The Walls are Talking

 

Halloween is coming soon!  I love the holiday because it means dressing up, hanging out with friends, and having a lot of fun.  Lots of people love watching scary movies, but I’m a big wimp when it comes to horror stuff.  My brain knows that what’s happening isn’t real, but that doesn’t stop me from freaking out over the littlest things.  Regardless, I have still watched a few of them for the sake of stretching my comfort zone.  In addition to movies, there are also horror games as well, which can be even scarier because you are directly immersed in the story, as video games do.  Once again, I haven’t played very many, but there is one in particular that is worth discussing, and would fit the spirit of Halloween perfectly.  On the week of Halloween, I will post about that game, one of the best and scariest ever created.  For now though, something that isn’t exactly "horror", but just as immersive and foreboding.  Let’s go visit the world of kairo. 

 

As you can see, this place makes no sense.  It looks like an abstract artist’s lucid dream, or a mental patient’s description of the interior of a kaleidoscope.  You wake up in a vast whiteness, empty save for a small structure up ahead.  Spatial limitations mean nothing in kairo, so even just this tiny place is actually a labyrinth of connecting rooms, each stranger and more impossible than the last.  As I began exploring, I half-expected Chesire Cat to appear and start giving nonsensical advice.  kairo, in both theme and atmosphere, is certainly like Wonderland.  What are you doing here?  Who are you?  What is the secret of kairo?

 

All of these questions are revealed as you explore further and further, solving the strange puzzles and re-activating the ancient machinery that litters the ruins.  Much of the world draws inspiration from Egyptian architecture, and traversing the convoluted rooms is not unlike making your way through one of the giant pyramids, searching for treasure and answers.  Of course, all logic is thrown out in the window in favor of floating bridges, upside-down coliseums, and awe-inspiring infinite rooms.  Unlike most puzzle games, there is nothing to pick up, nothing to combine together, and bare-minimum interaction.  Everything is solved by doing the only thing you can do:  walking around.  There’s no dialog, no other characters, and no explanation or premise given.  You are alone here. 

 

Early on, as you begin to explore and experience the game, the plain-looking and grainy walls and deafening silence of kairo give no illusions of former grandeur, no do they bear any particular features other than being strange and abstract.  (There’s actually an option to turn off the grainy static that covers everything, in case you get a headache.  It adds a lot to the immersion, though.)  It feels like the world is a photograph or drawing, not ruined or decayed from a glorious past, but a frozen snapshot, like it has never changed and has always permeated.  You feel like a trespasser who’s gone past the “DO NOT ENTER” sign, a stranger in a foreign land, the sole actor in an empty auditorium.  As you turn on the strange machines one by one, you can’t help but feel that someone, or something, is watching you.  Waiting with baited breath for you to accomplish your tasks, solve all the mysteries, and realize your destiny.

All of this becomes apparent through the amazing world design as well as the dark and foreboding music.  Such delightful tracks such as The Walls are Talking, White Noise, and Underground Orchestra echo from around the corners of the monolithic kairo.  Hearing it by itself doesn’t convey the same emotions that it does while playing the game.  In addition to solving the puzzles, exploring the more hidden areas of kairo will yield tiny bits of information about the story, all without dialog or cut scenes.  It almost seems like the world of kairo itself is telling the story.  Even after completing the entire game, the story is intentionally left ambiguous and open to interpretation, and giant chunks of information are left out for none but the most determined players to discover.  

As you make progress and reveal more gigantic structures, solve increasingly bizarre puzzles, and explore the darkest depths of kairo, more things start to happen.  Creepy things.  The world grows darker and more twisted, the already bleak story becomes even more cryptic, and now you are certain, beyond any doubt, that something is watching you.  Nothing ever jumps out at you and no monsters chase you, but by merely continuing on in this strange place, it can be just as frightening as any horror game, purely from the heavy atmosphere and spine-tingling mysterious that unfold.  Even if puzzle solving and exploration aren’t what you want from a game, I recommend it only on the basis of experiencing the atmosphere and world design.  If you’ve ever experienced, or even just imagined, the feeling you get by being in complete isolation, with nothing but your thoughts to accompany you, you already know what it’s like to play this game.  And it’s awesome.  kairo is a masterpiece because it’s able to create the same feeling as if you’re standing alone in the center of an empty baseball stadium, or wandering alone in an abandoned building.  For me, it brings back memories of the Myst games (which I’ll undoubtedly post about at some point, those games are so amazing!) which have similar tone and atmosphere. 

Stare at the towering walls and listen carefully to the static-ridden radio signals.  Walk across an infinity while gazing up at the grainy red sky.  Hope that whatever it is you’re doing here, it’s for a good reason other than for someone to laugh at the rat running through the maze.  Unlock the secret of kairo.

 

(Also, if anyone meets Alice somewhere on their travels, don't let her borrow any money and tell her she still owes me that sandwich.)