Paradise Killer is a disease many of us carry.
Every day I go to the office for my day job. Ten or so minutes before my lunch arrives, I get up from my desk so I can meet the delivery guy at the entrance. I go to the employee vending machine, which a cool tech company like the one I work for must obviously have to give sugary goods to its workforce of adult children. I type in thirteen on the numerical keyboard to get my coke zero. People behind me talk about a minor inconvenience from someone smarter than them halting their work, therefore Ruining Their Life. I’d like to think that they have enough spirit in them that this comes from jealousy for the guy who still has the ability to not care. I drink my coke zero outside while I smoke my cigarette. I wish the delivery guy a nice day. The app I ordered through immediately prompts me to “rate my experience”. I give both the courier and the restaurant the maximum rating. There is only one elevator at the ground floor, and a person just got in. His eyes meet mine. He pretends not to notice. The elevator leaves right as I arrive in front of it. I think about Paradise Killer again.
---
Some (including me) might scoff when hearing the dreaded phrase "vaporwave aesthetic". It's something that was entirely built on disparaged community efforts for an entire decade, so it can mean different things to different people. Most of the time it's nothing but shallow images, memes grabbed from the garbage that builds social media feeds. Ironically, this is somewhat trve to the original concept, but usually frauds do not go deep enough to understand the intricacies of the hauntology that ties it all together.
Vaporwave fundamentally is a twisted corporate aesthetic. A decaying tape of consumerism and new age hubris. Each part is present to an extent, though the proportions are flexible. It could hark on back to the advertisements your brain was blasted with as a child. Many stop here. But I think the new age is part is where the really interesting stuff can happen. You see, new age at it's core was a product for the lamest people you will ever meet. Management people who forgot what life is needed spirituality, and so grifters emerged to meet their demand. There was no fundamental change required, it was an distraction they could leave in their car when they clocked into work. It wasn't real. It was an aesthetic to buy into.
Paradise Killer has a firm grasp on this. You are in a society obsessed with reviving Evil Dead Gods. Your paradise is dying, and most people are already on the next one. A world of decadence for the elite, maintained by the literal sacrifice of the lower classes. This game is for the real ones.
Betraying expectation, the music is more reminiscent of jazzy city pop classics rather than the ambient sampledelia people usually associate with vaporwave. The inspiration is a lot more Tatsuro Yamashita's excellent nostalgia heartwrencher For You (1982) than Vektroid's haunting fever dream Macintosh Plus - Floral Shoppe (2011 (god I remember when this album was only a month old)). The reason might be practicality as projects like Floral Shoppe are entrenched in copyright hell. The music is meant to be diegetic, there are speakers all around the island. Also people oppressed under a cult would not be listening to ironic remixes of their own life. Not that they get a choice, there are no controls on those speakers. Regardless, easy listening city pop is not just more fitting, but makes for incredible bangers.
I would assume that if you are reading reviews of this game on Backloggd, you are already aware that this is The One Good Detective Game. If you didn't, well now you do. The plot is stringed around the game's world, giving you as much control as possible in unearthing it. And you will dig deep. There is only one solution to a problem, but there are many problems to solve, and no route is presented as the "true path". This is not a visual novel with some puzzles.
It's shocking how well this is implemented. You can follow a hunch! How many games have this? You are connecting clues in your head as you walk around the empty streets. You get an idea, you check your notes, you think of a way you could confirm this. If you know something, the game will not gaslight you for 20 minutes while the main character catches up.
Ten minutes into the game, you are free to begin the final confrontation any time you want. Do your facts build a truth? The game won't tell you. In fact let me spoil it a little bit for you: the game will never spell it out for you. It respects you enough to just present itself, and leave it up to you to interpret it.
