Nebula is bringing back lifetime memberships for the holidays! One payment up front and then you'll have access to everything that's on Nebula, forever. The option should show up after you click "get started" on this page: go.nebula.tv/jacob-geller
Hey man, love your content. Some of the best content on TH-cam. Quick question though, how much content do you have on this Nebula thing, and do you ever plan on moving it over to TH-cam in the future?
The bunker giving you that little taste of fresh air, and then immediately reminding you that it’s somehow MORE dangerous outside the bunker because it’s literally no man’s land, is absolutely amazing. Anytime im playing a horror game and see a window out of the manor, or something similar, im always like “why cant i just dip” but this game answering that with “beacause WWI” is so perfect i love it
what makes a great horror game scarier than a movie is giving you just enough agency to have responsibility but not enough to make that responsibility easy
Great way of summarizing it. Its very true. Also, the 1st person perspective often seen in horror games (or games as a medium in general) i think is also a big aspect of why it seems scarier, it feels like youre the one in the situation, not just watching others go through it. (which also links to the same agency point)
“To give someone control in a video game is to enable them to make mistakes, horror comes from simply living with the consequences” WHAT A FUCKING BANGER LINE YOUVE DONE IT AGAIN MY FRIEND
I’d say horror is actually not wanting to live with the consequences. That’s why games like “Getting Over It With Bennet Foddy” can be horrifying despite not being a horror game.
For me Who's Lila is what I call "rabbit hole horror". The more time you spend with something, the more knowledge you gain, the scarier the horror becomes. And you can't stop. You're already too deep into it, you have to finish the journey, in the hopes of finding a satisfactory conclusion.
and the best part? the game KNOWS you want that conclusion. Lila herself exists not as an entity but as the question: Who’s Lila? its so interesting to me. the game gives you so much to make your own interpretation and it NEVER gives you the answer.
I would consider it cosmic horror, honestly. Knowledge which you KNOW you shouldn’t know, that’s dangerous and wrong, and yet you can’t seem to stop yourself from seeking it out
Rabbit hole horror is what i consider to be hands down my personal favorite genre of horror to write and dive into, yet is also what i consider to be the hardest form of horror to effectively do for the same reason i love it so much: all the little details that could easily be avoided. Rabbit hole horror to me is best done in non-horror games, specifically games where you can play through the game without needing to acknowledge it in the slightest, but it's there for those who dare peek under the vale and start digging. The best instance of rabbit hole horror that i have ever seen executed is with the You Don't Know Jack series made by Jellyvision (now known as Jackbox Games). The games on the surface are trivia games that use pop-culture references to ask a variety of different questions read out by charismatic hosts, and to most people that's all that is. Yet if you actually listen to what the hosts have to say: that's when you can never go back to simply playing for the trivia. There is only two times i know of that mentions something explicitly in a way you cannot ignore, and that is the cutscene on first boot-up of The Lost Gold, and Full Stream's (generally pretty shitty) Escape the Simulations. The hosts have the best, most in depth and realistic characterization i have ever seen from a fictional character in anything i have ever seen in my life! They do not feel like fictional characters, they feel like genuine real people you could actually meet irl. You can learn about their desires, their quirks, their insecurities, what peeves them off, their limits, their trauma responses, their sex lives, their kinks, their childhood, their disabilities, their physical characteristics, etc (and that etc isn't because i ran out of examples, there's so fucking much i'd be here all day listing it all) ONLY through their voice and what they say. You only get to see them one time in-game at the end of The Ride and only PARTLY at that. Now the one line that changed everything about how i see this series is one of the possible lines that can be said in the intro to You Don't Know Jack: Full Stream. The game's host, Cookie Masterson, mentions being trapped in the game for decades and that he misses his family. Now what makes this good isn't that it's just a reveal, but confirmation based on knowledge already given in previous installments. In You Don't Know Jack: The Lost Gold, the game's sign-in host (basically the person who asks for your name and how many players are playing) is The Captain, a pirate who was trapped inside the game through Jack's Gold: a cardboard box that contains CD roms that interacting with in anyway will trap you inside the game disk, forcing you to do what it wants you to do *or else* (and we never get clued in to what the *or else* is beside the sound of thunder that causes The Captain to immediately cease and obey), and you can only free yourself if the player earns enough cumulative points to free you, and that's only if all possible ways to play the game cannot be done by, as the curse cannot be lifted if there's still a game to play. The first game Cookie Masterson appeared in was the very first installment, You Don't Know Jack: Vol.1, which was over two decades old by the time Full Stream was released with The Jackbox Party Pack 5. In that installment, he was the sign-in host. That line gave me fucking chills when i put it all together, and you would never know about it if you weren't already neck deep in the rabbit hole. In fact: the fandom doesn't even know about it, even the really passionate folks who go into the game's code to listen to the voice lines don't know about it. The sheer fact that the game's most popular host, practically the face of the modern era of You Don't Know Jack, was actually a real person trapped inside the game, forced to host *or else* for so long, and the fact he will probably never be getting out due to how popular he is, to the point fans were RIOTING to bring him back on social media when he didn't show up in The Jackbox Party Pack 6 (he has yet to reappear, the closest being an ai replica of him in Pack 9 dubbed by his box of parts as Masterson C.). He is going to rot in that rabbit hole, and the amount of digging one needs to do to learn that he's rotting is only caused the rabbit hole to collapse over him even more, making the chance of escaping that much more impossible. Just the concept and revelation that you choosing to go deeper for that information is actively trapping him in even more is FANTASTIC! And the fact is, it's fully possible ANY of the characters might be trapped within the game, not just the hosts. It was so well done, and i have yet to find anything that was able to accomplish what this late 90's semi-obscure trivia game was able to do. The game has more generally messed up and impactful moments within it, but this is the one that effected me the most.
Youre actually quoted on The Utility Room’s steam page: “Sincerely an engaging and utterly unique experience” -Jacob Geller I feel like a developer respecting your opinion so much they display it on the front page where people usually put IGN reviews is the highest form of praise, youve come a long way since i started watching ur vids, congrats dude!
Bruh, IGN is sh*t. Why would anyone listen to their reviews? They've stopped doing proper game reviews, now they're nothing more than yellow journalists with political agendas.
it's more than that. WAAAAAAAY more than that. there's an amazing 8 hour plot breakdown and the primary game mechanics seem silly and trivial after uncovering this convoluted yet interesting fucking mess
Hearing you say that you ran back down into the bunker made me realize something that, at least to me, is horrifyingly profound. The literally nightmarish, demonic creature that stalks you so relentlessly, is preferable to... A man with a gun. After all, you can fight against the monster with a revolver, grenades, fire bottles, and what counts for wits in a situation like that, but the man with the gun... You can't even see him.
For all the "barbarity" of historical warfare with melee combat, you at least have a good comprehension of when you're safe, when you're not, and what you can do about it. A huge reason PTSD-type symptoms rose astronomically with WW1 is it was one of the first large-scale conflicts where you could go from downtime to dead within a split second. There are also mountains of evidence suggesting historical melee infantry did as little fighting as they could get away with, generally very few people dying before a rout started, because both being in danger and taking a life were much more tangible and comprehensible. To the man throwing in a howitzer shell or piloting a remote drone, killing is just a button click to them, which the mind resists far less.
The name alone makes me think "How's Annie?", which is even more appropriate considering the subject-matter of the game. "Your friends will meet him when you are gone."
Yes!! I've been in love with it since the demo and it's great to see it getting more attention! If you want another good look at it I recommend Flaw Peacock's analysis
Who's Lila reminds me of the concept of "paradoxical laughter". I didn't know it was a thing until I encountered it. I was at a funeral for someone I cared for and suddenly my face just began pulling into this manic grin on its own, and I had to fight to control my expression while simultaneously resisting the urge to burst into hysterical laughter. It felt terrifying to experience, especially since I've been to funerals before and nothing like it had happened then.
I know the feeling. I was once trying to tell a story but I couldn't because I was laughing so much. The story was about my teachers wife dying in a car crash.
I've heard of this happening so many times. People who have been escorted out of funerals for not being able to stop laughing, despite being in deep grief for that person's death
The mechanics of Who's Lila are so cool and creative, I love it when people see games as an artform and experiment with what can be done with them as a medium
Absolutely awesome game man, really great work. Theres very few things ive ever seen get close to creating such a rigid, harsh and almost eternal atmosphere like this did.
Just by watching the video it looks amazing, the scene where you have to lay down on the floor got me trying to do the same on my chair 😆 That was REALLY effective. Unfortunate that i dont own a VR to experience it myself 🥲
I havent played Who's Lila but listening to both the opening and Geller's description of his nightmares, it kinda reminded me of my experiences of being autistic. I've often practiced expressions in the mirror and planned reactions in advance. The nightmare happening to Geller was my childhood. I would be telling the complete truth but my face would be blushing and smiling so no-one believed me. It did often feel like my face is being warped by something out of my control. Idk if this is very relevant but I thought it would be interesting to add
I came here to write something really similar after finishing this video. I don’t have autism but I’d often get in trouble for doing things I hadn’t because I was smiling or grinning like an idiot while telling the absolute truth. That nightmare was my childhood too, and it’s still something I deal with as an adult. Seeing this concept just represented in some way, even though it’s in a creepy as hell horror game, makes me feel weirdly seen? I think making a game touching on this idea is smart as hell, and I wonder if what we’ve experienced is something the people behind this thing have as well.
It’s nice to know other people had to go through that. I’ve worked on my facial expressions my whole life but I still feel like the only time I can talk to people well, is when my face is covered or something
100% about that nightmare As a fellow Autistic I have two modes, Grim/smiles, because any kind of nuanced emotions on my face isn't happening so it's just easier to force a "default" and act out my intent than fighting with, but your face is X E.G. you feel all right your smiling, or my boss yelling at me because I was "making fun of him" because but surprised expression is 200% and that's literally something I have no concussions control over.
autism, the sometimes stress I've seen in folks before realizing they were plural, the depersonalization of gender identity problems, all kinds of things. Also it's rather Twin Peaks.
