The Spiritual Social

Tag: games

  • In case you need a fright…

    Happy Halloween! If you’re like myself, alone for Halloween and need some cultural stimuli to pass the cold, dark hours of the night then I’ve got your back with this post. Here is a mix of genuinely frightening and gently spooky resources which have proven to be oddly comforting to me in this period. Sift through them and perhaps you will find something that has a chance to become your latest obsession.

    MOVIES

    Weapons (2025)

    The topic of witchcraft is probably the most over-used Halloween theme of all, but in this movie it is handled in such a strange and innovative way, through the medium of a classroom of children who dissappear one night, leaving the members of a small suburban community to rage among themselves as to where they could’ve disappeared. Reminding me a little bit of the weird tension contained in the movies “The Sweet Hereafter” or even “The Leftovers“, this movie doesn’t contain the same emotional depths but it is eerie and highly watchable, entertaining and in equal parts brooding. I loved every minute of it! And Amy Madigan’s interpretation of a part witch/part clown madwoman is masterful.

    Longlegs (2024)

    After watching ‘It follows’ and really being pulled into that movie more than I would have imagined, I can safely say that Maika Monroe is slowly growing on me as a scream-queen presence. Different from that movie, the evil presented in Longlegs is bone-deep frightening and not necessarily related to sexual diseases. What makes the evil in Longlegs so suffocatingly awful is that it’s not something you can prepare for or defend yourself against, as it is all-pervasive. It’s also an interesting tale about appearances which can be deceiving: Are your parents good, kind people? Are you actually safe in the house in which you grew up for years? What determines a family member to turn against their own? And what would you do if Evil wants to strike a deal to keep your child alive?

    Aside from the rather funny and dramatic make-up that Nicholas Cage is clad in, throughout the entire movie, the story is not really about him but it is about what drives him and uses him. It’s his passion for bonding with the darkness that sets the story alight and the lead detective is merely someone waking up to a truth that is so harsh and shocking that it destroys whatever security she ever felt in her life. It’s also a well-filmed and perfectly executed movie, which lingers in the mind. I slept with the light on, the night that I saw it.

    Handling the Undead (2024)

    I wouldn’t have imagined that a movie about zombies would make me cry, but somehow this understated European movie did exactly that. In its original depiction of dead people literally rising from their graves and coming back to life during a hot summer day in a non-descript Danish city, this movie is strangely grey, heavy and also weirdly funny in parts. The brilliant Renate Reinsve creates with very little, such an emotional atmosphere around her relationship to her undead son, that by the end of the movie my face was soaked in tears. All, I can say is that I agree with her difficult decision which the movie ends on, and I hope I that I’ve made you curious enough to watch it now.

    Natatorium (2024)

    Since we are still on the topic of small, understated, atmospheric movies that induce subtle chills, I felt like including the debut feature film of Icelandic director Helena Stefansdottir in the list, a little movie called “Natatorium”. The kind of evil present in this movie is subtle and it feels familiar, domestic even. Very much in line with the tales of Shirley Jackson about the family being the epicentre of some truly horrific thoughts and emotions, Natatorium shows the viewers what happens when a family member has a dark ‘hobby’ that she can’t get enough of, a hobby that can be both purifying but also murderous. In certain circumstances, keeping your relatives at arms length can be a life-saving decision and this movie brings this point home like none other.

    Something wicked this way comes (1983)

    If you are looking for a vintage thrill, then I suggest a dive into the film adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s book ‘Something wicked this way comes’. It’s a sumptuous and well-acted piece that has a big heart at the core of it, that being the relationship between a father and his son, laced as it is with guilt and redemption. The Devil is a showman in this story, and he rules over a spooky circus storming into a little American town during a period reminiscent of the Great Depression. As the Devil does its best to fulfill everyone’s deepest desires at a cost, ghosts from the past also begin to emerge and haunt the lives of the townsfolk. The cinematography is really beautiful and the special effects, although incipient for that time-period, are not that bothersome. On the same note, if you want to explore the “creepy circus” theme a bit more in-depth, then I recommend the heart-breakingly disturbing series “Carnivale” (2003-2005).

    Totally Killer (2023)

    This one is not so much a frightening watch, as it is a ruthless one. I was completely surprised by this awesome movie, involving colourful and spunky scenery and pretty sarcastic dialogues making fun of the Gen Z, Millenials and Gen X divide. I also love to finally see Kiernan Shipka’s talent utilised well (after the fiasco that the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina sadly was), but she really pulled her strength in this one and gave one of the best performances of her career so far (in my view). Although the movie is pure 80s nostalgia (remember a time when people didn’t have smartphones to interact with each other?!), the killings are pretty brutal and they happen at such a rapid pace that it keeps things interesting and …well, thrilling. You should definitely give it a watch, if you are more of a light-horror/thriller fan. Oh, and there’s also time-travel involved.

