Wow how is there this much discussion of Drowned God in the 2020s?? I literally wrote the Wikipedia article for this, and though it was a labor of love, I thought I was practically the only person who remembered this game. Glad to see so many other people enjoy and remember it today.
There is something beautiful about the work individuals like you do. No obscure art should be forgotten or destroyed, and Wikipedia is one of the best places to record such things.
I used to play an old (the first) mmo called Ultima Online. I met a player named "Drowned God" and always thought it sounded cool. It stuck in the back of my head for a very long time. Fast forward like 12 years, I started watching Game of Thrones, and heard how the Ironborn worship the "Drowned God". Now this pops up, and I'm a little bit more flabbergasted. Is this where GRRM got the name from? Probably something much older I'm betting.
The Egyptian stuff is in Mesoamerica because Harry believed Osiris and Quetzalcoatl were one and the same. The game tells that the destruction of the 10th planet (by the Ark of the Covenant I believe) send aliens to Earth, where they lived and thrived in Atlantis. The Egyptians called the first to arrive Osiris. The asteroid impact created the flood (in biblical terms) on Earth, which destroyed Atlantis and sent the aliens to mesoamerica. I feel like part of the (actual) legend of Quetzalcoatl involves the ocean, but I can’t remember… I feel like Harry intentionally made this game obtuse and highly symbolic with the hope players would get together and talk about it. That’s probably why connecting to the internet is in the game, so players could talk on message boards. Unfortunately the public had really soured on adventure games by this point and the internet was too new. At least we’re here 25 years later! Great video, thanks for making.
There’s so much to talk about with this game, but there’s something right off the bat with the music that deserves mentioning. When you walk into the spiral staircase inside the Bequest Globe, you get that awesome, disconcerting music. This is actually a “composite rhythm” in musical terms, since it’s a combination of the sounds coming from above and below. When you walk in the sound is perfectly balanced, but looking and moving up and down biases the sound towards what you’re looking at, above or below. Walk around in there and you’ll see what I mean. Amazing music *and* a plot device? This game is special.
@@ARealHuman Couldn't agree more, but this game seems to be more popular now than ever. Shameless plug, but I have some videos on my channel that didn't really get any views until Nexpo did his video about Harry. Between his video and yours covering the actual gameplay in-depth, more people are learning about the game.
Will Joss did the music. Someone should get in contact with him...years ago I was chatting with him on the now defunct G+ and he had a lot to say about the music. The game really butchered his compositions and they only used tight loops that were cut out of the larger work. I'd LOVE to hear the full music. So far I've only found one of the pieces he wrote that is complete...if you look up "Miasma Settled Storm" on TH-cam you'll find it. The circular piano you hear on the DreamMachine in places comes from "Settled Storm."
I'm so used to discussions of this game devolving into TH-camrs mugging for the camera shouting, "ZOMG MURDER!!! OMG!! MURDER!" like a 12 year old edge lord who thinks real life death is a creepypasta and shouting about it is fun and quirky. Having encountered so many of those, I was basically without hope that anyone would actually make a video on the game that had a thoughtful analysis of its' contents. I have never been so glad to be so wrong. Thank you for your analysis and for treating the unfortunate deaths of the game's creator and his wife with restraint and good taste. I don't have any idea why you don't have more followers when your content is of such high quality.
I remember playing this game in 96 on my uncle's computer when I was 13. To say it had a strong impression on me was an understatement. He was always into mysticism and the secret of the stone but never impressed anything upon me. After playing this game (which i never finished) I felt there was a message about the world I hadnt even experienced yet and it kept my eyes open for a long time. People dont understand how eerie and creepy this game was with its brilliant sound design. Maybe the compression and emulation makes it hard to understand but back when I played it from disk everything was clear as hell to understand. Thank you for making this.
I remember my dad playing this game when I was super young, I loved the strange and beautiful direction the estranged creator took. Tbh if anything lore wise could be taken with any salt, I’m always surprised by how much research Horse and his staff conducted. Horse allegedly had a sequel planned but since his demise we probably won’t see it, but I’m so happy that someone else took the time to make a video about this game. My fascination with this gem runs deeps.
Personally speaking, I always found Baphomet (which I firmly believe is a disembodied brain being kept alive (somehow) in that brass head) infinitely spookier. Not quite as spooky as the various stations on the DreamMachine in Chokmah, but close.
A bit of behind-the-scenes context for the game: Harry and his team originally wanted Chesed (the island in the Bermuda Triangle) to be the first world explored, not the second. Additionally there were supposed to be nine separate endings to the game, one for each of the nine Sacred Numbers one could be assigned at the start. The last world, Chokmah, was meant to be a full-blown realm and was supposed to go from the diner and caravan into the underground bunkers of Area 51 and somehow connect to the Great Pyramids of Giza. This is borne out by some map/mosaics you can view in the Din realm in the "Theatre of Memory" lobby, behind the two giant dolls there. Because the game as released was such a butchered mess, and because Harry insisted in private correspondence his belief that the game code for that element was complete, a sequel was planned that would be a full playthrough of Chokmah. I had the good fortune of exchanging letters with Harry in mid-2005, and while he was unhappy with how his original vision for "Drowned God" was so wrecked by what was ultimately released, he was still proud of the effort. Thanks for this well-presented and thorough review.
Wow, that makes sense that Binah would be the second world. The second time you talk to Keether they tell you that in the “next” world time is the key and to be careful who you trust. That dialogue only makes sense if Binah is second because it has the time puzzle and treachery/betrayal stuff.