I'd say it's relevant. Fellow autist, and I also remember a great deal of time spent as a child watching other children, to try and make sense of their social cues from an analytical standpoint. It wasn't as much the face for me as it was the emotional responses - the whats and the whys to go with the how - but I get the sentiment. All to try and avoid this constant nagging feeling that I was going to be outed by my peers and deemed 'not a real kid' or something silly. But, back in the year 2000, when the response my behavior provoked from a less-than-sympathetic councilor was to medicate me until I "wasn't a problem" anymore, that fear seemed justified. Thankfully, my parents told them where to shove it, but a 7-year-old me wasn't really able to understand what they were talking about, or why I was being singled out other than being 'different'. So, I spent the next 20 years avoiding behaviors I didn't witness other people do. I hid my own feelings behind a mask and felt like a fraud in my own skin; like I was two people. One miserable and fake, but accepted by everyone else, and one real but buried so deep I couldn't even acknowledge they existed for years. Honestly, I'd say the general autistic masking experience has a conspicuous amount of things in common with trying to hide during Invasion of the Body Snatchers. If that doesn't qualify as a kind of existential horror, I don't know what would.
The Utility Room just triggers such a primal fear in me, like an "I should not be here and I want to leave right now" fear, and that was JUST from the clips in this video. I have no idea where you find these weird ass games but I'm glad you do.
Same here I've never even heard of the Utility Room until this video, and now I feel... off Idk how to describe it, but I want to make something that gives others the same feeling I have right now
The section about 'who's Lila' was really uncomfortable for me because I'm autistic and naturally, I don't have a lot of facial expressions - but if school teaches you one thing as an autistic person, then it's that you better have 'normal', neurotypical reactions or else at best you get socially isolated and at worst you get bullied. I am, in fact, hand-animating my face every day; in every conversation, a part of my concentration is automatically dedicated to checking whether my expressions are right. And my voice also needs modulation and my hands also don't move by themselves. Due to years of practice, it's like riding a bike where it takes almost no effort anymore, but it's still there. Mind you, I'm not doing this to manipulate others or something, there is no ill intent behind it - I just want to have and maintain a social life after not having friends for the first 15 years of my life. I hope I didn't creep anyone out in writing this, I just thought my experiences might interest some people here Edit: typo
it shouldn't creep people out, it's normal - in a sense that you're not alone in this. one autistic person to another. i didn't have friends too - because i couldn't understand other people's tone when they spoke to me, making countless mistakes and saying wrong things "not by the script". i still struggle with it, but on the internet it's more acceptable to not always be aware of other's tone, because we can't hear eachother.
@@mycelium_moss thank you for saying this. I have gotten really, really good at masking over the years, but the journey hasn't been pleasant. Anyways. I don't want this to be a huge downer. For all autistic people reading this: you're not alone, it is very much possible to find and maintain a friend group. I've done it, and so can you. If you're struggling: it can, and will, get better.
About same here, not as extreme but still lots of suppression. Opting more for the avoiding of expression than attempting to do so acceptably. But I took a different route. At 16 or so I went off script and I frankly haven't looked back since, I'm 27 now. Does it mean you never really make it far in life? Yes. Does it mean you'll have a hard time maintaining connections? Yes. Do you feel like yourself and open a door to peace with yourself? Also yes. I STILL managed to find people. And I found them as me. When you hug someone, does it feel like the person is hugging you?
It doesn't creep me out. I'm autistic too and something I've realized at close to 30 is that masking like how you describe used up energy you don't notice slipping away at first. I've made efforts to stop masking (I was never really good at it anyway if I'm being honest) and it's surprisingly difficult to stop. It's such an automated behavior that even trying to stop it is difficult. But I have found that the relationships with my loved ones who don't distance from me with my blank expressions are much more worthwhile to me than any relationship I made while masking. And I have noticed people get creeped out by my restricted affect. At one point the thought of seeing that terrified me. Now though it hardly bothers me. You might never reach this mindset; autism is, after all, a spectrum disorder. But if you feel the strong desire to stop masking and you have people you care about that you talk to and they say they wouldn't abandon you for expressing less visibly, and you're scared to go through with it, I can tell you it's worth it
13:54 I literally lived your nightmare. I've had this nervous tic since i was a toddler where, when in stressful situations, i start giggling and grinning. Whenever at home, if something went missing, if something broke, even when i was sick, whenever confronted if i was responsible or faking, i would involuntarily grin and laugh, and i was assumed to be lying. It took years for my parents to finally learn that i could not control these inappropriate responses (but only after several funerals and wakes where they had to hide their laughing toddler). It was the same at school. The kids i hung out with were troublemakers, and whenever they did something punishable, i would be lumped in for being their friend and my "guilty face" made me culpable. It really was like living a nightmare.
have you seen 'A young boy is born with facial expressions that show the opposite of what he's feeling' by omletto? its quite a good animation and i feel like it somewhat relates with your experiences? (im just telling you this because i know how- at least for me- seeing media that relates to my own experiences is quite comforting)
@@bonkquartz The short film's called "Eggplant," and yes! i have seen it! I'm luckier than Durian, though, in that only my "negative" faces are wrong (angry, sad, scared, anxious), but the parts where people didn't want to be around him at the movie theater, and him having to make himself cry to get the care & affection from his mother really hit home for me.
Going through that with a teacher was traumatic enough, I can't imagine what it must've felt like to go through that with your parents! I hope that didn't have a lasting effect on you, or at the very least that you've recovered from it!
I'm a writer, and I dabble in horror myself. I read horror books, watch horror movies, play horror games with obsessive fervency. I think that while horror itself is reactionary, terror is not. There are three kinds of terror that I have uncovered. Personal terror, Societal terror, and Primal terror. Personal terror is something you may be born with, or it is something you learn. They vary from person to person. Phobias of snakes, spiders, dogs, betrayal, drowning, darkness, falling, forests, or assault. These depend on the individual. Societal terror is a kind of fear that the environment you grow up in, or the people you grow up around, instills within you. Here in America, that's expressed in a fear of a school shooting, or being arrested by a corrupt cop, or going into inescapable debt for medical care. Elsewhere, it may be a fear of poisonous snakes, or earthquakes, or war, or any other experience shared by an entire society. Primal terror is the deepest part of ourselves, that lizard brain you mentioned, waking up in response to something and screaming that this is wrong. It manifests in gut instincts, the fear of things much bigger than you, or the sudden wave of adrenaline that washes over you when the forest suddenly goes dead silent and something inside you knows that you need to *leave*. I see a lot of Primal terror in the Utility Room, Personal terror in Who's Lila, and Societal terror in the Bunker. Your choice in games to discuss remains immaculate!
No clue if you know already, but your characterization reminded me a little of The Magnus Archives, a magnificent horror podcast. Highly recommend you to listen to it, if you didn't :)
If you have a category for primal horror, fear of snakes, spiders, drowning, falling and possibly darkness would all go there. While they do vary from person to person (as does any fear), there are psychological studies showing that people have them independent of culture and learning. For example, infants are likely to show a strong fear response towards snakes and spiders even when they've never seen them before. I learned about these ingrained fear responses as a psych major in college, as they were a major turning point in psychology, dealing a serious blow to the theory of behaviorism. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6716607/#:~:text=Classic%20developmental%20research%20suggests%20that,approach%20of%20a%20stranger%20(Scarr%20%26
I'm glad you finally talked about Who's Lila because I found this game fascinating when it first made the rounds. Certainly, there are the horror bits, but I found myself frustrated in a similar way I get with myself going about my business. As an autistic person, the struggle is daily to respond and react adequately with my face and body language. I was criticized for it during my early life, so I quickly learned the best default is to smile or laugh politely. That nightmare you mentioned? Gods how much that hit home. As do the parts of the game where Will's face moves on its own-I process emotions pretty differently, causing me to fight my internal reaction with the one I know I should put on for other people or what's appropriate. Most of the time, I don't react at all, or I don't react strongly enough, leaving others VASTLY misinterpreting me (and ALSO landing me in trouble). I could be positively euphoric and it still wouldn't show on my face, as with most other emotions. I practiced facial expressions all the time as a kid and still do now. For the most part, I found Who's Lila to be less scary and more relatable. Hilariously, the part I found actually uncomfortable was the *eye contact.* Will and me both are making the same Autistic Stare, and both of us feel equally uncomfortable looking at each other. Truly an experience.
YES!!! FINALLY, SOMEONE ELSE WHO GETS IT!! i was listening to Jacob describe the game, and all I could think at the beginning was 'oh, that's just autism-core.' It sent me *straight* back to when i was 4 and being coached to match the correct facial expression to the correct emotion. especially when you guess *wrong* and accidentally express 'smugness' when you're *trying* to convey a wince or a sympathetic grimace oh, and the unintentional smiling thing while stressed? Yup, it's happened countless times
I’ve only just found out about Who’s Lila (and am thusly absorbing all the commentary about it) and I must say, as an autistic guy named William, I have never felt more represented (and TERRIFIED jfc)
Those were my first thoughts too! I may not have this kind of issue with facial expressions, but I can definitely compare it to how I actually talk. There’s always something in the back of my mind going “What if I phrase this weirdly, or the inflection comes out wrong? Are people going to misinterpret this in a way that gets me in trouble?” Honestly, I thought for a bit while watching that part of the video that the game was going to turn out to intentionally be an allegory for this type of thing.
As someone whose whole life has been "you're falling apart. do you choose to stop the pain and suffering and have surgery knowing things can go wrong or continue going on suffering and skip the surgery?" that quote really hit me hard. >.
Right? lol it reminds me of a comedic remake of an 80's sci-fi adventure film where a well-remembered scene gets a callback and the new version just goes totally left field with it. The main character says something like "ooo maybe we should've just kept quiet" and that clip makes it into the trailer.
the utility room sounds so surreal. there is horror in scale. in sheer, pure unadulterated, largeness. but i also appreciate the desolation, the emptiness, the violence in natural occurences despite there being no malice behind the violence. absolutely beautifully terrifying.
I don't think I'll ever again experience the level of fear and stress I felt walking down the Bunker's soldier quarters stairs in complete darkness, hearing the monster around me, not knowing if it was behind me or in front of me, and having to keep moving until you find out
who’s lila sounds like EXACTLY what it feels like to be autistic. i have actively had to fight my own face in the past because i knew in theory how i was supposed to interact with others and react to different types of information but my face would never move the way i saw others’ faces moving and sometimes it would even move the wrong way, i’d literally grin when friends were telling me about home life issues even though i felt bad for them. it really makes you feel like you’re an imitation of a human being, or fighting for control of a body that isn’t your own
It's the same for me, I haven't gotten diagnosed with autism, but do have an ADHD diagnosis. It's really uncomfortable to have to force yourself to act 'naturally' so that other people don't get offended. Forcing facial expressions, imitating body language, basically feeling like a fraud (at least for me). I sometimes envy people who can socialize properly without expending a huge amount of energy trying to react accordingly.