    GAMES

    Nightmare Frames

    From the cut scene that ushers you into this game all the way to its sad denouement, Nightmare Frames is such a treat, in terms of story and character portrayals. The dialogues are interesting and often sarcastic, the twist in the plot is kind of unexpected, and the atmosphere is split between the sunny vibes of the 80s Hollywood scene to that of a creepy, rain-afflicted, poor town in the middle of nowhere, in which the haunting elements of the game really come to life. I felt like I was playing two games in one to be honest, much like how our protagonist is split between his real life and that of the stories he builds in his mind through his scripts. I played this during a hot August weekend with the curtains drawn over my bedroom windows and made such a cool memory of the whole experience. Highly recommend.

    Welcome to Elderfield Demo ( plus any Halloween mix from Ill-Advised Records)

    I have never resonated with a game more than with this creepy little cozy game, that appeared in my life during the summer of one of my deepest depressions. Losing my father this year was a shock to my system that kept me crawling through the last months, devoid of the pleasure of doing anything. As I was healing, I felt increasingly drawn to horror movies, dark tales, murder mysteries and crime thrillers, as if to balance out or maybe to reflect in the exterior my crippled inner world.

    When I stumbled upon Welcome to Elderfield, it was like that moment when I discovered Stardew Valley in 2021 and my life changed for the better! I dedicated countless hours of my life playing that chill game as it lowered my cortisol in the morning while I had my coffee. But I could no longer enjoy playing Stardew Valley this year, as all that sweetness and positivity felt like a hoax seeing as I was at the mercy of raging emotions and dark thoughts. So finding the twilight equivalent to a farming RPG was right up my night-striken alley.

    The game also began blending with my reality, as I found farmer Hans a comforting presence like my father’s ghost, the tentacled creatures that attack me in the game the same as all the people billing me during a time of economic crisis, the zombies attacking me in the spooky mall, very similar to mindless shoppers bumping into me on the streets of Bucharest. Welcome to Elderfield feels to me like waking up to a world of horrors that I gradually had to adapt to and make some sort of weidly beautiful sense of. This game means so much to me and I highly recommend that you try it out, at least for the awesome soundtrack that it comes with, if not for the story or the excellent atmosphere it brings to the table. I cannot wait for this game’s full release and also for Concerned Ape’s “Haunted Chocolatier” too!

    TAROT & ORACLE DECKS

    Lastly, I wanted to share with you some of my favourite divinatory resources. As a tarot reader, I like to celebrate Halloween or Samhain by using these decks: 1) Ghoulish Garb’s Terror Tarot, a deck composed of delightfully drawn major arcana cards; 2) the Horror Oracle, a deck I received as a gift from a subscriber, and was pleasantly impressed to find out that it depicts classic horror movies; 3) the very cute and colourful Halloween Tarot (get the tin box edition, for extra ASMR appeal and a sensual experience when you unbox and shuffle); and 4) the one with the most spiritual potential, especially at it can help one confront their Shadow Self, this is the Deep, Dark and Dangerous Oracle, an incursion into creepy mythological Archetypes. I’ve been using it with my clients for a while now and it always gives us something special to think about during each reading. And last but never least, I need to mention the Seasons of the Witch: Samhain Oracle, which is already a cult classic in the spiritual community and it ignited my love for this holiday.

    That’s all from me. Remember to eat some pumpkin soup, drink cinnamon-flavoured coffee or have a hot chocolate with some spicy chilli, record the dreams you have during Halloween night and sit and have a meal with your dead ones, honor them by their name and light candles next to their portraits on a home altar.

    May you thrive in the darkness!

    With spooky love,

    Lexi

  • Escapism

    As the year draws to a close, I want to reflect on some of the most memorable and emotional gaming experiences I had in the last 12 months. 2024 has been a year in which I was gradually introduced to a variety of new games, after Stardew Valley took me ‘hostage’ since I started playing it in 2021. The gaming platform and provider, Steam played a major role in this change in my gaming, since it began to notify me of new games and offer a variety of impressive discounts. So, I gradually started looking into these new adventures and I was surprised at the range of emotions I experienced while playing them. Some of these games touched me on such a deep level that I felt transformed after I played them, and I wanted to share my impressions, in case I may inspire you to give them a try.