@@PhillipOliverWholes It gets better. Originally no less than William S Burroughs was supposed to narrate the game, and that the player was meant to have a bit more agency in terms of where they go and what they could do. Alas, Burroughs died just before they were preparing to record lines, and the game engine ended up getting short-changed by the programmers, reducing transition between clicks to single-frame scenes (like in "Myst"). On top of all that, the rights to the game are an utter mystery as Harry was locked out of his own game at the end by Inscape, which folded up scant months after the game's release. His fellow designers/producers reportedly cut separate deals with Inscape and other parties, both for profits and spin-off media (which was planned but never developed). With all the nonsense about "don't trust too deeply" that the Bequest Globe, Keter and Melchut were spouting, you have to wonder if someone wasn't projecting messages from the future!! (insert silly emoji face here)
@@YankeePendragon Wow dude (or dudette), do you still have any of that correspondence? Would you be ok with sharing any of that? Either way, thanks for dropping all this knowledge. I did comment on one of my vids that I was sure Burroughs was meant to voice Baphomet.
@@PhillipOliverWholes I'm male, and yes, I kept his letters. I'll need to get them scanned and will need an email address to send them to. I've already asked his sister and she's agreed I can share them.
@@YankeePendragon Oh that's super nice of you, but I meant more in terms of game preservation. Like if there were anything relevant to the game/music/making of etc, would you be willing to post those parts somewhere. I don't know him or anyone involved so, I dunno that feels a bit weird for me to have, lol.
Harry used to do artwork for The Scotsman. His FINAL piece before his death was called "Atlantis Rising," and has themes from Drowned God in it...an image of ruins rising from the ocean while a surprised bull-man...yes, a manimal, as seen in Chesed, watches. You can still find that piece of artwork out there if you look.
no happy ending or hope at all then, very dark but interesting game, i had the demo on the old windows 95 game sampler disc when i was young, always wanted to find out about it.
I wish I could afford to pay you to make these forever. I love retrospectives and analyses on old games like “Harvester” and “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”, and I’m always searching them out. Even though I searched time and time again I’ve never seen your videos before until a couple days ago. You do absolutely fantastic work and I’m really hoping that you get the recognition you deserve! If TH-cam finally sent me in your direction, maybe there’s more to follow!
I'm not gonna lie, my favorite part of any environment in this game, is the sky in chokma, there's just something so goddamn bizarre about the red and orange colour that makes it stick out in my mind
It's really nice to see a game as obscure as this covered to such detail! If you haven't played, I'd recommend the other games released by Inscape, Bad Day at the Midway and The Dark Eye. Both have a surprisingly simular surreal and twisted atmosphere.
I first heard of this game from an ad in PC Gamer back in the 90s. The best way you can sum it up is as an Ancient Aliens fever dream. It's like all the things AA Theorists actually believe summed up in a way that only makes sense to them.
This game was odd to follow, I appreciate the amazing and well-made treatment of it in this fantastically well made video however learning about the creator and his end certainly put a vibe underneath it all. Thanks for bringing it to us, odd to follow!
Just found this channel through the i have no mouth analysis and after hearing his thoughts on point and click adventures i used to play, im now inspired to finally play through the syberia (as of right now) trilogy. I have had those games on my bucket list for years.
I had this game as a child as I loved the point and click myst style games. I would play them with my dad. We had this game but there was a bug and we could only play the first hour or so. I always found it curious and bizarre. Fun to come back after all these years to see more.
Just found out I WASN'T subscribed to you after randomly thinking about your System Shock video while I had the Mandalore Gaming video about it in the background. Then I find out you have new videos I haven't seen since. You deserve more subs imo. Great content.
I’m still not sure what’s going on but I think Baphomet is pretty cool. Such a cool design that raises interesting questions, and I can actually hear what he’s saying! I wish I knew who voiced him because the game doesn’t tell you who voiced which characters.
It's sad, Harry Horse's death and murder of his wife make for a compelling conspiracy for newbies, but looking at it at all he was just a troubled man who reacted in a terrible way to a stressful situation. He was probably somebody with the capacity to do that most of his life, and drugs & hardship sent him tragically over the edge. Looking at this game it's all just remixed comic book stuff, UFO lore that could be found in dozens of books at the time of the game's creation, Horse just put it together into a narrative with a hero and compelling visuals.
Damn I completely forgot old computers had that hardware, we all just got used to the fact that HDMI cables can transmit audio and video rather than a machine producing its own sounds
In the months since this video has come out I’ve made a transcript of ALL the dialogue and ALL the written text with the raw files, and even then I couldn’t get everything, (there was another person called Folkin who did some too) but I tried.
@@EstereoOutsider I would, but unfortunately TH-cam doesn’t like people sending links to websites outside of TH-cam unless you are the original poster of the video where the comments are taking place. In my experience they get deleted even if you try and edit them a bit.
@@xenosascended6733 sorry, TH-cam doesn’t like uploading links to non-TH-cam places. I’ll try and see if I can upload it somewhere else that I can just tell you where it is so you can look it up yourself.
Excellent video! I just thought you’d be interested to know that MJ12 stands for Majestic 12, not Magic 12! It’s a reference to a supposed secret committee that exploited alien technology after the Roswell UFO incident.
My Dad would always talk about this game, trying to connect with my nerdy younger self. I joined freemasonry a few years ago, and this game came to mind when reading about various misconceptions/theories about masonry. Just watched this video and it's interesting seeing bits and pieces of esoteric topics sprinkled in the game. There's even a picture of a tiled floor and the Brazen Pillars, which is huge masonic imagery. Awesome video!
The game in the pyramid temple, placing counters then moving them to connect 3 is 9 mens Morris- which goes back to the middle ages. Nice to see it included!
The speech from the mask-character at the end. Azariah Kyras's speech from Dawn of War II is very very similar. I now strongly suspect someone at Game's Workship played this. "The truth is there is no truth. Only the ragged march of CHAOS!" "What is this path. This meaning. This purpose...It is nothing. There is no meaning. No purpose. We murder, we kill. It is mindless savagery. Thus universe is mindless!"
