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Have you played Kitty Horrorshow's Anatomy, one of 2016's best horror games?

M

More_Badass

Member
https://kittyhorrorshow.itch.io/anatomy
$2.99, PC/Mac/Linux

Explore a suburban house, collect cassette tapes, study the physiology of domestic architecture.

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If you're curious about the developer, Slate did a great lengthy piece about her and her work
The most surprising thing about the horror games of indie developer Kitty Horrorshow is what you won’t find in them: There are no monsters, no weapons, and generally no people. You can’t even really die. But they’re scary as hell anyway, and all the more frightening because of what they conceal.
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Meccanical said:
To be honest the scariest experience I've had in a game recently did not involve weapons nor any physical threat of any kind.
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Meccanical said:
It's probably the finest example of psychological horror in any video game.

Then again I guess mileage would vary from person to person.
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epmode said:
Cool Ghosts posted a video/review about the latest Kitty Horrorshow game, Anatomy, and it got me to play it. Legit creepy game with a very unique premise. Short, no jump scares, $3.
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Cool Ghosts
"I can't say much about Anatomy for risk of spoiling it and I can show even less, but I can tell you that this game does so much with so little...Perhaps the most impressive thing about Anatomy isn't the minimalist craft of the author; it's the fact that Horrorshow is exploring new things to be scared of. I think Anatomy and the Horrorshow's work in general might be the best HP Lovecraft videogames ever made."
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RockPaperShotgun
If you’ve ever been startled by the shadow of your own furniture in the dead of night, or by awareness of your heart beating when everything else is silent and still, ANATOMY will probably get right under your skin.
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There are no jumpscares, it’s all in the atmosphere, the audio narration, and some neat tricks the game plays on you, like a proper psychological horror.
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Killscreen
It’s the kind of horror that gets so deep into you that it seems to scratch away at your bones. I’d liken the effect to being dragged perpetually across a saw blade. That the re-recorded VHS format means you exit the game, feeling momentary relief, but then have to force yourself to re-enter this nightmare only multiplies the anxiety.
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Rely on Horror
The horror of Anatomy is a subtle discomfort that spreads through you as you play, though you are consciously fighting the creeping feeling. Anatomy does not create horror within a game, it creates horror within your mind. It sets into motion thoughts that you cannot simply shrug off, and haunts you when you crawl into your bed.
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Playboy
It doesn’t aim to startle you with a big monster or a loud noise. It’s anything but predictable. And that’s exactly what horror should be.
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N

Nick_C

Member
Played about a month ago. I think it should be noted that the game isn't over until you "complete" it a few times.
 
J

John Rabbit

Banned
I was literally about to make this thread. Played this with my wife on Sunday whom after the first 5 or so minutes said aloud "I keep waiting for something to happen, nothing's happening," then spent the remaining 45 minutes becoming increasingly paranoid that something was in our actual house, watching us.

A pretty short, concise experience that feels informed by David Lynch, Alan Resnick, P.T., Silent Hill, and for some reason made me think of early-mids 90s corridor shooters (there's no combat, but the game has a simplified polygonal style and some creepy artwork). Fantastically unnerving audio design as well. Highly recommend using headphones for this. Really fantastic to play something like this amongst the sea of jump-scare fests that seems made exclusively for live streams. Having looked a little bit at her other work, I hope Kitty Horrowshow gets an opportunity to build a larger experience some day.

Also, for those who have played it, question about one of the images in the OP:
The TV never turned on in our playthrrough, as seen in the first image. Is that something you can trigger?
 
A

AESplusF

Member
Just bought it and played through it, I'm really jealous of their unity knowledge, I have no idea how to make it look like that.
 
SerTapTap

SerTapTap

Member
Didn't enjoy it much at all except for the last few moments actually, pacing was dreadful. Everyone talks about replaying it now so maybe I'll try again...But it's very much a clumsily designed game imo. I've scarcely seen such a short game so poorly paced and I usually love this sort of stuff m
 
E

epmode

Member
I played this! It's really good!

I'd like to see Kitty Horrorshow make more of these bigger games instead of the monthly freeware.

John Rabbit said:
Also, for those who have played it, question about one of the images in the OP:
The TV never turned on in our playthrrough, as seen in the first image. Is that something you can trigger?
Click to expand...

Yes, you can turn it on.
 
J

John Rabbit

Banned
Sir TapTap said:
Didn't enjoy it much at all except for the last few moments actually, pacing was dreadful. Everyone talks about replaying it now so maybe I'll try again...But it's very much a clumsily designed game imo. I've scarcely seen such a short game so poorly paced and I usually love this sort of stuff m
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With the exception of maybe the very beginning I found the game to be very explicit and straightforward with what you were expected to do from moment to moment. I'm curious what about it made you feel it's clumsy and poorly paced.
epmode said:
Yes, you can turn it on.
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Huh, I must've just missed the right place to click it.
 
M

Metalmarc

Member
Posting to come back later and will sub


Sounds right up my alley, i have longed for something like this where theres no cheap scares, because most of the time they are rubbish, mostly, Sometimes they are done right in films,but not often.
 
F

FunkyPajamas

Member
I want to try this but I don't want to open a paypal account. Is it on Steam or is there any other way to pay?