    1) Strange Horticulture (2022), Bad Viking

    A game with probably one of the most haunting atmospheres you could envision, Strange Horticulture is about a mysterious shopkeeper who is trying to keep her mind intact. She is putting clues together and identifying new plants, cataloguing and dealing with the townsfolk odd requests, while also trying to keep a rising depression at bay. As the shopkeeper, you also get to travel to collect plants and gather information. The plants are poetically named and the collection is large. The pervasive sense of dread that looms over the entire game matched by the constant rain, smoked oaky graphics and flowing controls make it such an engrossing play! It’s like nothing I’ve ever played before; kind of like a weird blend of Murder, She Wrote meets Plants versus Zombies meets the constant gloomy weather of Blade Runner and the heavy sadness engulfing Dark Water. The only downside of this game is that it ends too soon, as I think I finished it in roughly 4 hours. The highlight is that it has a number of alternative endings so you can play over and over again and meet a different conclusion. The same creators are now preparing a new game called Strange Antiquities, and if it’s half as good as this one, then I’m already excited about it. If you don’t enjoy daylight and like plants (which may sound like an oxymoron), give this sullen gem a try.

    2) Sally Face (2016), Portable Moose

    If Strange Horticulture grazed the surface of a potential depressive episode taking over our main character, in Sally Face issues related to murder, disfigurement, soul snatching, suicide and involvement with a satanic cult are tackle in such a direct way that it packs a powerful emotional punch. The difficult themes and gore present in the game are somewhat softened by the caricature-like drawings of the main characters and difficulty of some of the puzzles involved. Needless to say, the game begins with a night-marish situation and continues very much so for the entirety of 5 episodes. Just as a heads up: it gets worse for the main characters rather than easier for them, as they find themselves involved in a plot that is bigger than the building in which you are initially conducting your personal investigation. Time passes, characters grow but so too does the darkness and it is this passing of time and watching how they developed from deep childhood trauma, that makes the game so emotional as well as the fate of its main character and the way he manages to somehow be forever connected to the girls of his dreams (it’s not what you’d expect!).

    To be honest, Sally Face had me crying towards the end, after I compulsively played through all the episodes in just two days because I really wanted to know what was going on with Sal and his group of friends. Again, it’s not a game I would recommend to everyone as it will only please a select few, but if you have any Scorpio/Capricorn/Pisces energy in your chart and you grew up in the post-communist 90s environment listening to Nirvana’s ‘Smells like Teen Spirit’ on repeat, then you are going to love this game. And on a final note, I would say that escaping into a game in which you need to keep your character alive and to care for their depression, well this temporarily takes your mind off your own; and it’s a liberating feeling.

    3) Paradise Killer (2020), Kaizen Game Works

    At the polar opposite to Sally Face is Paradise Killer, which in my humble opinion is the best game I played in 2024! You play as the exiled investigator Lady Love Dies, a heart-adorned goddess of the law who is called back from her exiled state after serving 3M days because there was a problem in the creation of the latest version of Paradise Island, that problem being that the entire ruling council was murdered by a common citizen, one Henry Division. Until the crimes are solved, no one can escape this version of the island in order to be updated/uploaded into the new one, a more perfect version of Paradise, also known as sequence 25. What follows is sheer beauty as you get to explore paradise, collect clues and blood crystals, order funny drinks from vending machines and chat with some criminally over-developed characters.. all while enjoying some vapour-wave, synth music in the background and preparing your incriminatory case for the Judge. It’s colourful, smooth, esoteric, funny, brash and pleasant, it’s the perfect game to play during a summer holiday. And despite being a walk’n’talk adventure it never gets boring, as you always feel like there is more to discover in the kitschy-cool environment or more conversations to be had with the usual suspects. Plus Shinji is the best antidote to any creeping sadness or melancholy you may be feeling. Please, do yourself a favour and play it over the upcoming holidays.

    4) Botany Manor (2024), Whitethorn Games

    This game is the lighter, brighter and breezier alternative to Strange Horticulture. You play as botanist Arabella Green who is writing a book on the special and peculiar behaviours of rare plants. In the process you get to explore an English countryside manor, gather clues and cultivate magical flora until you grow specific plants. Even if you may feel green with envy at the gorgeous environment of Ms Green’s homestead, at least you get to practice your green thumb (ok, I’ll stop now) and escape your immediate reality in this beautifully sunlight game replete with inventive puzzles (my favourite was making the apple cider to water the seeds of the Pixie Tears pot). The graphics and game mechanics take a little bit of adjusting to, but the game leads to such a subtly heart-breaking and yet oddly empowering conclusion that you may just miss it if you don’t pay attention. Like an unfolding rose, this game is filled with minute, pretty details that will make you want to re-play it several times. I know I will.