I think you might enjoy the old point and click adventure game Discworld Noir. It's probably my favorite, it's got excellent writing and voice acting, and the gameplay isn't obtuse most of the time. Also, thank you for this video!
I started watching this when it premiered, got sick from covid and forgot, and just now remembered I haven't seen most of this video. What a nice surprise!
I want to thank you sincerely for this amazing walk-through commentary on a game that, to this day 25+ years later, still haunts me. Insert Disc 1 I've played games my whole life and went through my fair share of 90s adventure games...Myst, 7th Guest, Tex Murphy, The Black Dahlia, etc...but it was something multi-faceted that made the Drowned God sink it's hooks into me. Could be timing...X-files and other alien and government conspiracy stuff was really popular at the time, questions of our true origins, and of course the freak production values and vague explanations that required you to fill in the blanks. Insert Disc 2 I loved how also the historical time capsules and subject matter was varied yet focused. And of course Keitherr (as above, spelling unguaranteed) was such an "Agent Smith" authoritarian man in black big brother, and the Nephilim (down below) were these hippie non-GMO foods but certainly GMO when it came to humans. All bickering over the same thing. Update your game on your dial-up modem to get certain puzzles to work... Insert Disc 3 In parting, thanks for such the amazing coverage for a one-of-a-kind game. The story of Harry Horse is tragic, such brilliance, yet such disturbance. I would totally be open to a re-make. Thank you though sincerely for now. Legion
28:09 We have this as a board game in Germany. It's called "Mühle" (mill) over here. The english Wikipedia says it's known in english speaking countries as "nine men's morris". Also it says it can be dated back to at least the roman empire...
If i am not mistake they planned at least 9 endings and more worlds/factions, but due to budgetary issues(or outside pressure...) only 3 was in the final version
Im really enjoying this my dude. And im gona watch your other point n click stuff. Hour n a half is perfect length for this stuff. And love your pacing bro
yeah who stabs themselves 47 times, including in their genitals.. as well who stabs their partner 30+ times out of love... what a load of BS even by the standards of modern BS overload
It's so bizarre having been someone that spent 10+ years in the occult world (ex-Thelemite, Crowley's "religion", ex-member of his reformed initiatory group the OTO or Ordo Templi Orientis) seeing all this stuff in a game... but so much of it is straight up wrong... Crowley didn't form the Golden Dawn (something I hear a lot and have no idea why people think is true) he joined it and was largely responsible for it falling apart. Crowley took all the Golden Dawn material and unified it with Thelema to create the A.'.A.'. (which can stand for a few things but usually Argenteum Astrum). That's the only Order that Crowley formed. Otherwise like with the Golden Dawn he'd enter an occult system and destroy it or reform it to make them his own (like he did with the Ordo Templi Orientis). Once he was in control of both the A.'.A.'. and the OTO he made the A.'.A.'. something akin the the secret society within the secret society of the OTO. Side note it was The Book of Lies that pops out in the game that got him into the OTO to begin with... oh and the letter that mentions the Tower on Wheels is probably a reference to The Invisible College which if you search on Wikipedia you'll see is represented as a Tower on Wheels and it was a precursor to The Royal Society of London and has its roots in the original Roscicrusian Manifestos which yes does mean the modern Royal Society is directly tied to Rosicrusianism. The Golden Dawn was created by Mathers and a few other Masons who were part of the SRIA (a Rosicrusian Order open only to Master Masons). The thing in the game about the ritual at Boleskine House at Loch Ness is also totally wrong as Mathers wasn't even there for Crowley to "leave him for dead", quite the opposite Crowley abandoned the ritual (The Abralemin Rite, which Mathers helped translate) because Mathers requested he come to Paris for Golden Dawn business. The closest thing I can think of to Crowley putting people in danger for his insanity was in Italy at his decrepit Abbey of Thelema which got so absurd and grotesque it led to the death of Raoul Loveday and umm a woman doing things with animals... Mussolini actually kicked him out of the country for what he did there. Declassified British documents show he was working for the English government and it's quite likely he took down the Golden Dawn because it was becoming a source for Irish nationalism and he took over and reformed the Ordo Templi Orientis because it was, to a more or less degree no one really knows, being used by German Intelligence (pre-WW2). I really wonder what sort of books Harry Horse was reading to get his information... I have a sneaking suspicion he fell victim to Operation Mind F**k which was started by a group called the Discordians who, especially through the works of Robert Anton Wilson and his Illuminatus Trilogy and articles in Playboy of all places intentionally wove a confusing meld of real occult history and utterly made up conspiracy theories (many of which are unironically believed by millions today and is where most modern concepts of the Illuminatistuff come from rather than the historical Bavarian group). I absolutely adore Robert Anton Wilson, he's one of the few people from the occult world I still have any respect for after being in the world and learning far too much about people like Crowley but if you didn't get that his goal was to weave humour and seriousness to, loosely in his words, "make people not become agnostic about God but about everything" it's a recipe for insanity... someone literally held a pizza store hostage and asked the cops for a copy of a Robert Anton Wilson book and was caught while eating pizza... So Discordian stuff mixed with crazy stuff written by people who knew a thing or two but not much about the occult world much have driven him totally bonkers... I feel terrible for his wife... and for him... but mostly his wife and pets. Getting involved in occultism is something you gotta take responsibility for as you're playing with fire, quite literally pushing the limits of dissociating from consensus reality. There's some stuff in here that is somewhat on point like Newton was an occultist and I suppose if you consider Spinoza esoteric then so was Einstein and aspects of the Kabbalah stuff is alright I guess... and yeh Jung did write about the "modern mythology of UFOs" but it seems Harry bit off more than he could chew researching all this, likely with bad sources. I wonder if he was part of any strange cult? I mean the Typhonian Order did connect Crowley's depiction of Lam with aliens so that might be a candidate...