Is the mystery really that important? The world is so alluring. A twisted image of the corporate world I submerge in five times a week. A big crime happened. Residents sure don't seem to care that much, they just want it behind them. There is work they must do. Some of them are not that happy about the cult thing. You can give answers where you are critical of it. But you cannot give answers where you long for a life. Most people (you included) is defined by nothing but their work. The system is larger than any individual. One of the first collectables you find triggers a short cutscene. It will tell you that there will be a next Paradise Island. No matter what your actions are, it will not end this madness. Solving a crime does not solve the Genocide Machine, it is part of it.
The gameplay has a similar structure to the story. There are no levels or segments, the island is open from the start for you to explore. In order to guide you in this exploration, the developer decided to take the collectathon approach. The map is littered with all kinds of trinkets for you to grab, some meaningful, most not. Readers of peculiar taste would need no inclenation to let every vertex of Paradise Island 24 seep into their pores. For the more well adjusted, the collectibles will beckon them to check every alley, every patch of grass for a new vending machine or a tape. The map feels the exact right size, and is quite varied despite each area only being a 2 minute walk from eachother. The surrealism really comes into play here, the pristine vacation town will do its best to evoke nostalgia in you for a time that never was.
I was a little reminded of the liminal space craze from a year ago while playing. I felt things from some of those images. The concept is this: it usually shows a place that was designed to have tons of people move through it, like a mall. But instead you are shown when its empty and kinda dimly lit. Your brain freaks out a little from this. People who live in the city know this feeling well. You are unsafe alone. You get used to the noise other people generate. A commercial building is not a place where this should be amiss. The game didn't quite manage to catch on this, but I feel like it should have. It reminds me of old chat worlds I loved exploring when I was younger. Did I ever see an online 3d chatroom with tons of players in it? I can't remember if I did. Extra points for hitting my personal vaporwave senses without ever presenting your game world as defunct metaverse or whatever.
After I finished the game, I felt satisfied. Yet when the elevator comes back to take me back to my coworkers my mind is still on Paradise Island 24. Make no mistake I love the people I work with. Before I felt nothing but rage on how The Machine was breaking them in. Paradise Killer grabbed me by this thread in my soul and choked me with it. Give it a spin the next time you find yourself in an energy drink fueled haze at one in the morning.
Every day I go to the office for my day job. Ten or so minutes before my lunch arrives, I get up from my desk so I can meet the delivery guy at the entrance. I go to the employee vending machine, which a cool tech company like the one I work for must obviously have to give sugary goods to its workforce of adult children. I type in thirteen on the numerical keyboard to get my coke zero. People behind me talk about a minor inconvenience from someone smarter than them halting their work, therefore Ruining Their Life. I’d like to think that they have enough spirit in them that this comes from jealousy for the guy who still has the ability to not care. I drink my coke zero outside while I smoke my cigarette. I wish the delivery guy a nice day. The app I ordered through immediately prompts me to “rate my experience”. I give both the courier and the restaurant the maximum rating. There is only one elevator at the ground floor, and a person just got in. His eyes meet mine. He pretends not to notice. The elevator leaves right as I arrive in front of it. I think about Paradise Killer again.
---
Some (including me) might scoff when hearing the dreaded phrase "vaporwave aesthetic". It's something that was entirely built on disparaged community efforts for an entire decade, so it can mean different things to different people. Most of the time it's nothing but shallow images, memes grabbed from the garbage that builds social media feeds. Ironically, this is somewhat trve to the original concept, but usually frauds do not go deep enough to understand the intricacies of the hauntology that ties it all together.
Vaporwave fundamentally is a twisted corporate aesthetic. A decaying tape of consumerism and new age hubris. Each part is present to an extent, though the proportions are flexible. It could hark on back to the advertisements your brain was blasted with as a child. Many stop here. But I think the new age is part is where the really interesting stuff can happen. You see, new age at it's core was a product for the lamest people you will ever meet. Management people who forgot what life is needed spirituality, and so grifters emerged to meet their demand. There was no fundamental change required, it was an distraction they could leave in their car when they clocked into work. It wasn't real. It was an aesthetic to buy into.
Paradise Killer has a firm grasp on this. You are in a society obsessed with reviving Evil Dead Gods. Your paradise is dying, and most people are already on the next one. A world of decadence for the elite, maintained by the literal sacrifice of the lower classes. This game is for the real ones.
