‘Blackwell’s Asylum” Preview – Alone In The Haze

Normally when people think about game development, in my experience they tend not to think of academia within the same frame of reference beyond research into graphical processing. However, a few programs exist to promote artistic expression in interactive media, and one institution to focus on gaming art is the intercollegiate collaborative entity that is the Danish Academy of Digital, Interactive Entertainment or DADIU.

From 2005 until the present, DADIU’s goal has been to support research and creative endeavors for students and professionals who want to forward the medium past industry trends and towards more variety of artistic expression. From last fall’s semester, we now have a demo for Blackwell’s Asylum (formerly just Blackwell, and not to be confused with the Blackwell franchise of adventure games), from a small team under the title of BlackPipe.

Horror has never been my cup of tea, unfortunately, but with my recent determination to dive into more varieties of gaming experience, I’ve added several horror titles to my “to play” list, including the much-discussed Amnesia, and the classic point-and-click Dark Seed. With my limited exposure to Amnesia so far, I’m seeing some similarities in terms of tone, but nothing much beyond that.

To specify – the environment consists predominantly of fairly narrow, dimly lit, corridors. Said corridors make up the titular Blackwell women’s asylum, in which the protagonist is an inmate. One night, while sedated up to the eyeballs, our heroine escapes her room and cautiously wanders the halls, avoiding wardens’ needles and the ear-ringing tones they produce.

Sneaking around seems comparable to Amnesia in that you must avoid huge, lumbering enemies that will disable you instantly if they catch you, and you have to hide in darkened cabinets and under beds, desks, and couches to avoid being seen. However, unlike Amnesia, there are no puzzles beyond waiting for warden Snidely Whiplash to pass by so you can calm your breathing and move on towards an exit.

The experience of traversing these claustrophobic halls is intended to be visceral and a familiar emphasis is placed on sound and lighting to create atmosphere. The experience, however, is noticeably less frightening, and exactly why is ineffable. To attempt to explain why, one reason is that the persistent distortion effect reminds me of similar effects in other games in which they indicate drunkenness. This certainly works with the horror trope of distorted perceptions, and is doubly effective when the room around you suddenly changes when your back is turned, which happens in several instances.

Another possible reason for the lack of a significant gut reaction on my part was the aesthetic, which relies on hard angles and jagged lines both for the environment and its low-poly-count models. The environment is sufficiently distorted to feel oppressive and unfamiliar in order to provide a sense of unease, which is laudable. However, the whole premise feels rather forced in the following sense: your enemies are nurses (whose features you can see very clearly, and) who (supposedly) care for your health and wellbeing, so unless you can pre-set yourself into a fearful state of mind, I believe you won’t get much shock or disquiet here.

It’s not explicitly stated by the developers, but it’s altogether possible that the premise is based on the story of investigative journalist Elizabeth Jane Cochrane (aka Nellie Bly), who faked insanity in order to investigate the inhumane treatment of patients at a women’s lunatic asylum on Blackwell island. If this is the case, it might warrant a bit of a tonal shift towards more overt, violent, physical horror given the conditions she described being subjected to.

All of that being said, the visual and gameplay core of Blackwell’s Asylum is solid, if slightly tonally varied, so it should be worth keeping an eye on. No full release date is set, and details are rare about the development team as well, so keep a blurry eye open for any further details should they emerge.