@joeljohnson7662 every reply ive written you keeps getting deleted somehow.. i thought it was firefox plugins but turned them off... got deleted again.I'm trying my phone now. If this actually stays ill spend the time to rewrite the original answer i put a lot of time and effort into
@joeljohnson7662 I had written at first a long list of useful resources to use to look into everything I had written about (then another shorter rewrite) and will do so again and make sure I have a copy of any response in case it gets deleted for whatever reason but till then if you have specific questions lemme know. Depending on your interests I can tailor resources to whatever you're intrigued about the most. I'm very busy at the moment helping a lover clean her place but will write sporadically throughout the day some useful resources and thoughts. Just can't do that quite right now. Hope you're well. Cheers. Ewige Blumenkraft und ewige Schlangenkraft
Wonder if those friends that provided the quote were ever named. Seems odd they found him "demented" and saying such a thing. A detective might say it's too good to be true. I've known a poor man who actually stabbed himself in his temple trying to end it. However, slashing at one's own genitals multiple times is a hard one to wrap my head around.
Wish the closed captions for this were better. The autogenerated ones struggle with gameplay audio which isn't the best due to all the voice filters,effects and music happening at once with not-exactly-the-best audio mixing, and considering there's so many strange names and words being thrown around, it's very crucial to understanding what's going on.
The ending of this game was always confusing. You were told more than once that one of the lodges is lying to you. The judgement card makes it pretty obvious that Kether is the one lying as they hold the "firebird" and launch it. And yet they were both obviously lying to you as you get the "Fool" card no matter who you chose. HOWEVER...Cayce says pretty explicitly that you need to make your choice "between" the two lodges, which is the third ending that is literally "between." Is this the Dreamgate? A real pity the game was cut short at this point.
What a nice video for the Halloween season :) I love the aesthetic of these old, Myst-like games. The 3d rendered graphics just look so pleasing and this game is certainly quite interesting to boot! Thank you for the vid :D
Dude, the nWo has been talked about since the 70s and probably behind that, the public first incling of it was Raegan talking about "a new world order" back in the 80s. "Get with the program, kid..."
Look up Jack Parsons, L Ron Hubbard, the Philadelphia Experiment, and Genesis 6. It'll put a lot of this game into the proper context. Also, I doubt very much that Harry Horse killed himself. Also, they're turning the freaking frogs gay!!
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Wow how is there this much discussion of Drowned God in the 2020s?? I literally wrote the Wikipedia article for this, and though it was a labor of love, I thought I was practically the only person who remembered this game. Glad to see so many other people enjoy and remember it today.
Is it true Harry’s relatives believe he was murdered?
There is something beautiful about the work individuals like you do. No obscure art should be forgotten or destroyed, and Wikipedia is one of the best places to record such things.
Deep lore
Oddheader did a vid called "7 Video Games With Mysterious Connections to Cults" -talking about the developer, and interviews about his beliefs.
I used to play an old (the first) mmo called Ultima Online. I met a player named "Drowned God" and always thought it sounded cool. It stuck in the back of my head for a very long time. Fast forward like 12 years, I started watching Game of Thrones, and heard how the Ironborn worship the "Drowned God". Now this pops up, and I'm a little bit more flabbergasted. Is this where GRRM got the name from? Probably something much older I'm betting.
The Egyptian stuff is in Mesoamerica because Harry believed Osiris and Quetzalcoatl were one and the same. The game tells that the destruction of the 10th planet (by the Ark of the Covenant I believe) send aliens to Earth, where they lived and thrived in Atlantis. The Egyptians called the first to arrive Osiris. The asteroid impact created the flood (in biblical terms) on Earth, which destroyed Atlantis and sent the aliens to mesoamerica. I feel like part of the (actual) legend of Quetzalcoatl involves the ocean, but I can’t remember…
I feel like Harry intentionally made this game obtuse and highly symbolic with the hope players would get together and talk about it. That’s probably why connecting to the internet is in the game, so players could talk on message boards. Unfortunately the public had really soured on adventure games by this point and the internet was too new. At least we’re here 25 years later!
Great video, thanks for making.
This game was truly ahead of its time.
You are right.
We have just re-released the game on the Epic Game Store true to the original and Harry's vision.
I miss 1994 to 1997. Cuse it was that weird period between 2d and 3d. So much experimental games. Good times
So much passion. Now we have garbage like Minecraft, Roblox, Freefire and such.
There’s so much to talk about with this game, but there’s something right off the bat with the music that deserves mentioning. When you walk into the spiral staircase inside the Bequest Globe, you get that awesome, disconcerting music. This is actually a “composite rhythm” in musical terms, since it’s a combination of the sounds coming from above and below. When you walk in the sound is perfectly balanced, but looking and moving up and down biases the sound towards what you’re looking at, above or below. Walk around in there and you’ll see what I mean.
Amazing music *and* a plot device? This game is special.
That's amazing! I never would have picked up on that. All the more reason Drowned God needs to make a comeback.
@@ARealHuman Couldn't agree more, but this game seems to be more popular now than ever. Shameless plug, but I have some videos on my channel that didn't really get any views until Nexpo did his video about Harry. Between his video and yours covering the actual gameplay in-depth, more people are learning about the game.
Will Joss did the music. Someone should get in contact with him...years ago I was chatting with him on the now defunct G+ and he had a lot to say about the music. The game really butchered his compositions and they only used tight loops that were cut out of the larger work. I'd LOVE to hear the full music.
So far I've only found one of the pieces he wrote that is complete...if you look up "Miasma Settled Storm" on TH-cam you'll find it. The circular piano you hear on the DreamMachine in places comes from "Settled Storm."