It's the same for me, I haven't gotten diagnosed with autism, but do have an ADHD diagnosis. It's really uncomfortable to have to force yourself to act 'naturally' so that other people don't get offended. Forcing facial expressions, imitating body language, basically feeling like a fraud (at least for me). I sometimes envy people who can socialize properly without expending a huge amount of energy trying to react accordingly.
Been battling with Asperger's Syndrome for essentially three decades now (diagnosed at 4, currently am 33). It's an ongoing battle for your whole life, you always build what you think is a "firmer" control of your body, your emotions, but there's still occasions when someone passes away or something tragic happens... and I oddly think of something humorous or non-serious to help deal with it, which at times is hella awkward because I'm trying to cope and people think I might be laughing at their sorrow (and it ain't, I apologize for myself). You get sometimes, the benefit of being amazingly fucking intelligent... but you get social awkwardness as bad RNG in life.
The game's mechanic is literally just living as an Autist Being told you are "making weird faces" or accidentally making the "Not appropriate" face and being told you are guilty of something you've heard of the first time in your life. It's quite horrible what allistic people put others through just for being different :/
The horror of 'The Utility Room' reminds me of a recurring nightmare I had as a kid, where regular objects in my room became impossibly large and started to loom over me, slowly crushing the air out of my chest. What an awesome setting for a VR game, I'll give it a try when i feel ready for it.
I used to have a similar recurring nightmare as a child. Huge shapeless objects becoming infinitely larger on an ever-expanding plane, making me feel like I was being crushed, then a nearly inaudible ringing sound as everything condensed into one microscopic point on a line and I would feel like I was disintegrating. Scary and weird. Made me feel like I was actively dying!
i had such a similar nightmare when i was a kid - getting smaller and smaller on an infinite empty plain, like folding in on myself in this kind of existential smallness
I used to always have this dream as a kid that similar to the utility room, where I was in this white space with just these 2 world sized spheres slowly slowly rolling towards each other as I stood on the ground watching. It was so anxiety inducing and dreadful and then whenever they actually hit I woke up because the shock and fear of what was going to happen was enough to wake me.
I used to dream about being in an incomprehensibly large version of my room, i was in the middle, and some sort of larger power, usually left ambiguous would almost "telepathically" communicate about some sort of endless exponential grow of power, it felt like i was watching an alien superweapon directly aimed at earth charge, and us not being able to do anything. I never remember whatever the physical thing was, the dream would recur since i was 7 or 8, cant remember, but each time i would feel incomprehensible dread, and forget what the object was as soon as i try and write or type it down.
I used to have the same (or at least very similar) dream! Standing on a vast white plane with huge boulder-like objects infinitely expanding towards each other, and it was like I was feeling what was happening to them but had no way of stopping it. I had no body in the dream but I would feel an intense weight and pressure and a sense of doom. Then everything would condense into a single infinitely small point and I would “hear” an extremely loud ringing noise and it would seem like everything was collapsing in on itself. Very weird and always scared the crap out of me. Also weird, but cool, that I’m seeing so many comments describing similar dreams.
@@pez.3117 I might sound crazy, but hear me out. What if that dream is the brain somehow seeing the end of the universe? Melodysheep did a video on a time lapse of the future, (check it out, it’s amazing). Basically, the force called dark matter, which is expanding the universe faster and faster, could theoretically weaken after an incomprehensible amount of time, and the universe would collapse in on itself, like what seems to happen in the dream you and the others described. Then another Big Bang could happen, restarting the universe. So your brain could somehow be showing the end/restart of the universe. Im writing this at 2am, so, again, this is probably crazy.
If you're interested in categorizing horror, The Magnus Archives is a MUST listen. They eventually settled on 14 Fears, (maybe 15). The games in this video would be The Hunt (arguably The Slaughter), The Stranger, and The Vast. It helped me actually realize the nuance between anxiety and fear (but not before blessing me with a few new irrational fears as a going-away gift).
I pinned who's lila as having more to do with the web (loss of control being the central theme discussed in this video), a lot of overlap of course though, fear soup and all. very vindicating to see other people with the exact same thought process as me by assigning all these tma fears though lol
@@entityfangs5560 Ikr? I think that the classification of fears deserves some academic study because I'm slowly coming to realize that while exposure therapy might work for some phobias (like snakes), it will make other phobias much worse (fear of violence), and they seem to fall pretty neatly along the lines that Johnny Simms created. Well, except for spiders. I think that a fear of spiders has nothing to do with the fear of control and is typically co-morbid with corruption, hunt, and stranger phobias. If you speak to arachnophobes it becomes apparent that some of them are afraid that the spider is a sign of filth because a dusty room is just a dusty room until there's a spider there. Other arachnophobes are dead serious when they think that every spider in the world exists to hunt them down and kill them. And others are just unnerved that venomous spiders look exactly like regular bugs until you count the legs. I've never heard an arachnophobe say "I just hate how flies are helpless when they're caught in webs-- that's what truly scares me". I think Johnny Simms realized that "fear of being controlled" was a bit too abstract, so he decided to symbolize it with a much more common fear, which was a great move for a fictional story, but it did a disservice to his classification method.
@@INTERNAL_REVENUE_SERVICEits a narrative fiction podcast where everything slowly gets revealed as you listen, so if you are at all interested i kinda just have to recommend you listen to all of it in its intended order. There isnt really a specific point where they just discuss it. It is really good though very much recommend if you like good horror stories
So so happy to see Who's Lila getting more attention. I played it pretty early on and completely fell in love with its story and mechanics. Truly a wonderful experience. I recommend it to anyone who loves ARGs and replayability in games. In fact, to get any semblance of a good ending, it encourages you to try again.
Something I don't think we'll ever be ready for from full dive vr(if that ever becomes a thing) is horror. Like imagine amnesia games but you're physically there, in dark descent you can feel the water you walk through and the ripples both you...and the monster...make. Even more terrifying, imagine a moment where the game or an entity in the game takes control of your avatar. You still feel yourself moving but know it wasn't you. GOD that shit would be all the nopes.
If "Who's Lila?" seems interesting, would absolutely recommend Flaw Peacock's analysis video of it. It's REALLY long (around 7 hours, if I recall), but it does a stellar job of being both walkthrough, analysis, and giving you more questions to consider
The way you described _Amnesia: The Bunker_ reminded me a lot of the game _Fear and Hunger_ in its diverse array of options that always come at the detriment of other options provided by the same exact means.
The Utility Room looks like the kind of indescribable horror I had as a child when at my local science museum, gazing up at the Echo Tube which was (in my young eyes) Too Big to Make Sense but inside a building and therefore viscerally terrifying
Who's Lila sounds like such a unique and terrifying horror game and the Utility Room is an experience that makes me want to buy into VR just for it. Love when you showcase these hidden gems
I have an unknown neurological condition that makes me have to control all of my movements consciously, moving for me feels like posing an armature. I will tell you now that learning about that game got me the closest to crying I have been in a very long time.
I'm just genuinely curious, is this like a joke, are you just describing everyone moving when they want to? How do your eyes blink, how do you walk, how do you breath as you do all this. How do you sleep... I'm sorry, but unless you can explain this, I'm gonna press x to doubt.
Sometimes I have those dreams (or should I say nightmares?) where I see a creature so inconceivably big that their mere presence gives me a feeling of existential dread that was hard to explain, despite them not even acknowledging my presence. I believe The Utility Room captures that feeling perfectly.
Something else I find interesting about The Utility Room after playing it is, despite your small size, you cause such havoc that you, YOU personally, become a force of chaos. It has a sort of feel that even the smallest of accidents can create the biggest of disasters. I think the sheer weirdness of it is certainly something that makes this game very memorable. An Exhibition was recently added that, frankly, just has a whole different unsettling feeling to it.
"Who's Lila" is horrifying for me. It's similar to something I struggle with. Often I struggle showing my emotions and I will begin acting in ways I don't want.
Thanks for making this game! I couldn't stop laughing from his face expressions lol. I'm also autistic too and didn't know how to talk to people when I was young.
as an artist who adores the feeling of dread given by things completely untethered to the sensible and logical planes of knowable reality, watching clips of The Utility Room fills me with so much genuinely lifechanging awe that im worried i might pass out (this is a very good feeling). thank you so much for introducing me to these feelings, watching these clips while listening to you put feelings into words has given me the drive to pass these feelings of unfathomable discomfort onto everyone i know (this is also a good thing)
21:00 you get a similar effect but empowering rather than horrifying in kerbal space program it has just enough of a ... videogame typical graphics style to really hit home that when you have made it to some other celestial body what should have been a skybox just turnedi nto an insanely massive 3d object and the texture of that object into scattered little landscape decorations showing you just how insane the journey you have earned for yourself was assuming you don't just smash into the place at speeds that would cross most videogame maps in a second
A genuine feeling that the mun is a physical, touchable object, it is out there, unfathomably huge and far away, but you know its real because you already crossed that distance and landed on it. It really brings to scale how mind boggling just about anything in space travel is compared to what a single living being can do on its own
Before this video, i would never though that seeing a gigantic moai statue flying across your head in VR would be such a nightmare fuel. the scale in The Utilitiy Room is impressive! it's a fairly simple game but sometimes simplicity is the only thing we need to create fear.
My name is Lila and and after the question at 16:35 I said "that's me!" as a joke and he proceeded to say "the easy answer is: it's you" and I was like "oh....."
Glad somebody is still talking about Who's Lila, that game changed me. How it discusses consciousness still sticks with me. I just wish there was more of it
Also that guttoral, deep instinctual “GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE” is exactly what i look for in induced terror. Ive only really gotten it a few times from dead island 2 (being chased by a horde you cant possibly fight and just barely making it to a ladder before they claw at your legs) and in monster hunter world (when i first saw the radobaan, it’s size and design caused me to instinctually start running away, and i was forced to confront and overcome it, providing me with one of the biggest feelings of accomplishment in a game because i not only overcame a difficult challenge, but i overcame my own real life fear of this thing)
As someone with antisocial personality disorder, Who's Lila is the new thing I can point to and say "Basically that." Playing it was so accurate to how I feel a lot of the time, it's insane. I'm constantly having to remind myself of what emotions I'm supposed to have in any given moment despite not actually knowing what that even means.