Also, what are the system requirements? I own an older laptop (i7 @ 2.2, 16GB, GF GT525M) so I don't know if this will run (though it looks like it might?).

edit: nevermind, I see More_Badass already mentioned laptop can probably run it.
 
Y

ymgve

Member
To answer my own question: It doesn't support inverted mouse controls out of the box. But it's Unity, so I created a patch that fixes this, for those of you like me that can't play with normal mouse controls.

Also, I'm stuck. Third or fourth loop -
I'm in a huge foresty place with lake in the center and an annoying sound. According to the .txt file this isn't the end of the game, so I wonder what I'm supposed to do next
 
E

epmode

Member
ymgve said:
To answer my own question: It doesn't support inverted mouse controls out of the box. But it's Unity, so I created a patch that fixes this, for those of you like me that can't play with normal mouse controls.
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I wish I had this when I played it!

You'd think including an inversion option would be obvious by now but it keeps happening, especially in small games like this.
 
A

Arkeband

Banned
ymgve said:
To answer my own question: It doesn't support inverted mouse controls out of the box. But it's Unity, so I created a patch that fixes this, for those of you like me that can't play with normal mouse controls.

Also, I'm stuck. Third or fourth loop -
I'm in a huge foresty place with lake in the center and an annoying sound. According to the .txt file this isn't the end of the game, so I wonder what I'm supposed to do next
Click to expand...

That is one of the worst descriptions of where that loop takes place, lol.

It was interesting, for three bucks, eh. I was more creeped out when it started.

One of 2016's best horror games seems extremely hyperbolic.
 
A

Arkeband

Banned
ymgve said:
Why?
It's the first forest I've encountered in the game, and it's huge and I have no idea what to do.
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Because it's not a forest, it's pink, first of all, and if you've been paying attention to the narrative you'll know you're being digested.

Edit: After watching some YouTube videos, there's actually a scene I didn't trigger, where
you're outside of the house and you're walking past houses before it crashes. I instead got a scene where the basement was a series of gooey pink tunnels with televisions scattered around. Maybe you did find a forest?
 
Y

ymgve

Member
Arkeband said:
It looks like there's multiple "endings" you can get, then, even within the loop structure.

If it's anything like my ending, there's a tape somewhere that crashes the game one last time before the final scene.
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Yeah, got a different scene now. So far I've seen four different scenes - forest, suburb area, stomach, and maze-like wakways
 
W

WhateverItTakes

Banned
Unsettling is the word. Great use of audio, and the script was delightful. Can anyone tell me which of the developer's freeware is worth taking a look at?
 
M

Mr. Hyde

Member
Loved it! I bought and played through all of it a few nights ago using headphones and having the house alone. It was a very unsettling experience and I loved the concept. I will keep an eye out for more of her projects.

I'm now playing through layers of fear which isn't as creepy but I love the production values and psychedelic imagery that keeps happening.
 
B

Buttonbasher

Member
Just played through this, and am super impressed. What a cool idea, executed in an awesome way.

Can't wait to go back in and see these multiple endings.
 
P

Prime crotch

Banned
I was very surprised at how effective this is at setting a creepy and foreboding atmosphere. The short length helps it immensely though.
 
I

Inkwell

Banned
This was a fantastic little horror game. I played through it twice last night and another time today. Although I found out about the game on NeoGaf, a group of people started one of those book club like podcasts where a game is chosen at the beginning of the month and then discussed at the end of the month. Anatomy is the next game they will discuss. It's called The Gaming Symposium. It includes the people behind the youtube channels Errant Signal, Games as Literature, EmceeProphIt, and Red Angel. I'm sure most people know about Errant Signal, but all of them do the whole game analysis thing, and each of them tend to cover a different aspect of it.

I just want to say something to anyone reading this that hasn't played the game yet. Don't read anything about it! You probably read the OP, but don't do any more than that. I wish I had gone into the game completely blind, even though I still highly enjoyed it.

The game really gave me a House of Leaves vibe, though it also reminded me of Stephen King's 1408 a little bit too. I loved the general aesthetic. Sometimes small indie titles (usually free unity projects) use post processing or visual effects to hide lackluster level design and art direction. Even though Anatomy treads this line, The VHS effect is ultimately effective. The low fidelity assets end up reinforcing it as well. I just love how the eventually corrupted models and map reflect a worn VHS after multiple viewings and time. The writing and voice work were very well done.

There is one unfortunate thing. Like I mentioned before, I wish I had gone into the game completely blind. It hurt the experience knowing that there would be no real danger or jump scares. It didn't completely stop me from slowly creeping around the house to get those tapes. Especially going into that basement. There was always that part of me that knew nothing would jump out at me or attack me and it took off some of the edge. I know there's some people who will refuse to play horror games, especially those with jump scares (I actually kind of love them), and it may be a necessary but slightly detrimental choice to mention it.

It seems that by my count, the game has 5 different ending sequences. I'm not quite sure if each means something different or adds anything to the story/experience. I had an issue where the third time I played through the game I got the same ending I did on my first playthrough. There was too great a chance of getting duplicate endings, so I dug around on youtube and I think I found all of them. I'll put the list in a separate spoiler in case people would like to discover them for themselves:

forest/lake with a large floating house
fleshy tunnels with large tape players
redish maze of raised platforms
neighborhood-like area with a blue moon and frame structures
purpleish cul-de-sac
 
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