I'm so used to discussions of this game devolving into TH-camrs mugging for the camera shouting, "ZOMG MURDER!!! OMG!! MURDER!" like a 12 year old edge lord who thinks real life death is a creepypasta and shouting about it is fun and quirky. Having encountered so many of those, I was basically without hope that anyone would actually make a video on the game that had a thoughtful analysis of its' contents. I have never been so glad to be so wrong. Thank you for your analysis and for treating the unfortunate deaths of the game's creator and his wife with restraint and good taste. I don't have any idea why you don't have more followers when your content is of such high quality.
Oh yeah, it was redrum fer sure 👀
I remember playing this game in 96 on my uncle's computer when I was 13. To say it had a strong impression on me was an understatement.
He was always into mysticism and the secret of the stone but never impressed anything upon me. After playing this game (which i never finished) I felt there was a message about the world I hadnt even experienced yet and it kept my eyes open for a long time.
People dont understand how eerie and creepy this game was with its brilliant sound design. Maybe the compression and emulation makes it hard to understand but back when I played it from disk everything was clear as hell to understand.
Thank you for making this.
Nowadays the greatest game ever is Minecraft.
I remember my dad playing this game when I was super young, I loved the strange and beautiful direction the estranged creator took.
Tbh if anything lore wise could be taken with any salt, I’m always surprised by how much research Horse and his staff conducted.
Horse allegedly had a sequel planned but since his demise we probably won’t see it, but I’m so happy that someone else took the time to make a video about this game. My fascination with this gem runs deeps.
Weird, old games like this have such a wonderful place in my heart.
"Am I the king of depravity? The lord of the flies? The wickedest man in the world? I'M A CAT AND THE WORLD'S MY RAT." 50:27
Great video!
Personally speaking, I always found Baphomet (which I firmly believe is a disembodied brain being kept alive (somehow) in that brass head) infinitely spookier.
Not quite as spooky as the various stations on the DreamMachine in Chokmah, but close.
Sent you a Twitter dm
@@psychoticgiraffe Was that to myself, ARealHuman, or That Creepy Reading?
All of the above! Lol
BTW do OG Fallout???
/x/ checking in
A bit of behind-the-scenes context for the game: Harry and his team originally wanted Chesed (the island in the Bermuda Triangle) to be the first world explored, not the second. Additionally there were supposed to be nine separate endings to the game, one for each of the nine Sacred Numbers one could be assigned at the start. The last world, Chokmah, was meant to be a full-blown realm and was supposed to go from the diner and caravan into the underground bunkers of Area 51 and somehow connect to the Great Pyramids of Giza. This is borne out by some map/mosaics you can view in the Din realm in the "Theatre of Memory" lobby, behind the two giant dolls there. Because the game as released was such a butchered mess, and because Harry insisted in private correspondence his belief that the game code for that element was complete, a sequel was planned that would be a full playthrough of Chokmah.
I had the good fortune of exchanging letters with Harry in mid-2005, and while he was unhappy with how his original vision for "Drowned God" was so wrecked by what was ultimately released, he was still proud of the effort. Thanks for this well-presented and thorough review.
Wow, that makes sense that Binah would be the second world. The second time you talk to Keether they tell you that in the “next” world time is the key and to be careful who you trust. That dialogue only makes sense if Binah is second because it has the time puzzle and treachery/betrayal stuff.
@@PhillipOliverWholes It gets better. Originally no less than William S Burroughs was supposed to narrate the game, and that the player was meant to have a bit more agency in terms of where they go and what they could do. Alas, Burroughs died just before they were preparing to record lines, and the game engine ended up getting short-changed by the programmers, reducing transition between clicks to single-frame scenes (like in "Myst"). On top of all that, the rights to the game are an utter mystery as Harry was locked out of his own game at the end by Inscape, which folded up scant months after the game's release. His fellow designers/producers reportedly cut separate deals with Inscape and other parties, both for profits and spin-off media (which was planned but never developed).
With all the nonsense about "don't trust too deeply" that the Bequest Globe, Keter and Melchut were spouting, you have to wonder if someone wasn't projecting messages from the future!! (insert silly emoji face here)
@@YankeePendragon Wow dude (or dudette), do you still have any of that correspondence? Would you be ok with sharing any of that? Either way, thanks for dropping all this knowledge. I did comment on one of my vids that I was sure Burroughs was meant to voice Baphomet.
@@PhillipOliverWholes I'm male, and yes, I kept his letters. I'll need to get them scanned and will need an email address to send them to. I've already asked his sister and she's agreed I can share them.
@@YankeePendragon Oh that's super nice of you, but I meant more in terms of game preservation. Like if there were anything relevant to the game/music/making of etc, would you be willing to post those parts somewhere. I don't know him or anyone involved so, I dunno that feels a bit weird for me to have, lol.
Harry used to do artwork for The Scotsman. His FINAL piece before his death was called "Atlantis Rising," and has themes from Drowned God in it...an image of ruins rising from the ocean while a surprised bull-man...yes, a manimal, as seen in Chesed, watches. You can still find that piece of artwork out there if you look.
no happy ending or hope at all then, very dark but interesting game, i had the demo on the old windows 95 game sampler disc when i was young, always wanted to find out about it.
Those demo disks back in the day were amazing
@@ragsdale710 yeah , its 25 years ago and only seems like yesterday
I wish I could afford to pay you to make these forever.
I love retrospectives and analyses on old games like “Harvester” and “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”, and I’m always searching them out. Even though I searched time and time again I’ve never seen your videos before until a couple days ago. You do absolutely fantastic work and I’m really hoping that you get the recognition you deserve! If TH-cam finally sent me in your direction, maybe there’s more to follow!
