Killswitch - russian game - urban ledgend

rodtard wrote:Any of you heard of this one??

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Killswitch







In the spring 1989 the
Karvina Corporation released a curious game, whose dissemination among
American students that fall was swift and furious, though its popularity
was ultimately short-lived.

The game was “Killswitch.”

On the surface it was a variant on the mystery or horror survival
game, a precursor to the Myst and Silent Hill franchises. The narrative
showed the complexity for which Karvina was known, though the graphics
were monochrome, vague grey and white shapes against a black background.

Slow MIDI versions of Czech folksongs play throughout. Players could
choose between two avatars: an invisible demon named Ghast or a visible
human woman, Porto. Play as Ghast was considerably more difficult due to
his total invisibility, and players were highly liable to restart the
game as Porto after the first level, in which it was impossible to gauge
jumps or aim.

However, Ghast was clearly the more powerful character–he had
fire-breath and a coal-steam attack, but as it was above the skill level
of most players to keep track of where a fire-breathing,
poison-dispensing invisible imp was on their screens once the fire and
steam had run out, Porto became more or less the default.

Porto’s singular ability was seemingly random growth–she expanded and
contracted in size throughout the game. A Kansas engineering grad
claimed to have figured out the pattern involved, but for reasons which
will become obvious, his work was lost.

Porto awakens in the dark with wounds in her elbows, confused.
Seeking a way out, she ascends through the levels of a coal mine in
which it is slowly revealed she was once an employee, investigating its
collapse and beset on all sides by demons similar to Ghast, as well as
dead foremen, coal-golems, and demonic inspectors from the Sovatik
corporation, whose boxy bodies were clothed in red, the only color in
the game.

The environment, though primitive, becomes genuinely uncanny as play
progresses. There are no “bosses” in any real sense–Porto must simply
move physically through tunnels to reach subsequent levels while her
size varies wildly through inter-level spaces.

The story that emerges through Porto’s discovery of magnetic tapes,
files, mutilated factory workers who were once her friends, and
deciphering an impressively complex code inscribed on a series of iron
axes players must collect (This portion of the game was almost laughably
complex, and defeated many players until “Porto881″ posted the cipher
to a Columbia BBS. Attempts to contact this player have been
unsuccessful, and the username is no longer in use on any known
service.) is that the foremen, under pressure to increase coal
production, began to falsify reports of malfunctions and worker
malfeasance in order to excuse low output, which incited a Sovatik
inspection.

Officials were dispatched, one for each miner, and an extraordinary
story of torture unfolds, with fuzzy and indistinct graphics of
red-coated men standing over workers, inserting small knives into their
joints whenever production slowed. (Admittedly, this is not a very
subtle critique of Soviet-era industrial tactics, and as the town of
Karvina itself was devastated by the departure of the coal industry,
more than one thesis has interpreted Killswitch as a political screed.)

After solving the axe-code, Porto finds and assembles a tape
recorder, on which a male voice tells her that the fires of the earth
had risen up in their defense and flowed into the hearts of the
decrepit, pre-revolution equipment they used and wakened them to avenge
the workers.

It is generally assumed that the “fires of the earth” are demons like
Ghast, coal-fumes and gassy bodies inhabiting the old machines. The
machines themselves are so “big” that the graphics elect to only show
two or three gear-teeth or a conveyor belt rather than the entire
apparatus. The machines drove the inspectors mad, and they disappeared
into caverns with their knives (only to emerge to plague Porto, of
course).

The workers were often crushed and mangled in the onslaught of
machines, who were neither graceful nor discriminating. Porto herself
was knocked into a deep chasm by a grief-stricken engine, and her
fluctuating size, if it is real and not imagined, is implied to be the
result of poisonous fumes inhaled there.

What follows is the most cryptic and intuitive part of the game.
There is no logical reason to proceed in the “correct” way, and again it
was Porto881 who came to the rescue of the fledgling Killswitch
community. In the chamber behind the tape recorder is a great furnace
where coal was once rendered into coke.

There are no clues as to what she is intended to do in this room.
Players attempted nearly everything, from immolating herself to
continuing to process coal as if the machines had never risen up.
Porto881 hit upon the solution, and posted it to the Columbia boards.

If Porto ingests the raw coke, she will find her body under
control,and can go on to fight her way out of the final levels of the
mine, which are impassable in her giant state, clutching the tape
containing this extraordinary story. However, as she crawls through the
final tunnel to emerge aboveground, the screen goes suddenly white.

Killswitch, by design, deletes itself upon player completion of the
game. It is not recoverable by any means, all trace of it is removed
from the user’s computer. The game cannot be copied. For all intents and
purposes it exists only for those playing it, and then ceases to be
entirely. One cannot replay it, unlocking further secrets or narrative
pathways, one cannot allow another to play it, and perhaps most
importantly, it is impossible to experience the game all the way to the
end as both Porto and Ghast.

Predictably, player outcry was enormous. Several routes to solve the
problem were pursued, with no real efficacy. The first and most common
was to simply buy more copies of the game, but Karvina Corp. released
only 5,000 copies and refused to press further editions. The following
is an excerpt from their May 1990 press release:

Killswitch was designed to be a unique playing
experience: like reality, it is unrepeatable, unretrievable,and
illogical. One might even say ineffable. Death is final; death is
complete. The fates of Porto and her beloved Ghast are as unknowable as
our own. It is the desire of the Karvina Corporation that this be so,
and we ask our customers to respect that desire. Rest assured Karvina
will continue to provide the highest quality of games to the West, and
that Killswitch is merely one among our many wonders.

This did not have the intended effect. The word “beloved” piqued the
interest of committed, even obsessive players, as Ghast is not present
in any portion of Porto’s narrative. A rush to find the remaining copies
of the game ensued, with the intent of playing as Ghast and discovering
the meaning of Karvina’s cryptic word.

The most popular theory was that Ghast would at some point become the
fumes inhaled by Porto, changing her size and beginning her adventure.
Some thought this was wishful thinking, that if only Ghast’s early
levels were passable one would somehow be able to play as both
simultaneously.

However, by this time no further copies appeared to be available in
retail outlets. Players who had not yet completed the game attempted
Ghast’s levels frequently, but the difficulty of actually playing this
enigmatic avatar persisted, and no player has ever claimed to have
finished the game as Ghast. One by one, the lure of Porto’s lost,
unearthly world drew them back to her, and one by one, they were
compelled towards the finality of the vast white screen.

To find any copy usable today is an almost unfathomably rare
occurance; a still shrink-wrapped copy was sold at auction in 2005 for
$733,000 to Yamamoto Ryuichi of Tokyo. It is entirely possible that
Yamamoto’s is the last remaining copy of the game.

Knowing this, Yakamoto had intended to open his play to all
enthusiasts, filming and uploading his progress. However, to date, the
only film which has surfaced is a one minute and forty five second clip
of a haggard Yamamoto at his computer, the avatar-choice screen visible
over his right shoulder.

Yamamoto is crying.


http://inuscreepystuff.blogspot.com/2010/08/killswitch.html

I will be fare cant say i have heard of this until now and only by name cause i did not read all of that. But no i did not hear of that game. And lol on that last paragraph