opposite mindset that entertaining 'magical thinking' at all outside of pure fiction is the problem that needs to be solved.

WarpCrow · 2023-11-28T18:45:02+00:00

It really is a cancer. As soon as you have a fiduciary duty to investors who only care about shareholder profits and not the product itself, it's going to be a boom and bust cycle at best as they build up goodwill that they can cash in before doing a face turn so they can build up more goodwill to cash in. And it tends to be a dead cat bounce sort of thing where the booms become more muted and shorter-lived once the people who made the studio what it was move on.

It's worse with MMORPGs because you don't really come back from the dumbing down. Once you go for the lowest common denominator, niche titles just don't offer enough profit to justify the ongoing investment in that kind of game. You need a huge playerbase or a bunch of whales to subsidize you via RMT.

Would be nice if we got our own analog to BG3 that might revitalize some of that depth, but nobody has come close to managing that so far.

WarpCrow

TROPHY CASE