Technological dreams produce monsters. Terrifying creatures that inhabit digital environments. Nightmares constructed in pixels, capable of crossing reality and nestling in collective imaginations. Under the protection of the Internet, a genre has emerged based on the virality of the original material: the scary pasta. As with any urban legend, diffusion is the key to the existence of these horror stories, built on the language born on the Internet. This is why its relationship with video games is so close.
At the Disordered Media studio, they know the appeal of abandoned virtual spaces. In your video game oneway.exe: Module 1.0 Withered abodes with their own entity give way to virtual beings that become conscious. The starting point for this landmark debut is to investigate the unfinished horror video game UNTITLED.exebecause his files hide a macabre secret. To find out, you have to move around a computer interface and dig through old conversations and obsolete programs to discover what happened to the three developers of this cursed title.
There is a metatextual point, since behind oneway.exe: Module 1.0 There’s also a small team, led by the developer’s founders, the pair of programmer Bugs Ray and writer Spider Ray. Five friends work alongside them, a small group who made this work possible, full of personality and love for an Internet that no longer exists. Through a mix of exploring 3D environments, solving puzzles and browsing forgotten forums, it becomes the perfect homage to a modern genre.
Archeology of “creepypasta”
The epistolary novel is closely related to horror because of the way the apparent veracity of found texts adds a layer of unease to the stories, which seem more real because of the way they are told. It’s no coincidence that classics like Frankenstein either Dracula They opted for narration by letters. Later, found footage adapted the format for cinema, and although its first examples were found in the 1960s, it flourished a few decades later, as video technology became popular and began to be available to the masses. Thus, the images found, precisely in the air amateur which gives it the type of recording and the small budget with which it was initially associated, captivates the public.
He scary pasta It is only the logical evolution, an heir born under the protection of a primitive Internet where, instead of large companies monopolizing social networks, anonymous interaction in more specialized spaces and freely shared documents reigned. So many of the genre’s most famous stories start from cursed video games, hidden messages on CDs, or haunted email chains. Where found footage shows what is hidden through technology, the scary pasta questions this technological mediation, and the consequences of its implementation in homes.
The language also adapts, as the first-person story emerges in discussions and the handheld camera gives way to issue. All this is present in oneway.exe: Module 1.0, which creates an oppressive atmosphere within the corrupted files. And the abandoned video game, the heart of the story, seems to have its own entity. It is therefore necessary to go through it being aware that penetrating the secrets of its creation will mean delving into the online history of the 2000s. The couple behind the idea met precisely online ten years ago, and it is clear that this story was born from a common interest. It’s actually surprising that so few people have been able to create such a polished video game, combining several animation styles, featuring an immersive soundscape and a wonderful soundtrack by Marcy Nabors (Deltarune), which gives a very immersive title.
Even if it opens with a sequence in a dark corridor and in its first measures we have to flee a creature, these commonplaces give way to a large virtual space. In this way, survival alternates with investigation and solving the enigma. To do this, they accurately recreated various popular digital elements of the time, from forums in which everyone uses pseudonyms to MySpace-style blogs; through office animals, the invasion of pop-ups and gothic aesthetics otaku from the creative portal DeviantArt. They also mix the fears of jump scare with the agitation that emanates from the environment and the confusion of not knowing if the error message that appears occurs in reality or if it is part of the video game, a detail that was unfortunately influenced by the fact that the launch had some initial problems when it was released oneway.exe: Module 1.0 with insects (programming errors) that make gameplay difficult.
The result is a work which is reminiscent of UFO 50 in its meta-narrative, but which focuses solely on the horror. Each of the eight main characters has their own journey, itself inspired by a different horror genre. It is easy to find references to other video games, whether in the mechanics or in the designs. But, in addition to finding references to resident Evil either Five Nights at Freddy’sthere are allusions to acquaintances scary pastaas Sonic.exe —which is based on a cursed video game disc featuring the blue hedgehog—, and, of course, Slender mana story so famous that it is already part of popular culture. This is precisely what you are looking for oneway.exe: Module 1.0: carry out an archeology of the past to justify the stories that were born there.
Nostalgia for a terrifying past
Oneway.exe: Module 1.0 combines the testing of finding security keys among photographs of adorable kittens with the horror that radiates from a corrupted image. Without a doubt, they are manipulating the language of the network. This fascination with lost material is visible even on its website, which hides a reality game, that is, a fragmented immersive story, which in this case expands the traditions of the video game itself. But his love for the medium imbues the work with a certain nostalgia, which sexualizes its monsters and wants to honor the past. From Disordered Media, they assure that their debut brings together “the worst aspects of your nostalgia” for this online space, but it is still a “love letter”, as they themselves define it, for “the horror that can be found on the Internet”.
Knowing better the creators of fiction full of dreams allows us to understand how their frustrations are perverted until they become monstrous. But it functions more as a tribute than a justification.
The video game tells how the Internet has become a space of relief, with the good and bad sides that this entails. For example, knowing more about these creators of fiction full of dreams allows us to understand how their frustrations are perverted until they become monstrous. But it functions more as a tribute than a justification, more in the sense of a Doki Doki Literature Club!a video game known for using online horror codes to break the fourth wall; than to Vile: Exhumedwhich exposes the violence suffered by women through the use of blood in the interface of a computer from the early 2000s. Although oneway.exe: Module 1.0 don’t be subversive, it shows genuine affection and deep respect for all those terrifying stories that came before them.
It will therefore be particularly captivating for those who know this past, its language and the charms of the scary pasta. For those who do not know this virtual heritage, it will be an interesting exercise, to scrutinize a strange and fascinating world, but at the same time it can be difficult to advance through its different scenarios, especially because for the moment it does not have a Spanish localization. Another problem is that its launch was marred by some programming errors that they are still fixing. Additionally, at the time of writing this review, one of the routes is still not feasible. Fortunately for Disordered Media, they already have a small fan phenomenon, who has been captivated by their universe. Maybe, as for a good scary pastaits story eventually spread, and the legacy of this cursed video game endures over time.
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