I'm not gonna lie, my favorite part of any environment in this game, is the sky in chokma, there's just something so goddamn bizarre about the red and orange colour that makes it stick out in my mind
It's really nice to see a game as obscure as this covered to such detail! If you haven't played, I'd recommend the other games released by Inscape, Bad Day at the Midway and The Dark Eye. Both have a surprisingly simular surreal and twisted atmosphere.
I first heard of this game from an ad in PC Gamer back in the 90s. The best way you can sum it up is as an Ancient Aliens fever dream. It's like all the things AA Theorists actually believe summed up in a way that only makes sense to them.
Very enigmatic videogame, enjoyed this playthrough a lot! Also that dancing Crispin Glover clip made me lol pretty good
I wonder what happen to everyone who worked on this game.
Probably nothing but I’m curious if they still acknowledge their contribution on this game.
This game was odd to follow, I appreciate the amazing and well-made treatment of it in this fantastically well made video however learning about the creator and his end certainly put a vibe underneath it all. Thanks for bringing it to us, odd to follow!
Just found this channel through the i have no mouth analysis and after hearing his thoughts on point and click adventures i used to play, im now inspired to finally play through the syberia (as of right now) trilogy. I have had those games on my bucket list for years.
I had this game as a child as I loved the point and click myst style games. I would play them with my dad. We had this game but there was a bug and we could only play the first hour or so. I always found it curious and bizarre. Fun to come back after all these years to see more.
WE MISS YOU AREALHUMAN!
Just found out I WASN'T subscribed to you after randomly thinking about your System Shock video while I had the Mandalore Gaming video about it in the background. Then I find out you have new videos I haven't seen since. You deserve more subs imo. Great content.
I’m still not sure what’s going on but I think Baphomet is pretty cool. Such a cool design that raises interesting questions, and I can actually hear what he’s saying! I wish I knew who voiced him because the game doesn’t tell you who voiced which characters.
It's sad, Harry Horse's death and murder of his wife make for a compelling conspiracy for newbies, but looking at it at all he was just a troubled man who reacted in a terrible way to a stressful situation. He was probably somebody with the capacity to do that most of his life, and drugs & hardship sent him tragically over the edge.
Looking at this game it's all just remixed comic book stuff, UFO lore that could be found in dozens of books at the time of the game's creation, Horse just put it together into a narrative with a hero and compelling visuals.
This may be the coolest game of all time.. kinda life changing, honestly
For a lot of games in the 90s, you had to have an actual sound card to process the sound. Something that is kind of lost on modern hardware.
Damn I completely forgot old computers had that hardware, we all just got used to the fact that HDMI cables can transmit audio and video rather than a machine producing its own sounds
In the months since this video has come out I’ve made a transcript of ALL the dialogue and ALL the written text with the raw files, and even then I couldn’t get everything, (there was another person called Folkin who did some too) but I tried.
Can you send the transcript, please? I'm currently playing the game but is kinda hard to understand some of the dialogue on this game
@@EstereoOutsider
Same!
@@EstereoOutsider I would, but unfortunately TH-cam doesn’t like people sending links to websites outside of TH-cam unless you are the original poster of the video where the comments are taking place. In my experience they get deleted even if you try and edit them a bit.
@@xenosascended6733 sorry, TH-cam doesn’t like uploading links to non-TH-cam places. I’ll try and see if I can upload it somewhere else that I can just tell you where it is so you can look it up yourself.
@@oneinathousand2156
Okie dokie, thank you for your efforts :)
Excellent video! I just thought you’d be interested to know that MJ12 stands for Majestic 12, not Magic 12! It’s a reference to a supposed secret committee that exploited alien technology after the Roswell UFO incident.
My Dad would always talk about this game, trying to connect with my nerdy younger self. I joined freemasonry a few years ago, and this game came to mind when reading about various misconceptions/theories about masonry.
Just watched this video and it's interesting seeing bits and pieces of esoteric topics sprinkled in the game. There's even a picture of a tiled floor and the Brazen Pillars, which is huge masonic imagery. Awesome video!
They're not misconceptions. The reference levels of Freemasonry above which you're given access by the organization.
Why did you join the dark side? Not the best desicion to join the wrong team this late stage in the game. good luck!
@NotSure109 I mean, I'm already the "highest" You can be so.
The game in the pyramid temple, placing counters then moving them to connect 3 is 9 mens Morris- which goes back to the middle ages. Nice to see it included!
I knew that from conquest of the longbow 😅
The speech from the mask-character at the end. Azariah Kyras's speech from Dawn of War II is very very similar. I now strongly suspect someone at Game's Workship played this.
"The truth is there is no truth. Only the ragged march of CHAOS!"
"What is this path. This meaning. This purpose...It is nothing. There is no meaning. No purpose. We murder, we kill. It is mindless savagery. Thus universe is mindless!"
Mandalore retweeted this review and now I have to binge watch all your content! Subed and liked.
This game is so bizarre that I thought some of the joke edits you added were legit part of the actual gameplay xD
Interesting game. Must be hell to play it without a walkthrough.
I think you might enjoy the old point and click adventure game Discworld Noir. It's probably my favorite, it's got excellent writing and voice acting, and the gameplay isn't obtuse most of the time. Also, thank you for this video!
ARealHuman finally returned! This is why spooktober is the best month of the year
I started watching this when it premiered, got sick from covid and forgot, and just now remembered I haven't seen most of this video. What a nice surprise!
1:03:30 Baphomet and the Man in the Iron Mask are some of my favorites in this game.
The person at 1:05:50 is Count of Saint-Germain. He was rumored to be immortal.
Thank youuuu, I’ve been going mad (lol) trying to understand what it says, damned 90s audio and no text
I want to thank you sincerely for this amazing walk-through commentary on a game that, to this day 25+ years later, still haunts me.
