Still not sure how much of that game was just vanilla Spanish Catholicism, and how much was original contributions from the devs.
"God is real and he hates you" isn't exactly unexplored territory in video games, but damn if they didn't make it something special.
If you've never played Blasphemous (or watched it be played), there's a mechanic where, just outside boss battles, you meet a young woman who offers to help you fight. If you accept her help, she heals you a little during the fights.
Cool, right?
NO, IT'S BAD, AND YOU ARE BAD.
Because after the first time you accept her help? The next time you see her, she's... middle aged. And if you accept her help again, the time after that? She's DECREPIT.
You are literally killing her. And she's volunteering for it.
Watching someone who's never played Blasphemous before realize what's happening for the very first time is always the highlight of any play-through.
Perhaps you think I might be exaggerating?
Here's a super-cut of all the cutscenes and boss fights. Enjoy your horrified confusion! (CW: whoooole lotta blood/self-harm/suffering/torture)
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Honestly, in retrospect, it was surreal as fuck. Dude was practically in a trance, saying the same shit over and over. We quit with the nervous ha-ha-yeahs early, and he just kept going.
(Also, I believe that, in your twenties, a lot of people, especially introvert nerdy types who perhaps spent the 2000s thinking "I'm gunna make COMIX on the INNERNET," are still getting a bead on what's socially normal/acceptable.)
An important element to understanding this shit is knowing a lot of newspaper guys, at one point every one who bothered to even have public opinion on the matter, had incredibly bizarre and self-obsessed theories about webcomics. The primary one being we were out to destroy them.
It went something like
-We were all obviously failed newspaper cartoonist aspirants jealous of their platform/wealth/talent/etc.
-Therefore, we devised a plan to put comics online for free, so ppl wouldn't buy papers for them
-OBVIOUSLY the only reason anyone bought newspapers??
By the time it was shuttered, it had run its course, I agree with that. It was time to go. But it was near-unusable LONG before that, thanks to ppl gaming the shit out of it and ruining the spirit in which it had been founded.
For folks unfamiliar: Project Wonderful was an ad network that wasn't EXCLUSIVELY for webcomics, but heavily used by webcomic artists and other "geek media" type sites. It was grassroots, easy to be a part of, and ran on an auction model.
- No Patreon.
- No Kickstarter.
- No Webtoons.
- No Gumroad.
- Few, if any, e-z auto-storefronts.
- Also the rest of comics openly hated/mocked you.
Replying to @Iron_Spike
Also, this was the time when people were straight-up "Oh, I don't spend money on the internet, I don't trust it. What if Paypal runs off with my credit card number?"
Yes, really.
The one reliable way to make steady money?
Ads.
YES, REALLY.
Let me introduce you to the concept of the CASCADE.
Early 2000s internet ad revenue was... something else. Five-fig payouts! And the key to min-maxing it was
1) Getting on the best ad networks, and 2) Making sure your ad banner code (hand-coded!) was ALWAYS serving SOMETHING.