Betraying expectation, the music is more reminiscent of jazzy city pop classics rather than the ambient sampledelia people usually associate with vaporwave. The inspiration is a lot more Tatsuro Yamashita's excellent nostalgia heartwrencher For You (1982) than Vektroid's haunting fever dream Macintosh Plus - Floral Shoppe (2011 (god I remember when this album was only a month old)). The reason might be practicality as projects like Floral Shoppe are entrenched in copyright hell. The music is meant to be diegetic, there are speakers all around the island. Also people oppressed under a cult would not be listening to ironic remixes of their own life. Not that they get a choice, there are no controls on those speakers. Regardless, easy listening city pop is not just more fitting, but makes for incredible bangers.
I would assume that if you are reading reviews of this game on Backloggd, you are already aware that this is The One Good Detective Game. If you didn't, well now you do. The plot is stringed around the game's world, giving you as much control as possible in unearthing it. And you will dig deep. There is only one solution to a problem, but there are many problems to solve, and no route is presented as the "true path". This is not a visual novel with some puzzles.
It's shocking how well this is implemented. You can follow a hunch! How many games have this? You are connecting clues in your head as you walk around the empty streets. You get an idea, you check your notes, you think of a way you could confirm this. If you know something, the game will not gaslight you for 20 minutes while the main character catches up.
Ten minutes into the game, you are free to begin the final confrontation any time you want. Do your facts build a truth? The game won't tell you. In fact let me spoil it a little bit for you: the game will never spell it out for you. It respects you enough to just present itself, and leave it up to you to interpret it.
Is the mystery really that important? The world is so alluring. A twisted image of the corporate world I submerge in five times a week. A big crime happened. Residents sure don't seem to care that much, they just want it behind them. There is work they must do. Some of them are not that happy about the cult thing. You can give answers where you are critical of it. But you cannot give answers where you long for a life. Most people (you included) is defined by nothing but their work. The system is larger than any individual. One of the first collectables you find triggers a short cutscene. It will tell you that there will be a next Paradise Island. No matter what your actions are, it will not end this madness. Solving a crime does not solve the Genocide Machine, it is part of it.
The gameplay has a similar structure to the story. There are no levels or segments, the island is open from the start for you to explore. In order to guide you in this exploration, the developer decided to take the collectathon approach. The map is littered with all kinds of trinkets for you to grab, some meaningful, most not. Readers of peculiar taste would need no inclenation to let every vertex of Paradise Island 24 seep into their pores. For the more well adjusted, the collectibles will beckon them to check every alley, every patch of grass for a new vending machine or a tape. The map feels the exact right size, and is quite varied despite each area only being a 2 minute walk from eachother. The surrealism really comes into play here, the pristine vacation town will do its best to evoke nostalgia in you for a time that never was.
I was a little reminded of the liminal space craze from a year ago while playing. I felt things from some of those images. The concept is this: it usually shows a place that was designed to have tons of people move through it, like a mall. But instead you are shown when its empty and kinda dimly lit. Your brain freaks out a little from this. People who live in the city know this feeling well. You are unsafe alone. You get used to the noise other people generate. A commercial building is not a place where this should be amiss. The game didn't quite manage to catch on this, but I feel like it should have. It reminds me of old chat worlds I loved exploring when I was younger. Did I ever see an online 3d chatroom with tons of players in it? I can't remember if I did. Extra points for hitting my personal vaporwave senses without ever presenting your game world as defunct metaverse or whatever.
After I finished the game, I felt satisfied. Yet when the elevator comes back to take me back to my coworkers my mind is still on Paradise Island 24. Make no mistake I love the people I work with. Before I felt nothing but rage on how The Machine was breaking them in. Paradise Killer grabbed me by this thread in my soul and choked me with it. Give it a spin the next time you find yourself in an energy drink fueled haze at one in the morning.
cowboyjosh
1 year ago