Great video. That nightmare you mentioned used to happen to me in real life when I was little. Whenever someone pressed me with a question of guilt I would always break out into the most obnoxious shit-eating grin no matter how hard I tried. It's actually a pretty terrifying experience.
There is another type of fear that, to me at least, is the most cathartic to overcome. Its the kind of fear The Outer Wilds or Subnautica inspires - fear or the unknown combined with the awareness of how infinitismally small you actually are. When I forced myself to approach a Leviathan for the first time, or search the Dark Bramble properly - I felt.... sublime.
Sounds a lot like Thalassophobia. Fear of large, open bodies of water. It’s so incomprehensibly vast and unknown, and in who could ever know what lurks within it, they could be massive and yet unnoticeable while surrounded by the deep.
Jacob Gellar is the only guy whose videos I treat like a games shopping cart. He puts out a video and I don’t even finish watching it I just see the titles of games he includes in a video and I’m like “there goes my wallet”
Seeing the first padlock in the Bunker made me pause for like 10 straight seconds before I went under my breath: "pleasedon'tmakemedothis" because I knew the second I made noise that thing was going to be on my tail
God, having played Amnesia: The Bunker myself, the ending of this video with the piano music quietly humming a tune that once meant "Safety" just feels so off-putting paired with the crushing reality of the universe in the background. I love these videos.
The utility room reminds me of a fear I had as a kid. Something so large and inescapable or just false, like living in a veggietales set alone. What I imagined it would be like to be a lone human on Precambrian earth.
@@naomisoltesz9890The word "always" when used on the human scale is pretty much always reduced from the possible comic scale to mean "for the (possibly large) majority of this person's existence". So if I say that I've always loved grapefruit, and then upon prodding admit that I actually strongly disliked grapefruit for the first 30 of my 35 years on this planet, most people would agree that I misused the word. Similarly, in this case, Who's Lila has been out for 9 months. Even if we assume that the original commenter is a young person of 18 years, the game has only been out for 4 % or less of their lifetime. So saying that it has always been their favourite comes off as a peculiar choice of words.
@@Paroex Or perhaps, here, "always" is being used to denote "for all of _its_ existence." A bit unorthodox, sure, but it makes plenty of sense if you stop and think about how the word might be being used.
So glad Who's Lila is getting the attention is deserves for its really innovative take on horror. There is SO much more to it, as well! Highly encourage anyone who hasn't already to check it out
the problem i have with horror games is that when I die a couple times, I tend to lose the "scare" factor and that's why amnesia has always got me, the fact that death almost feels permanent like you said you have more to lose, it makes it all so real and terrifying
The moment you realise in amnesia the bunker is that in the seeing the outside world part and almost getting shot, it fits in to the theme of agonizing decisions. What would you rather? Outside and getting potentially shot, bombed, burned, captured and tortured, or go back inside and face the horrors below. Truly a masterpiece of a game
ohhhhh my gosh, i never even thought about the horror implications of body autonomy in whos lila. after suffering a series of strokes my sophomore year of college, the right side of my face was frozen for weeks. it was the scariest feeling in the world to fight to smile and watch nothing happen. feel like a replay is in order now!
Utility room actually hits home. When I was like, 10? I used to be afraid of my parent's room's corners at night. Because whenever I looked at them it would seem like they were getting further away from me. Idk how to explain it but it felt like the room was morphing, getting bigger with me inside. Probably due to the fact that I needed glasses and I didn't find out till I was 16, but I still remember how scared I was back then
This was such a beautiful video - I've never been able to play horror games really, I cant handle how scary they are, but the thesis of this video is just so on the head of why video games are so tough for me, of that lack of complete agency and the consequences that you dont get to choose.
Another facet of the horror in Who's Lila for me at least is the uncomfortable relatability. I've found myself saying the same thing, that emotions are difficult for me and i feel like I have to force reactions that people expect. It's very uncomfortable to hear the main character say the same thing
I think I'm reacting appropriately but many times people seem to think I'm reacting wrongly. But I don't really know what I did wrong. I used to worry and get upset about it. But I'm old now and have gotten tired of people assuming the correct response that they're waiting for so I get sort of bitchy if they keep bugging me about something. Some people will always be accepting, though. I try to be nice to those people even if I disagree with them.
Who's Lila sounds like a game tailor-made to my deepest fears. Having OCD constantly fills my head with thoughts of the most horrible possible actions i could take at any given time. I fear that someday those thoughts will steal my body from me, as will's body is stolen from him. There's a really great short film on TH-cam called "The Chair" that kinda has to do with the same issue, and really captures that feeling of losing all control.
i cant wait until enough time passes that i forget the details of who’s lila because GOD does it sound interesting and god do i regret spoiling it for myself by watching this lol
Dude I swear, every time you upload, my Steam Wishlist gets longer and longer. I've had so many awesome gaming experiences because of watching your videos, and I'm so hyped to try out these new ones :D
Jacob, it shocks me that you can do this time and time again. You've cracked to code for making exceptionally provoking video essays; they're just incredible. Thank you for creating this.
ULTRAKILL has destroyed my brain so much that even when I was totally focused on the video I started laughing at 26:45 thinking "haha maurice and there are big funny rocks"
The Bunker is the ultimate in Gamer Horror - a game that actually makes you use all those items you would normally hoard for the entire game just in case you need them later.
Ngl, I thought that was Jerma in your thumbnail, and pairing that with the title, I was like "yeah, I want to know more about the three types of terror Jerma inspires in people"
Honestly, a scenario in which the player character of Amneesia: the Bunker escapes the bunker into enemy hands could be its own interesting setup for a story. Imagine seeing a guy from the opposing side run franticically from a tunnel across No-Man's-Land. He's waving his arms in the air seemingingly in surrender. You take him prisoner, and you can't speak his language, but you can tell that he's terrified of something, yet somehow relieved to just be outside, as if running senselessly into No-Man's-Land and being taken as a PoW is somehow preferable to whatever he had encountered in those tunnels. It would certainly make for a suspenseful start.
I didn’t really see much of Who’s Lila? when it came out just people intentionally messing with the facial expressions outside of any gameplay- now it’s on my wish list. Another great video :)))
Who's Lila sounds really interesting from a perspective of something like autism. As someone who got into a lot of trouble as a young girl in school because I kept having the "wrong" reactions such as smiling/laughing at inappropriate times, what Jacob described here has really grabbed my attention.
I feel like what a lot of horror games have been getting wrong for a long time is confusing panic for fear. A lot of horror games, including Amnesia: The Bunker, just give me the same feeling I get when I can't find my keys when I'm late to work... but with the added bonus of something trying to kill you while you search. That's anxiety.. not terror.
The thing I don't like about Amnesia's "being completely unable to fight back" is that it simply does not work. There's a difference between being able to attempt a fight that is ultimately futile, and not being able to attempt to fight at all. Ironically I think Spooky's House of Jumpscares does a better job at this. You get an axe, and some monsters you are logically able to hack and slash at until they die. But then some of them... Some of them you just have to run, you can try hitting them with an axe but it does nothing. TLDR: if I was in a horror scenario, I'd like to think I'd at least attempt to fight back. To take that away is less terrifying, and more infuriating.
Damn Jacob, that last line... You really outdid yourself on this one. Some thoughts: the Utility Room strikes me as pure cosmic horror for exactly the reasons you described: there's no malice, there's no intention of harm, just the universe going about its existence unaware that you are there. It's ironic, then, that the climax seems to be catastrophe set in motion by your very presence; perhaps those we are indifferent to can exert more influence than we care to admit. Regarding Who Is Lila, your dive into the fears of loss of self and autonomy reminded me of the film "Possessor" by Brandon Cronenberg - and my own total freakout following it!
im impressed how far amnesia has come. i didnt play any of the sequalls but i kept an eye on them over the years. they all seemed to struggle with finding a new thing that worked. but the bunker seems like a big step up, one i didnt think it was capable of. i think ill go download it.
This video is so beautiful! The visuals, music, and horror all blend together so well. Also, I have no idea how I’ve never heard of “Who’s Lila” before this??? It looks like such an amazingly horrific game.
![กี่หมื่นฟ้า | Your Sky Series EP.1 [1/4]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/vLGjxFL6U_I/mqdefault.jpg)
Nebula is bringing back lifetime memberships for the holidays! One payment up front and then you'll have access to everything that's on Nebula, forever. The option should show up after you click "get started" on this page: go.nebula.tv/jacob-geller
Hey man, love your content. Some of the best content on TH-cam. Quick question though, how much content do you have on this Nebula thing, and do you ever plan on moving it over to TH-cam in the future?
The Bunker gives strong Kingsfield 1 jpn vibes
@@RhizometricReality I understand this.
oh man this might be the thing to push me over 👀
13:15 - 13:49 oh cool. an autism simulator.
The bunker giving you that little taste of fresh air, and then immediately reminding you that it’s somehow MORE dangerous outside the bunker because it’s literally no man’s land, is absolutely amazing. Anytime im playing a horror game and see a window out of the manor, or something similar, im always like “why cant i just dip” but this game answering that with “beacause WWI” is so perfect i love it
Reminds me of his essay “Fear of Cold” where he talks about how in The Thing the true danger was the cold outside
@@keef920"the Thing might kill them. The cold will"
Such a good video
> Finds a way out of spooky bunker
> its in no man's land
> wonder if monster dude is looking for a roommate
@@SemicolonExpected the monster’s probably only in there because its so dangerous outside 😂 bro’s just looking for shelter
@@5001Fergies "I'm an eldritch monster blblblbl..." IN COMES THE MG08 WITH THE SMACKDOWN
what makes a great horror game scarier than a movie is giving you just enough agency to have responsibility but not enough to make that responsibility easy
very well said
This video came out 15 minutes ago (as of this comment), how did you comment 20 hours ago???