Insert Disc 1
I've played games my whole life and went through my fair share of 90s adventure games...Myst, 7th Guest, Tex Murphy, The Black Dahlia, etc...but it was something multi-faceted that made the Drowned God sink it's hooks into me. Could be timing...X-files and other alien and government conspiracy stuff was really popular at the time, questions of our true origins, and of course the freak production values and vague explanations that required you to fill in the blanks.
Insert Disc 2
I loved how also the historical time capsules and subject matter was varied yet focused. And of course Keitherr (as above, spelling unguaranteed) was such an "Agent Smith" authoritarian man in black big brother, and the Nephilim (down below) were these hippie non-GMO foods but certainly GMO when it came to humans. All bickering over the same thing.
Update your game on your dial-up modem to get certain puzzles to work...
Insert Disc 3
In parting, thanks for such the amazing coverage for a one-of-a-kind game. The story of Harry Horse is tragic, such brilliance, yet such disturbance. I would totally be open to a re-make. Thank you though sincerely for now.
Legion
Was bizarre finding out a book I got free in a box of cereal and loved as a kid was written by a dude that did... that.
I have to have watched this video 30 times back. Great coverage, such a strange, interesting game.
Great to play in the background while grinding a game.
Once again amazing review of a interesting game I never heard of. Keep up the great work!
A man who dislikes the tories...this channel keeps getting better
This was *FANTASTIC.*
What I wouldn't give for a Remake!
You don't say.
28:09 We have this as a board game in Germany. It's called "Mühle" (mill) over here. The english Wikipedia says it's known in english speaking countries as "nine men's morris". Also it says it can be dated back to at least the roman empire...
If i am not mistake they planned at least 9 endings and more worlds/factions, but due to budgetary issues(or outside pressure...) only 3 was in the final version
Im really enjoying this my dude. And im gona watch your other point n click stuff. Hour n a half is perfect length for this stuff. And love your pacing bro
today is a good day
hell no
delicious finally a video essay to use as background noise while i tend to my minecraft farm
His death is extremely shady. I don't believe it was suicide at all
yeah who stabs themselves 47 times, including in their genitals.. as well who stabs their partner 30+ times out of love... what a load of BS even by the standards of modern BS overload
I believe it was extremely likely he was murdered for getting a little too close to the truth
The classic suicide involving multiple self stabbings, just like if you get too close to the Clintons, or are Terrence Yeakey.
same with Issac Kappy!
It's so bizarre having been someone that spent 10+ years in the occult world (ex-Thelemite, Crowley's "religion", ex-member of his reformed initiatory group the OTO or Ordo Templi Orientis) seeing all this stuff in a game... but so much of it is straight up wrong... Crowley didn't form the Golden Dawn (something I hear a lot and have no idea why people think is true) he joined it and was largely responsible for it falling apart. Crowley took all the Golden Dawn material and unified it with Thelema to create the A.'.A.'. (which can stand for a few things but usually Argenteum Astrum). That's the only Order that Crowley formed. Otherwise like with the Golden Dawn he'd enter an occult system and destroy it or reform it to make them his own (like he did with the Ordo Templi Orientis). Once he was in control of both the A.'.A.'. and the OTO he made the A.'.A.'. something akin the the secret society within the secret society of the OTO. Side note it was The Book of Lies that pops out in the game that got him into the OTO to begin with... oh and the letter that mentions the Tower on Wheels is probably a reference to The Invisible College which if you search on Wikipedia you'll see is represented as a Tower on Wheels and it was a precursor to The Royal Society of London and has its roots in the original Roscicrusian Manifestos which yes does mean the modern Royal Society is directly tied to Rosicrusianism.
The Golden Dawn was created by Mathers and a few other Masons who were part of the SRIA (a Rosicrusian Order open only to Master Masons). The thing in the game about the ritual at Boleskine House at Loch Ness is also totally wrong as Mathers wasn't even there for Crowley to "leave him for dead", quite the opposite Crowley abandoned the ritual (The Abralemin Rite, which Mathers helped translate) because Mathers requested he come to Paris for Golden Dawn business. The closest thing I can think of to Crowley putting people in danger for his insanity was in Italy at his decrepit Abbey of Thelema which got so absurd and grotesque it led to the death of Raoul Loveday and umm a woman doing things with animals... Mussolini actually kicked him out of the country for what he did there.
Declassified British documents show he was working for the English government and it's quite likely he took down the Golden Dawn because it was becoming a source for Irish nationalism and he took over and reformed the Ordo Templi Orientis because it was, to a more or less degree no one really knows, being used by German Intelligence (pre-WW2). I really wonder what sort of books Harry Horse was reading to get his information... I have a sneaking suspicion he fell victim to Operation Mind F**k which was started by a group called the Discordians who, especially through the works of Robert Anton Wilson and his Illuminatus Trilogy and articles in Playboy of all places intentionally wove a confusing meld of real occult history and utterly made up conspiracy theories (many of which are unironically believed by millions today and is where most modern concepts of the Illuminatistuff come from rather than the historical Bavarian group). I absolutely adore Robert Anton Wilson, he's one of the few people from the occult world I still have any respect for after being in the world and learning far too much about people like Crowley but if you didn't get that his goal was to weave humour and seriousness to, loosely in his words, "make people not become agnostic about God but about everything" it's a recipe for insanity... someone literally held a pizza store hostage and asked the cops for a copy of a Robert Anton Wilson book and was caught while eating pizza... So Discordian stuff mixed with crazy stuff written by people who knew a thing or two but not much about the occult world much have driven him totally bonkers... I feel terrible for his wife... and for him... but mostly his wife and pets. Getting involved in occultism is something you gotta take responsibility for as you're playing with fire, quite literally pushing the limits of dissociating from consensus reality. There's some stuff in here that is somewhat on point like Newton was an occultist and I suppose if you consider Spinoza esoteric then so was Einstein and aspects of the Kabbalah stuff is alright I guess... and yeh Jung did write about the "modern mythology of UFOs" but it seems Harry bit off more than he could chew researching all this, likely with bad sources. I wonder if he was part of any strange cult? I mean the Typhonian Order did connect Crowley's depiction of Lam with aliens so that might be a candidate...
