Day 157 - Ethereal Vail: Arcane Phases
SPOOKY MONTH!, Horror, Short and Free ·
Skeeter’s Take:
Ethereal Vail: Arcane Phases is from our friend BM bongTextPro, the same individual who brought us the champion game Mammoth Hunting.
Unfortunately, Ethereal Vail: Arcane Phases doesn’t come close to the comedy gold of Mammoth Hunting. This is probably BM bongTextPro’s most surreal and experimental game. I’ve played through a few of his other games, and most of them end similarly to Mammoth Hunting (AKA brutal mutilation/death):
It’s Spooky Month, so I knew I could count on BM bongTextPro to give us something horrifying.
It seem Ethereal Vail is based around this one idea from the description:
It feels like there is a point to this game, but I just can’t quite grasp it.
To start, you play as a gorilla roaming through the jungle:
You eventually will come across a glowing baby:
When you touch this baby, you change into a cockroach:
Here’s where BM bongTextPro really delivers on the uncomfortable and uncanny. There are three headed wasp creatures, piles of maggots, some pink fleshy substance all placed on a bed of textured meat. It also happens to make the loudest compounding buzzing and awful noises possible. It’s so loud I had to mute the tab to avoid permanent hearing damage. A cacophony of chaos set to this visual image. Thanks BM bongTextPro. Thank you for the genuine assault on my senses.
You find the glowing baby again and then transform into a Biblical angel in Clown World:
I uhh, don’t really know what’s going on here. There are drugs laying around, and a reversed pentagram in the center. There are a lot of clowns though.
Again, you wander and find the glowing baby and get transformed into a car:
Drive the road of twilight with your floating heart. It’s magical. You eventually run into a glowing baby yet again for one final transformation:
THE GLOWING BABY ITSELF!
You can click on each of the icons and replay the concurrent level.
And that’s Ethereal Vail: Arcane Phases. No bloody mutilation or death at the end!
I have a loose running theory about what this game is trying to demonstrate. This is a very loose running theory, but I’m just trying to put together the pieces of something this esoteric.
There’s a theory (I couldn’t tell you what theory, or maybe it combines multiple theories) that we are all just the universe experiencing itself. The idea is that there is one “consciousness” and that consciousness will live every life possible. I believe that idea has been expanded to include the idea that if God created the universe, he’s the one doing the experiencing. Think of it like God creating a vast VR universe that he can hop into character, live out their life and experience. This is a very simple version of the idea, but I believe this is what this game is trying to display.
The description gives credence to this idea, I believe. The world has horror and beauty, and if god created them, he must have created them to experience and explore.
I think that’s what’s meant by the different colored experiences. The game flips through scenes of beauty, such as the Jungle sequence with the gorilla. It’s an almost serene landscape with some nice jungle beats (sick). Then there’s the late night drive on the quiet and empty road in the middle of the stars. There are few things so cathartic as a late night drive on an empty road.
Then, there are the obvious “horror” aspects. The bugs and raw meat - things typically displayed in horror movies to make people feel uncomfortable. The Clowns being something people are typically scared of as well.
And I think the glowing baby ties it all together. I think it represents rebirth. A new cycle. A new life to explore. Each time you touch the glowing baby, you are reborn as a new character to control. The glowing baby having religious nods itself. The end screen also implies this baby is what’s doing the “experiencing”. The baby sat in the center of some fractals surrounded by the other lives we experienced - free to jump back in and relive at will.
I think this is almost refreshing from BM bongTextPro. It’s esoteric. It’s strange. It might not mean anything and I just read way too deep into it, but I appreciate that BM bongTextPro experimented with this one. I like when games try to display high concept ideas through their medium. Props for that.
I don’t know. I like the (potential) concept of this game, but I don’t know if it ever really “clicked” for me. Also, the ear assault was very aggravating.
Recommend: maybe?
Replay Percentage Chance: 0%
Time Played: 5 minutes
Sam’s Take:
My guy BM bongTextPro was cookin’ something up here. All you do is move around and look for a baby, but I’d be lying if I said the ground-beef-wasp level didn’t give me the willies. I’m not quite ready to say this about rebirth/reincarnation or anything like that. Maybe it is, but the guy put in creepy clowns and a satanic floor pentagram during the angel eyeball level, so I think to some extent he was just bein’ spooky. I wouldn’t be surprised if he just thought the baby jpg looked neat, but maybe I’m being CYNICAL and STUPID.
Is it thought out, or is it creepy JPGS smashed together? I do not know. I do know that, in terms of the JPEGs moving around games we’ve played so far, it’s one of the better ones for sure. At least I felt something. It’s a lot better than Bread. Remember Bread?
Recommend: Uhh… maybe?
Replay Percentage Chance: 0.1%
Time Played: 7 Minutes
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