Great way of summarizing it. Its very true. Also, the 1st person perspective often seen in horror games (or games as a medium in general) i think is also a big aspect of why it seems scarier, it feels like youre the one in the situation, not just watching others go through it. (which also links to the same agency point)
@@mint_marigold1229 probably early release for patrons
Lmao wtf
So confused
“To give someone control in a video game is to enable them to make mistakes, horror comes from simply living with the consequences” WHAT A FUCKING BANGER LINE YOUVE DONE IT AGAIN MY FRIEND
I am once again reminded of Telefrancais. Why have you done this?
Time for him to make a new sticker!!
"swagatha christie" I'm been awake for 36 hours and this is the funniest thing for no reason 💀😂
i just KNOW he was kicking his feet giggling while writing down the video script because of how genius he was
I’d say horror is actually not wanting to live with the consequences. That’s why games like “Getting Over It With Bennet Foddy” can be horrifying despite not being a horror game.
For me Who's Lila is what I call "rabbit hole horror". The more time you spend with something, the more knowledge you gain, the scarier the horror becomes. And you can't stop. You're already too deep into it, you have to finish the journey, in the hopes of finding a satisfactory conclusion.
and the best part? the game KNOWS you want that conclusion. Lila herself exists not as an entity but as the question: Who’s Lila?
its so interesting to me. the game gives you so much to make your own interpretation and it NEVER gives you the answer.
So true! I think House of Leaves operates the same way. Trapping you with the monster just by making it so *interesting*.
That is part of the appeal of eldritch/lovecraftian horror.
I would consider it cosmic horror, honestly. Knowledge which you KNOW you shouldn’t know, that’s dangerous and wrong, and yet you can’t seem to stop yourself from seeking it out
Rabbit hole horror is what i consider to be hands down my personal favorite genre of horror to write and dive into, yet is also what i consider to be the hardest form of horror to effectively do for the same reason i love it so much: all the little details that could easily be avoided. Rabbit hole horror to me is best done in non-horror games, specifically games where you can play through the game without needing to acknowledge it in the slightest, but it's there for those who dare peek under the vale and start digging.
The best instance of rabbit hole horror that i have ever seen executed is with the You Don't Know Jack series made by Jellyvision (now known as Jackbox Games). The games on the surface are trivia games that use pop-culture references to ask a variety of different questions read out by charismatic hosts, and to most people that's all that is. Yet if you actually listen to what the hosts have to say: that's when you can never go back to simply playing for the trivia. There is only two times i know of that mentions something explicitly in a way you cannot ignore, and that is the cutscene on first boot-up of The Lost Gold, and Full Stream's (generally pretty shitty) Escape the Simulations.
The hosts have the best, most in depth and realistic characterization i have ever seen from a fictional character in anything i have ever seen in my life! They do not feel like fictional characters, they feel like genuine real people you could actually meet irl. You can learn about their desires, their quirks, their insecurities, what peeves them off, their limits, their trauma responses, their sex lives, their kinks, their childhood, their disabilities, their physical characteristics, etc (and that etc isn't because i ran out of examples, there's so fucking much i'd be here all day listing it all) ONLY through their voice and what they say. You only get to see them one time in-game at the end of The Ride and only PARTLY at that.
Now the one line that changed everything about how i see this series is one of the possible lines that can be said in the intro to You Don't Know Jack: Full Stream. The game's host, Cookie Masterson, mentions being trapped in the game for decades and that he misses his family. Now what makes this good isn't that it's just a reveal, but confirmation based on knowledge already given in previous installments.
In You Don't Know Jack: The Lost Gold, the game's sign-in host (basically the person who asks for your name and how many players are playing) is The Captain, a pirate who was trapped inside the game through Jack's Gold: a cardboard box that contains CD roms that interacting with in anyway will trap you inside the game disk, forcing you to do what it wants you to do *or else* (and we never get clued in to what the *or else* is beside the sound of thunder that causes The Captain to immediately cease and obey), and you can only free yourself if the player earns enough cumulative points to free you, and that's only if all possible ways to play the game cannot be done by, as the curse cannot be lifted if there's still a game to play.
The first game Cookie Masterson appeared in was the very first installment, You Don't Know Jack: Vol.1, which was over two decades old by the time Full Stream was released with The Jackbox Party Pack 5. In that installment, he was the sign-in host.
That line gave me fucking chills when i put it all together, and you would never know about it if you weren't already neck deep in the rabbit hole. In fact: the fandom doesn't even know about it, even the really passionate folks who go into the game's code to listen to the voice lines don't know about it. The sheer fact that the game's most popular host, practically the face of the modern era of You Don't Know Jack, was actually a real person trapped inside the game, forced to host *or else* for so long, and the fact he will probably never be getting out due to how popular he is, to the point fans were RIOTING to bring him back on social media when he didn't show up in The Jackbox Party Pack 6 (he has yet to reappear, the closest being an ai replica of him in Pack 9 dubbed by his box of parts as Masterson C.).
He is going to rot in that rabbit hole, and the amount of digging one needs to do to learn that he's rotting is only caused the rabbit hole to collapse over him even more, making the chance of escaping that much more impossible. Just the concept and revelation that you choosing to go deeper for that information is actively trapping him in even more is FANTASTIC! And the fact is, it's fully possible ANY of the characters might be trapped within the game, not just the hosts. It was so well done, and i have yet to find anything that was able to accomplish what this late 90's semi-obscure trivia game was able to do. The game has more generally messed up and impactful moments within it, but this is the one that effected me the most.
Youre actually quoted on The Utility Room’s steam page:
“Sincerely an engaging and utterly unique experience” -Jacob Geller
I feel like a developer respecting your opinion so much they display it on the front page where people usually put IGN reviews is the highest form of praise, youve come a long way since i started watching ur vids, congrats dude!
THAT'S SO COOL!
Bruh, IGN is sh*t. Why would anyone listen to their reviews? They've stopped doing proper game reviews, now they're nothing more than yellow journalists with political agendas.
Whoever made "who's lila" is a fucking genius. Such an amazingly executed concept
I like that Will kind of looks like Ted Bundy. It's already unsettling you just in that.
it's more than that. WAAAAAAAY more than that. there's an amazing 8 hour plot breakdown and the primary game mechanics seem silly and trivial after uncovering this convoluted yet interesting fucking mess
Garage heathen
kid named -finger- Garage Heathen:
@@Religion0 fuck i knew he looked familiar
Hearing you say that you ran back down into the bunker made me realize something that, at least to me, is horrifyingly profound. The literally nightmarish, demonic creature that stalks you so relentlessly, is preferable to... A man with a gun. After all, you can fight against the monster with a revolver, grenades, fire bottles, and what counts for wits in a situation like that, but the man with the gun...
You can't even see him.
And this is why Arma can be terrifying.
Also preferable to WW1 era politics.
This just gave me chills.
For all the "barbarity" of historical warfare with melee combat, you at least have a good comprehension of when you're safe, when you're not, and what you can do about it. A huge reason PTSD-type symptoms rose astronomically with WW1 is it was one of the first large-scale conflicts where you could go from downtime to dead within a split second.
There are also mountains of evidence suggesting historical melee infantry did as little fighting as they could get away with, generally very few people dying before a rout started, because both being in danger and taking a life were much more tangible and comprehensible. To the man throwing in a howitzer shell or piloting a remote drone, killing is just a button click to them, which the mind resists far less.
Hate to burst your bubble, but you can outwit a man with a gun too
Who's Lila is SO underrated, thank you for covering it! I hope more people discover this gem of a horror game.
The name alone makes me think "How's Annie?", which is even more appropriate considering the subject-matter of the game.
"Your friends will meet him when you are gone."
It's been getting lots of attention this past year!
Yes!! I've been in love with it since the demo and it's great to see it getting more attention! If you want another good look at it I recommend Flaw Peacock's analysis
@@GmodPlusWoWWell i don't want to spoil the game but "Who is lilia?" Has a another reason other then just a question for lilia i think it is genuis.
I JUST finished a 7+ hour analysis of this video done by Flaw Peacock!
Who's Lila reminds me of the concept of "paradoxical laughter". I didn't know it was a thing until I encountered it. I was at a funeral for someone I cared for and suddenly my face just began pulling into this manic grin on its own, and I had to fight to control my expression while simultaneously resisting the urge to burst into hysterical laughter. It felt terrifying to experience, especially since I've been to funerals before and nothing like it had happened then.
I know the feeling. I was once trying to tell a story but I couldn't because I was laughing so much. The story was about my teachers wife dying in a car crash.
when under stress i tend to need to laugh i guess it gets the giddy overwhelming feeling out better
This happens to Van Helsing in the Dracula novel right after poor Lucy's funeral. He calls it the "King Laugh".
I’ve been looking for a name for this for the longest time but I’ve never been able to until now
I've heard of this happening so many times. People who have been escorted out of funerals for not being able to stop laughing, despite being in deep grief for that person's death
The mechanics of Who's Lila are so cool and creative, I love it when people see games as an artform and experiment with what can be done with them as a medium
This is absolutely wild. I'm so glad you like the giant heads. Thanks for covering The Utility Room 🗿
Congratulations!
ty for your support back when it was broken af@@FastLawyer ❤
Absolutely awesome game man, really great work. Theres very few things ive ever seen get close to creating such a rigid, harsh and almost eternal atmosphere like this did.
🗿
Just by watching the video it looks amazing, the scene where you have to lay down on the floor got me trying to do the same on my chair 😆 That was REALLY effective.
Unfortunate that i dont own a VR to experience it myself 🥲
I havent played Who's Lila but listening to both the opening and Geller's description of his nightmares, it kinda reminded me of my experiences of being autistic. I've often practiced expressions in the mirror and planned reactions in advance. The nightmare happening to Geller was my childhood. I would be telling the complete truth but my face would be blushing and smiling so no-one believed me. It did often feel like my face is being warped by something out of my control. Idk if this is very relevant but I thought it would be interesting to add
I came here to write something really similar after finishing this video. I don’t have autism but I’d often get in trouble for doing things I hadn’t because I was smiling or grinning like an idiot while telling the absolute truth. That nightmare was my childhood too, and it’s still something I deal with as an adult.
Seeing this concept just represented in some way, even though it’s in a creepy as hell horror game, makes me feel weirdly seen? I think making a game touching on this idea is smart as hell, and I wonder if what we’ve experienced is something the people behind this thing have as well.