    5) Pools (2024), Tensori

    ICONIC. This game is so innocent looking at first glance that you may be mysteriously sucked into giving it a random chance to ‘see what all the fuss is about’, only to be faced with such deep primordial fears that you feel like pushing the lid down on your laptop and seeking professional help. On the surface pools is a beautifully design minimalist, liminal masterpiece in which you get thrown from a ladder onto an odd and super clean environment in which you just walk around splashing in pools. You don’t know how you got there; you don’t know who put you there, you don’t even know how you look, nor can you look out the windows that populate the space because they are brimming with powerful white light. Are you on a spaceship? Are you an alien? Are you a person who bought a ticket to an underwater adventure-land only to be met with this string of water-filled rooms? How do you get out? And what even is out in this context? The game is advertised as “rooms filled with pools, a game which has no monsters but can invoke fears of getting lost, the dark, and tight spaces”. And wow! those fears can become so palpable: from being met with a deep howl or whispers in the dark, to walking in an unlit room knee-deep in water and randomly being touched by large inflatable ducks, to finally finding a light under the water only to see a ladder going down into the pool and a pair of human hands reaching out from below towards you.

    The worst was probably the ending to chapter one in which you have to walk on a thin sliver only to reach a small diving platform but the trick is that there is not water around you just pitch-black darkness, literally encouraging you to jump from a great height straight into the unknown/the pitch-black darkness around you. I had to gather all the courage I had to jump and once I landed into the next chapter, I went out for a run just to emotionally self-regulate. Without a doubt this game is free therapy, if you are brave enough to slide on its glistening, wet tiles and you enjoy random, self-induced thrills. By the way, at the time of writing this, I am still trying to find my way out of level 2 and I am reliant upon game maps made by more experienced players.

    6) Grim Fandango Remastered (2015), Double Fine Production

    A classic game, not only in the genre it is part of (noir adventure) but overall, a classic as part of the string of awesome Lucas Arts Entertainment Games that were released during the 90s and that populated many of our after-school hours. The first time I played it, I think I was about 14 -15ish and I was so captivated by the story and the graphics (I always had a thing for art deco and El Dia de Los Muertos, and this game combined them both!!) only to be disappointed by the game mechanics. I got perpetually stuck in the first part of the game, not really understanding how to throw the rope made of ties to the other side of the building in order to make it stick (see, this was in the dark ages, a time before the existence of play-throughs). The game was also clunky to play on an old-fashioned computer keyboard and the rising frustration that I felt eventually made me abandon the game since I had other hobbies to focus on (like painting my bedroom door while listening to Garbage or Creed). Cut to 26 years later and here I was on a cold October day when I suddenly received a notification from Steam that Grim Fandango (the remastered version) can now be purchased for 3 dollars. I clicked all the way until I heard Many Calavera’s voice enticing me to pick up the note in his info-tube and never looked back.

    And this is how I managed to fulfill a teenage dream, to finally play this game and find out exactly what actually made the fandango so grim. Oh boy, and the story is actually EPIC. It spans across years and continents, somehow driven by our main character’s (travel agent to the dead, Manuel ‘Manny’ Calavera) capacity to transform every opportunity thrown his way into a lucrative business operation: he owns a restaurant, he sails and leads a ship and all throughout it, he never stops searching for his sweetheart, a woman with a heart of gold called Mercedes ‘Meche’ Colomar. On his adventures, Manny is helped and somewhat also perturbed by his close friend, the gentle giant Glotis.

    It is a deeply funny and life-inspiring game, despite the grim nature of the proceedings with many adorable little details that give you food for thought: such as seeing skeletons transform into fertile soil for flowers once they are killed. Grim manages to tell a sweeping story about difficult topics such as death, divorce, betrayal, exile and exploitation without ever falling into melodrama and always, always making fun of itself and this is why it’s such an amazing game that reaches your heart at the same time. It’s like watching a movie, a beautifully designed, cleverly scripted, demented movie that borrows elements from Casablanca, Key Largo and the Maltese Falcon (all those Humphrey Bogart classics, which true fans will appreciate). It took me 26 years to see Meche and Manny together in that amazing final cut scene, but I think in this case the wait was certainly worth it!

    I wish I could extend this list to 10 games but that would be untrue as I only played and loved the 6 ones above. Honourable mention goes to: Potion Craft – The Alchemist Simulator, a game that is pretty decent and fun but a bit repetitive; Melatonin – a game which sounds and looks better than it actually is to play, as passing to new levels is strangely difficult and the story is uninspiring; and The Unavowed, a dark game I enjoyed playing but simply hated the ending, so it didn’t make this list. All of the above-mentioned games will be included in gameplays on my second YouTube channel The Eden Nearby, so it’s worth subscribing in order to be notified when I upload each clip. Comment down below and let me know what games you played this year, if at all, and what games have made it into your top 10.

    With universal love,

    Lexi