Interesting read. If one wanted to look into these sort of things without being “mind f&@ked”, where would be a good place to start?
@joeljohnson7662 every reply ive written you keeps getting deleted somehow.. i thought it was firefox plugins but turned them off... got deleted again.I'm trying my phone now. If this actually stays ill spend the time to rewrite the original answer i put a lot of time and effort into
This one I can see.
I wait eagerly for a response.
@joeljohnson7662 I had written at first a long list of useful resources to use to look into everything I had written about (then another shorter rewrite) and will do so again and make sure I have a copy of any response in case it gets deleted for whatever reason but till then if you have specific questions lemme know. Depending on your interests I can tailor resources to whatever you're intrigued about the most. I'm very busy at the moment helping a lover clean her place but will write sporadically throughout the day some useful resources and thoughts. Just can't do that quite right now.
Hope you're well. Cheers.
Ewige Blumenkraft und ewige Schlangenkraft
This seems like a lot of content for just a game.
Great video
Thank you for this analysis/retrospective. S-tier content
Wonder if those friends that provided the quote were ever named. Seems odd they found him "demented" and saying such a thing. A detective might say it's too good to be true.
I've known a poor man who actually stabbed himself in his temple trying to end it. However, slashing at one's own genitals multiple times is a hard one to wrap my head around.
YESSSS LESS GOOOOOO!!!!!!! I recently came across your channel and my god do I love it!!!
Wish the closed captions for this were better. The autogenerated ones struggle with gameplay audio which isn't the best due to all the voice filters,effects and music happening at once with not-exactly-the-best audio mixing, and considering there's so many strange names and words being thrown around, it's very crucial to understanding what's going on.
Shocked how little viewers you are getting! Great stuff!
Yep it me
The ending of this game was always confusing. You were told more than once that one of the lodges is lying to you. The judgement card makes it pretty obvious that Kether is the one lying as they hold the "firebird" and launch it. And yet they were both obviously lying to you as you get the "Fool" card no matter who you chose. HOWEVER...Cayce says pretty explicitly that you need to make your choice "between" the two lodges, which is the third ending that is literally "between." Is this the Dreamgate? A real pity the game was cut short at this point.
1:01:00 we got two more years 😳
Amazing game, I've been told it's actually more truth than fiction
What a nice video for the Halloween season :) I love the aesthetic of these old, Myst-like games. The 3d rendered graphics just look so pleasing and this game is certainly quite interesting to boot! Thank you for the vid :D
If someone were to remake this and publish it on steam, it would be an instant hit
I think that ♀ symbol is more about the astronomical sign of the planet Venus, like these signs:
☿♃♂♄⛢♆♇♁
It is, but it's been used for both occurrences so he's technically correct regardless.
The board game in the mayan temple with the squares is called nine mens morris. hard to find, but a fun game. I think its in asassins creed 3
Have you considered doing a video on Garage: Bad Dream Adventure? Just found your harvester vid today, good stuff 👍
Glad I found out about this game. The whole thing has a twin peaks season 3 feel to it. If you know you lnow
/v/ friend here. gonna watch this tonight
Dude, the nWo has been talked about since the 70s and probably behind that, the public first incling of it was Raegan talking about "a new world order" back in the 80s. "Get with the program, kid..."
The game played at 28:30 is called "Mühle" in Germany. Its a Boardgame.
I fall asleep to this video and every time I wake up I’m more confused
51:20 "ok, this cutscene is finally ending-- wait nevermind! Retreat!"
I've never even heard of this game. Very interesting stuff you showed off.
15 mins in and im LOVIN IT! both hilarious and relaxing. should have more subs. i need more of this awsome shit!
this is giving me some strong Soft Doctrines Of Imaginos vibes
I thought I had played them all, and never heard of this one!
Thank Azathoth for your videos, they are my absolute favourite to watch while I'm in bed or just chilling out
Keep going, man! No one does it like you
I always love your videos man, great work!
Look up Jack Parsons, L Ron Hubbard, the Philadelphia Experiment, and Genesis 6. It'll put a lot of this game into the proper context.
Also, I doubt very much that Harry Horse killed himself.
Also, they're turning the freaking frogs gay!!
1:03:19
"...one of the DLCs for train simulator"
I chuckled
Great work, creators and players.
Crowley didn't found the golden dawn, he founded the silver star.
“Din: The Death Star”
Darth Vader: “See? I TOLD you the Death Star would be completed on schedule!”
That was a trip and a half. Great video sir.
7:00 Don't threaten me with a good time, ARealHuman.
RIP ARealHuman
He died doing what he loved: [REDACTED]
A great deal of this comes from the 1991 book "Behold a Pale Horse" by Bill Cooper.
The game at 28:09 is called "mill" or "Nine men's morris
" (or according to wikipedia sometimes 😎cowboy checkers😎)
its a shortend version of it
yeah, I know it as mill. played it with my grandma a lot when I was a wee lad.
Interesting! I knew the game was jogging some very vague memory.
Dude this was awesome and absolutely fascinating.
This is really cool. Lot of possible truth to it as well.
incredibly underrated channel
This chanel is soooo underrated
the in-game narrator sounds like Izaro from Path of Exile
Great video! It just makes me want to buy whatever the advertisment tells me its crazy! good thing this guy doesnt have a sponsor or id be in trouble
Thank you, ARH. You made my day.
Another great review glad I found your channel I enjoy this type of in-depth long form review, good work thanks
Through all this Haze i can say you play as one of the ILLUMINATED 9.