It’s nice to know other people had to go through that. I’ve worked on my facial expressions my whole life but I still feel like the only time I can talk to people well, is when my face is covered or something
100% about that nightmare
As a fellow Autistic I have two modes, Grim/smiles, because any kind of nuanced emotions on my face isn't happening so it's just easier to force a "default" and act out my intent than fighting with, but your face is X
E.G. you feel all right your smiling, or my boss yelling at me because I was "making fun of him" because but surprised expression is 200% and that's literally something I have no concussions control over.
autism, the sometimes stress I've seen in folks before realizing they were plural, the depersonalization of gender identity problems, all kinds of things. Also it's rather Twin Peaks.
I'd say it's relevant. Fellow autist, and I also remember a great deal of time spent as a child watching other children, to try and make sense of their social cues from an analytical standpoint.
It wasn't as much the face for me as it was the emotional responses - the whats and the whys to go with the how - but I get the sentiment. All to try and avoid this constant nagging feeling that I was going to be outed by my peers and deemed 'not a real kid' or something silly.
But, back in the year 2000, when the response my behavior provoked from a less-than-sympathetic councilor was to medicate me until I "wasn't a problem" anymore, that fear seemed justified.
Thankfully, my parents told them where to shove it, but a 7-year-old me wasn't really able to understand what they were talking about, or why I was being singled out other than being 'different'. So, I spent the next 20 years avoiding behaviors I didn't witness other people do. I hid my own feelings behind a mask and felt like a fraud in my own skin; like I was two people.
One miserable and fake, but accepted by everyone else, and one real but buried so deep I couldn't even acknowledge they existed for years.
Honestly, I'd say the general autistic masking experience has a conspicuous amount of things in common with trying to hide during Invasion of the Body Snatchers. If that doesn't qualify as a kind of existential horror, I don't know what would.
The Utility Room just triggers such a primal fear in me, like an "I should not be here and I want to leave right now" fear, and that was JUST from the clips in this video. I have no idea where you find these weird ass games but I'm glad you do.
Same here
I've never even heard of the Utility Room until this video, and now I feel... off
Idk how to describe it, but I want to make something that gives others the same feeling I have right now
I feel that this kind of experience works better with vr because as Jacob said in vr you don’t have reality confirming peripherals
I feel the same way, but it just makes me want a vr headset so I can be in this untouched, unearthly, unreal, world. I feel such a pull to it.
I watched the walkthrough by the developer and even though I’m watching it on a small laptops screen, I was so viscerally shitting my pants
Putting Jerma in the thumbnail was a fantastic move.
Absolutely Terrifying!
I literally clicked on this video to say this
Jerba
Who?
@@kaih_the_viewer jerma
@@steddieisreal2780 who is Jerma? The only one I know of is the one from One Piece
"A kid named Will, according to his classmates." Carefully worded to avoid spoilers. Hats off.
The section about 'who's Lila' was really uncomfortable for me because I'm autistic and naturally, I don't have a lot of facial expressions - but if school teaches you one thing as an autistic person, then it's that you better have 'normal', neurotypical reactions or else at best you get socially isolated and at worst you get bullied.
I am, in fact, hand-animating my face every day; in every conversation, a part of my concentration is automatically dedicated to checking whether my expressions are right. And my voice also needs modulation and my hands also don't move by themselves. Due to years of practice, it's like riding a bike where it takes almost no effort anymore, but it's still there.
Mind you, I'm not doing this to manipulate others or something, there is no ill intent behind it - I just want to have and maintain a social life after not having friends for the first 15 years of my life.
I hope I didn't creep anyone out in writing this, I just thought my experiences might interest some people here
Edit: typo
it shouldn't creep people out, it's normal - in a sense that you're not alone in this. one autistic person to another. i didn't have friends too - because i couldn't understand other people's tone when they spoke to me, making countless mistakes and saying wrong things "not by the script". i still struggle with it, but on the internet it's more acceptable to not always be aware of other's tone, because we can't hear eachother.
@@mycelium_moss thank you for saying this. I have gotten really, really good at masking over the years, but the journey hasn't been pleasant. Anyways. I don't want this to be a huge downer. For all autistic people reading this: you're not alone, it is very much possible to find and maintain a friend group. I've done it, and so can you. If you're struggling: it can, and will, get better.
About same here, not as extreme but still lots of suppression. Opting more for the avoiding of expression than attempting to do so acceptably. But I took a different route. At 16 or so I went off script and I frankly haven't looked back since, I'm 27 now. Does it mean you never really make it far in life? Yes. Does it mean you'll have a hard time maintaining connections? Yes. Do you feel like yourself and open a door to peace with yourself? Also yes. I STILL managed to find people. And I found them as me. When you hug someone, does it feel like the person is hugging you?
It doesn't creep me out. I'm autistic too and something I've realized at close to 30 is that masking like how you describe used up energy you don't notice slipping away at first. I've made efforts to stop masking (I was never really good at it anyway if I'm being honest) and it's surprisingly difficult to stop. It's such an automated behavior that even trying to stop it is difficult. But I have found that the relationships with my loved ones who don't distance from me with my blank expressions are much more worthwhile to me than any relationship I made while masking. And I have noticed people get creeped out by my restricted affect. At one point the thought of seeing that terrified me. Now though it hardly bothers me. You might never reach this mindset; autism is, after all, a spectrum disorder. But if you feel the strong desire to stop masking and you have people you care about that you talk to and they say they wouldn't abandon you for expressing less visibly, and you're scared to go through with it, I can tell you it's worth it
@@Myla-zl4jv wow, all of these comments are lovely. Thank you so much for your kind words and understanding :')
13:54 I literally lived your nightmare. I've had this nervous tic since i was a toddler where, when in stressful situations, i start giggling and grinning. Whenever at home, if something went missing, if something broke, even when i was sick, whenever confronted if i was responsible or faking, i would involuntarily grin and laugh, and i was assumed to be lying. It took years for my parents to finally learn that i could not control these inappropriate responses (but only after several funerals and wakes where they had to hide their laughing toddler). It was the same at school. The kids i hung out with were troublemakers, and whenever they did something punishable, i would be lumped in for being their friend and my "guilty face" made me culpable. It really was like living a nightmare.
have you seen 'A young boy is born with facial expressions that show the opposite of what he's feeling' by omletto? its quite a good animation and i feel like it somewhat relates with your experiences? (im just telling you this because i know how- at least for me- seeing media that relates to my own experiences is quite comforting)
@@bonkquartz The short film's called "Eggplant," and yes! i have seen it! I'm luckier than Durian, though, in that only my "negative" faces are wrong (angry, sad, scared, anxious), but the parts where people didn't want to be around him at the movie theater, and him having to make himself cry to get the care & affection from his mother really hit home for me.
This must be quite dangerous in alot of situations, i feel bad for you as a child
Going through that with a teacher was traumatic enough, I can't imagine what it must've felt like to go through that with your parents! I hope that didn't have a lasting effect on you, or at the very least that you've recovered from it!
“i hope this didn’t leave a lasting effect on you” oh brother ableism definitely leaves a lasting effect to say the least
I'm a writer, and I dabble in horror myself. I read horror books, watch horror movies, play horror games with obsessive fervency. I think that while horror itself is reactionary, terror is not.
There are three kinds of terror that I have uncovered. Personal terror, Societal terror, and Primal terror.
Personal terror is something you may be born with, or it is something you learn. They vary from person to person. Phobias of snakes, spiders, dogs, betrayal, drowning, darkness, falling, forests, or assault. These depend on the individual.
Societal terror is a kind of fear that the environment you grow up in, or the people you grow up around, instills within you. Here in America, that's expressed in a fear of a school shooting, or being arrested by a corrupt cop, or going into inescapable debt for medical care. Elsewhere, it may be a fear of poisonous snakes, or earthquakes, or war, or any other experience shared by an entire society.
Primal terror is the deepest part of ourselves, that lizard brain you mentioned, waking up in response to something and screaming that this is wrong. It manifests in gut instincts, the fear of things much bigger than you, or the sudden wave of adrenaline that washes over you when the forest suddenly goes dead silent and something inside you knows that you need to *leave*.
I see a lot of Primal terror in the Utility Room, Personal terror in Who's Lila, and Societal terror in the Bunker. Your choice in games to discuss remains immaculate!
This is really fascinating!
No clue if you know already, but your characterization reminded me a little of The Magnus Archives, a magnificent horror podcast. Highly recommend you to listen to it, if you didn't :)
If you have a category for primal horror, fear of snakes, spiders, drowning, falling and possibly darkness would all go there. While they do vary from person to person (as does any fear), there are psychological studies showing that people have them independent of culture and learning. For example, infants are likely to show a strong fear response towards snakes and spiders even when they've never seen them before. I learned about these ingrained fear responses as a psych major in college, as they were a major turning point in psychology, dealing a serious blow to the theory of behaviorism.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6716607/#:~:text=Classic%20developmental%20research%20suggests%20that,approach%20of%20a%20stranger%20(Scarr%20%26
This is such a fantastic comment, I’m gonna be thinking about these kinds of terror for a while.
So, I'm gonna select this whole comment, and then I'm adding it to my clipboard with proper credits, because this is dummy smart
I'm glad you finally talked about Who's Lila because I found this game fascinating when it first made the rounds. Certainly, there are the horror bits, but I found myself frustrated in a similar way I get with myself going about my business.
As an autistic person, the struggle is daily to respond and react adequately with my face and body language. I was criticized for it during my early life, so I quickly learned the best default is to smile or laugh politely. That nightmare you mentioned? Gods how much that hit home. As do the parts of the game where Will's face moves on its own-I process emotions pretty differently, causing me to fight my internal reaction with the one I know I should put on for other people or what's appropriate. Most of the time, I don't react at all, or I don't react strongly enough, leaving others VASTLY misinterpreting me (and ALSO landing me in trouble). I could be positively euphoric and it still wouldn't show on my face, as with most other emotions. I practiced facial expressions all the time as a kid and still do now.
For the most part, I found Who's Lila to be less scary and more relatable. Hilariously, the part I found actually uncomfortable was the *eye contact.* Will and me both are making the same Autistic Stare, and both of us feel equally uncomfortable looking at each other. Truly an experience.
YES!!!
FINALLY, SOMEONE ELSE WHO GETS IT!!
i was listening to Jacob describe the game, and all I could think at the beginning was 'oh, that's just autism-core.' It sent me *straight* back to when i was 4 and being coached to match the correct facial expression to the correct emotion.
especially when you guess *wrong* and accidentally express 'smugness' when you're *trying* to convey a wince or a sympathetic grimace
oh, and the unintentional smiling thing while stressed? Yup, it's happened countless times
Hard relate man it's autism as a horror game 😂
Its core mechanic is literally just masking!@@AnarchoEnby420
I’ve only just found out about Who’s Lila (and am thusly absorbing all the commentary about it) and I must say, as an autistic guy named William, I have never felt more represented (and TERRIFIED jfc)
Those were my first thoughts too!
I may not have this kind of issue with facial expressions, but I can definitely compare it to how I actually talk. There’s always something in the back of my mind going “What if I phrase this weirdly, or the inflection comes out wrong? Are people going to misinterpret this in a way that gets me in trouble?”
Honestly, I thought for a bit while watching that part of the video that the game was going to turn out to intentionally be an allegory for this type of thing.
‘Horror comes from living with the consequences’
You really do have a beautiful way with words, not me crying over that line damn
As someone whose whole life has been "you're falling apart. do you choose to stop the pain and suffering and have surgery knowing things can go wrong or continue going on suffering and skip the surgery?" that quote really hit me hard. >.
You waving at the giant moai head right before it got decimated was an excellent comedic bit
Right? lol it reminds me of a comedic remake of an 80's sci-fi adventure film where a well-remembered scene gets a callback and the new version just goes totally left field with it. The main character says something like "ooo maybe we should've just kept quiet" and that clip makes it into the trailer.
the utility room sounds so surreal. there is horror in scale. in sheer, pure unadulterated, largeness. but i also appreciate the desolation, the emptiness, the violence in natural occurences despite there being no malice behind the violence. absolutely beautifully terrifying.
Playing the Utility Room looks like stepping into the role of that one meme of Willem Dafoe looking up in abject terror for a full hour.
I don't think I'll ever again experience the level of fear and stress I felt walking down the Bunker's soldier quarters stairs in complete darkness, hearing the monster around me, not knowing if it was behind me or in front of me, and having to keep moving until you find out
who’s lila sounds like EXACTLY what it feels like to be autistic. i have actively had to fight my own face in the past because i knew in theory how i was supposed to interact with others and react to different types of information but my face would never move the way i saw others’ faces moving and sometimes it would even move the wrong way, i’d literally grin when friends were telling me about home life issues even though i felt bad for them. it really makes you feel like you’re an imitation of a human being, or fighting for control of a body that isn’t your own
It's the same for me, I haven't gotten diagnosed with autism, but do have an ADHD diagnosis. It's really uncomfortable to have to force yourself to act 'naturally' so that other people don't get offended. Forcing facial expressions, imitating body language, basically feeling like a fraud (at least for me). I sometimes envy people who can socialize properly without expending a huge amount of energy trying to react accordingly.
It's the same for me, I haven't gotten diagnosed with autism, but do have an ADHD diagnosis. It's really uncomfortable to have to force yourself to act 'naturally' so that other people don't get offended. Forcing facial expressions, imitating body language, basically feeling like a fraud (at least for me). I sometimes envy people who can socialize properly without expending a huge amount of energy trying to react accordingly.
Been battling with Asperger's Syndrome for essentially three decades now (diagnosed at 4, currently am 33). It's an ongoing battle for your whole life, you always build what you think is a "firmer" control of your body, your emotions, but there's still occasions when someone passes away or something tragic happens... and I oddly think of something humorous or non-serious to help deal with it, which at times is hella awkward because I'm trying to cope and people think I might be laughing at their sorrow (and it ain't, I apologize for myself).
You get sometimes, the benefit of being amazingly fucking intelligent... but you get social awkwardness as bad RNG in life.
Obligatory comment about how autism is a spectrum. Not everyone will experience these things.
DUDE SAMEEE, it gets easier the more you do it and focus on it though
Holy shit where was "Who's Lila?" hiding all this time? That's my kind of horror.
its fantastic!!! if youre interested in more about it, flaw peacock has a 7 hour video diving into the game
@@vizzzyy190yup yup yup. i second this. Fantastic video.
@@vizzzyy190oh my lord what do you mean 7 hours
that man is deranged
The game's mechanic is literally just living as an Autist
Being told you are "making weird faces" or accidentally making the "Not appropriate" face and being told you are guilty of something you've heard of the first time in your life. It's quite horrible what allistic people put others through just for being different :/
@@NickiRusin 😂 you cant fault the dedication. he said hes working on even longer videos too
The horror of 'The Utility Room' reminds me of a recurring nightmare I had as a kid, where regular objects in my room became impossibly large and started to loom over me, slowly crushing the air out of my chest. What an awesome setting for a VR game, I'll give it a try when i feel ready for it.
I think that’s a condition called Alice in wonderland syndrome
I used to have a similar recurring nightmare as a child. Huge shapeless objects becoming infinitely larger on an ever-expanding plane, making me feel like I was being crushed, then a nearly inaudible ringing sound as everything condensed into one microscopic point on a line and I would feel like I was disintegrating. Scary and weird. Made me feel like I was actively dying!
Eraserhead has a scene like that
i had such a similar nightmare when i was a kid - getting smaller and smaller on an infinite empty plain, like folding in on myself in this kind of existential smallness
@@caspar7How do I have NO unique experiences😂
"william woudlnt choose to make a face like this, noone would" 18:23
promptly shows jerma
WAIT THAT WAS JERMA!?!?!?!?!??! I assumed it was a clip from the game!
@@catbatrat1760 i have no concept of what jerma actually looks like
Thanks for covering The Utility Room
nice
That is good
Good
great
neat
I used to always have this dream as a kid that similar to the utility room, where I was in this white space with just these 2 world sized spheres slowly slowly rolling towards each other as I stood on the ground watching. It was so anxiety inducing and dreadful and then whenever they actually hit I woke up because the shock and fear of what was going to happen was enough to wake me.
I used to dream about being in an incomprehensibly large version of my room, i was in the middle, and some sort of larger power, usually left ambiguous would almost "telepathically" communicate about some sort of endless exponential grow of power, it felt like i was watching an alien superweapon directly aimed at earth charge, and us not being able to do anything. I never remember whatever the physical thing was, the dream would recur since i was 7 or 8, cant remember, but each time i would feel incomprehensible dread, and forget what the object was as soon as i try and write or type it down.
I used to have the same dreams too whenevet I have high fever. In my case, the big balls are always crushing me and chasing me
I used to have the same (or at least very similar) dream! Standing on a vast white plane with huge boulder-like objects infinitely expanding towards each other, and it was like I was feeling what was happening to them but had no way of stopping it. I had no body in the dream but I would feel an intense weight and pressure and a sense of doom. Then everything would condense into a single infinitely small point and I would “hear” an extremely loud ringing noise and it would seem like everything was collapsing in on itself. Very weird and always scared the crap out of me. Also weird, but cool, that I’m seeing so many comments describing similar dreams.
@@pez.3117 I might sound crazy, but hear me out. What if that dream is the brain somehow seeing the end of the universe? Melodysheep did a video on a time lapse of the future, (check it out, it’s amazing). Basically, the force called dark matter, which is expanding the universe faster and faster, could theoretically weaken after an incomprehensible amount of time, and the universe would collapse in on itself, like what seems to happen in the dream you and the others described. Then another Big Bang could happen, restarting the universe. So your brain could somehow be showing the end/restart of the universe.
Im writing this at 2am, so, again, this is probably crazy.
@@JalinaTheFox1 reading this at 2am, seems like an interesting idea ngl.
As someone who enjoys horror games but has a hard time playing them, it’s nice to see more of how they work!!!!
Saaame
I be watching 12 hour horror icebergs/documentaries/video essays/whatever and yet not ever touch a single horror game 💀💀
@@Josuh oh those are the best, I love super longform videos on games/topics I know nothing about
If you're interested in categorizing horror, The Magnus Archives is a MUST listen. They eventually settled on 14 Fears, (maybe 15). The games in this video would be The Hunt (arguably The Slaughter), The Stranger, and The Vast. It helped me actually realize the nuance between anxiety and fear (but not before blessing me with a few new irrational fears as a going-away gift).
I pinned who's lila as having more to do with the web (loss of control being the central theme discussed in this video), a lot of overlap of course though, fear soup and all. very vindicating to see other people with the exact same thought process as me by assigning all these tma fears though lol
@@entityfangs5560 Ikr? I think that the classification of fears deserves some academic study because I'm slowly coming to realize that while exposure therapy might work for some phobias (like snakes), it will make other phobias much worse (fear of violence), and they seem to fall pretty neatly along the lines that Johnny Simms created.
Well, except for spiders. I think that a fear of spiders has nothing to do with the fear of control and is typically co-morbid with corruption, hunt, and stranger phobias. If you speak to arachnophobes it becomes apparent that some of them are afraid that the spider is a sign of filth because a dusty room is just a dusty room until there's a spider there. Other arachnophobes are dead serious when they think that every spider in the world exists to hunt them down and kill them. And others are just unnerved that venomous spiders look exactly like regular bugs until you count the legs.
I've never heard an arachnophobe say "I just hate how flies are helpless when they're caught in webs-- that's what truly scares me".
I think Johnny Simms realized that "fear of being controlled" was a bit too abstract, so he decided to symbolize it with a much more common fear, which was a great move for a fictional story, but it did a disservice to his classification method.
@@VoltasP Excellent take. I'd love to see more study on this.
Which episodes do they discuss this? I’m skimming playlists but I can’t find it.
@@INTERNAL_REVENUE_SERVICEits a narrative fiction podcast where everything slowly gets revealed as you listen, so if you are at all interested i kinda just have to recommend you listen to all of it in its intended order. There isnt really a specific point where they just discuss it. It is really good though very much recommend if you like good horror stories
So so happy to see Who's Lila getting more attention. I played it pretty early on and completely fell in love with its story and mechanics. Truly a wonderful experience. I recommend it to anyone who loves ARGs and replayability in games. In fact, to get any semblance of a good ending, it encourages you to try again.
Something I don't think we'll ever be ready for from full dive vr(if that ever becomes a thing) is horror. Like imagine amnesia games but you're physically there, in dark descent you can feel the water you walk through and the ripples both you...and the monster...make. Even more terrifying, imagine a moment where the game or an entity in the game takes control of your avatar. You still feel yourself moving but know it wasn't you. GOD that shit would be all the nopes.
If "Who's Lila?" seems interesting, would absolutely recommend Flaw Peacock's analysis video of it. It's REALLY long (around 7 hours, if I recall), but it does a stellar job of being both walkthrough, analysis, and giving you more questions to consider
I literally just finished his video on it 5 minutes ago and refreshed my sub feed to see this. Nice to see a fellow flopper out and about
no life
@@bbobydoesgames nah we just love getting floppy with it
Thank you for the rec!
thanks for the recommendation! i cant play horror but i wanna know more about "Whos Lila?" so bad and i love a 7 hour video
The way you described _Amnesia: The Bunker_ reminded me a lot of the game _Fear and Hunger_ in its diverse array of options that always come at the detriment of other options provided by the same exact means.
I was thinking about that too!
Both phenomenonal immersive sims
glad to see someone else mention f&h because i was also reminded of it!
That's what I thought of too. There's never a correct option, just different types of bad
The problem with fear and hunger is, oh what's that, your death. Literally everything in fear and hunger is out to steal you skin.
As someone who still hasn't beaten the bunker because they're a perfectionist with severe choice anxiety, I understand this video on a primal level
The Utility Room looks like the kind of indescribable horror I had as a child when at my local science museum, gazing up at the Echo Tube which was (in my young eyes) Too Big to Make Sense but inside a building and therefore viscerally terrifying
"Landscapes are only immutable until met with a greater force." God, what a great line. Excellent video as always, Jacob!
Who's Lila sounds like such a unique and terrifying horror game and the Utility Room is an experience that makes me want to buy into VR just for it. Love when you showcase these hidden gems
I have an unknown neurological condition that makes me have to control all of my movements consciously, moving for me feels like posing an armature. I will tell you now that learning about that game got me the closest to crying I have been in a very long time.
That really interesting, have you played manual Samuel?
Pros: you are immune to "you are now breathing manually" memes
Cons: you are immune because you were already breathing manually
@fuzzytheduck6821 no I have not
@@identity__thief No way. I've made this exact same joke to people in order to describe my experiences! It's great to know I'm not alone. 🥹
I'm just genuinely curious, is this like a joke, are you just describing everyone moving when they want to? How do your eyes blink, how do you walk, how do you breath as you do all this. How do you sleep... I'm sorry, but unless you can explain this, I'm gonna press x to doubt.
Sometimes I have those dreams (or should I say nightmares?) where I see a creature so inconceivably big that their mere presence gives me a feeling of existential dread that was hard to explain, despite them not even acknowledging my presence.
I believe The Utility Room captures that feeling perfectly.
Something else I find interesting about The Utility Room after playing it is, despite your small size, you cause such havoc that you, YOU personally, become a force of chaos. It has a sort of feel that even the smallest of accidents can create the biggest of disasters.
I think the sheer weirdness of it is certainly something that makes this game very memorable. An Exhibition was recently added that, frankly, just has a whole different unsettling feeling to it.
"Who's Lila" is horrifying for me. It's similar to something I struggle with. Often I struggle showing my emotions and I will begin acting in ways I don't want.
The grinning/laughing when in trouble used to happen to me all the time. I got in trouble for things I didnt do often
Thanks so much for covering Who's Lila! Never expected it, glad you found it interesting!!!
Thanks for making this game! I couldn't stop laughing from his face expressions lol. I'm also autistic too and didn't know how to talk to people when I was young.
hearing jacob describe the emotions and fear he experienced playing the utility room while I'm struggling to stop giggling cause of all the moai heads
🗿
Yo, Angelo.
I love how strongly Jacob feels things, he’s like the most human guy
as an artist who adores the feeling of dread given by things completely untethered to the sensible and logical planes of knowable reality, watching clips of The Utility Room fills me with so much genuinely lifechanging awe that im worried i might pass out (this is a very good feeling). thank you so much for introducing me to these feelings, watching these clips while listening to you put feelings into words has given me the drive to pass these feelings of unfathomable discomfort onto everyone i know (this is also a good thing)
6:00 "Decision is agonizing" is what makes every game a horror game if you have crippling anxiety 😎
It's why the cute, silly fruit game can feels more dreadful than some horror games.
21:00
you get a similar effect but empowering rather than horrifying in kerbal space program
it has just enough of a ... videogame typical graphics style to really hit home that when you have made it to some other celestial body what should have been a skybox just turnedi nto an insanely massive 3d object and the texture of that object into scattered little landscape decorations showing you just how insane the journey you have earned for yourself was
assuming you don't just smash into the place at speeds that would cross most videogame maps in a second
A genuine feeling that the mun is a physical, touchable object, it is out there, unfathomably huge and far away, but you know its real because you already crossed that distance and landed on it.
It really brings to scale how mind boggling just about anything in space travel is compared to what a single living being can do on its own
Before this video, i would never though that seeing a gigantic moai statue flying across your head in VR would be such a nightmare fuel. the scale in The Utilitiy Room is impressive! it's a fairly simple game but sometimes simplicity is the only thing we need to create fear.
My name is Lila and and after the question at 16:35 I said "that's me!" as a joke and he proceeded to say "the easy answer is: it's you" and I was like "oh....."
Glad somebody is still talking about Who's Lila, that game changed me. How it discusses consciousness still sticks with me. I just wish there was more of it
Also that guttoral, deep instinctual “GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE” is exactly what i look for in induced terror. Ive only really gotten it a few times from dead island 2 (being chased by a horde you cant possibly fight and just barely making it to a ladder before they claw at your legs) and in monster hunter world (when i first saw the radobaan, it’s size and design caused me to instinctually start running away, and i was forced to confront and overcome it, providing me with one of the biggest feelings of accomplishment in a game because i not only overcame a difficult challenge, but i overcame my own real life fear of this thing)
the way that i screeched when i saw who’s lila? in the thumbnail is it’s own kind of terror
Jacob, I just completed Who's Lila last week with my girlfriend and immediately thought of you and your video essays. What fantastic timing!
You should check out Flaw Peacock's analysis of it. It's a mindfuck to be sure.
As someone with antisocial personality disorder, Who's Lila is the new thing I can point to and say "Basically that." Playing it was so accurate to how I feel a lot of the time, it's insane. I'm constantly having to remind myself of what emotions I'm supposed to have in any given moment despite not actually knowing what that even means.
Great video. That nightmare you mentioned used to happen to me in real life when I was little. Whenever someone pressed me with a question of guilt I would always break out into the most obnoxious shit-eating grin no matter how hard I tried. It's actually a pretty terrifying experience.
There is another type of fear that, to me at least, is the most cathartic to overcome. Its the kind of fear The Outer Wilds or Subnautica inspires - fear or the unknown combined with the awareness of how infinitismally small you actually are. When I forced myself to approach a Leviathan for the first time, or search the Dark Bramble properly - I felt.... sublime.
I wanted to say about Outer Wilds, didn't expect to find another comment about it here :D
Cosmic horror
Sounds a lot like Thalassophobia. Fear of large, open bodies of water. It’s so incomprehensibly vast and unknown, and in who could ever know what lurks within it, they could be massive and yet unnoticeable while surrounded by the deep.
Jacob Gellar is the only guy whose videos I treat like a games shopping cart.
He puts out a video and I don’t even finish watching it I just see the titles of games he includes in a video and I’m like “there goes my wallet”
Seeing the first padlock in the Bunker made me pause for like 10 straight seconds before I went under my breath: "pleasedon'tmakemedothis" because I knew the second I made noise that thing was going to be on my tail
God, having played Amnesia: The Bunker myself, the ending of this video with the piano music quietly humming a tune that once meant "Safety" just feels so off-putting paired with the crushing reality of the universe in the background. I love these videos.
The utility room reminds me of a fear I had as a kid. Something so large and inescapable or just false, like living in a veggietales set alone. What I imagined it would be like to be a lone human on Precambrian earth.
Who’s Lila has always been one of my favorite games of all time, so glad to see you covering it
didn't it come out last year?
@@sunshine_tidings6983 Your point..?
@@naomisoltesz9890 op's sense of the passage of time is fucked
@@naomisoltesz9890The word "always" when used on the human scale is pretty much always reduced from the possible comic scale to mean "for the (possibly large) majority of this person's existence". So if I say that I've always loved grapefruit, and then upon prodding admit that I actually strongly disliked grapefruit for the first 30 of my 35 years on this planet, most people would agree that I misused the word.
Similarly, in this case, Who's Lila has been out for 9 months. Even if we assume that the original commenter is a young person of 18 years, the game has only been out for 4 % or less of their lifetime. So saying that it has always been their favourite comes off as a peculiar choice of words.
@@Paroex Or perhaps, here, "always" is being used to denote "for all of _its_ existence." A bit unorthodox, sure, but it makes plenty of sense if you stop and think about how the word might be being used.
So glad Who's Lila is getting the attention is deserves for its really innovative take on horror. There is SO much more to it, as well! Highly encourage anyone who hasn't already to check it out
Who's Lila is a masterpiece and it's probably my favorite point and click game of all time. Thank you for covering it!
the problem i have with horror games is that when I die a couple times, I tend to lose the "scare" factor and that's why amnesia has always got me, the fact that death almost feels permanent like you said you have more to lose, it makes it all so real and terrifying
The moment you realise in amnesia the bunker is that in the seeing the outside world part and almost getting shot, it fits in to the theme of agonizing decisions. What would you rather? Outside and getting potentially shot, bombed, burned, captured and tortured, or go back inside and face the horrors below. Truly a masterpiece of a game
ohhhhh my gosh, i never even thought about the horror implications of body autonomy in whos lila. after suffering a series of strokes my sophomore year of college, the right side of my face was frozen for weeks. it was the scariest feeling in the world to fight to smile and watch nothing happen. feel like a replay is in order now!
Utility room actually hits home. When I was like, 10? I used to be afraid of my parent's room's corners at night. Because whenever I looked at them it would seem like they were getting further away from me. Idk how to explain it but it felt like the room was morphing, getting bigger with me inside.
Probably due to the fact that I needed glasses and I didn't find out till I was 16, but I still remember how scared I was back then
This was such a beautiful video - I've never been able to play horror games really, I cant handle how scary they are, but the thesis of this video is just so on the head of why video games are so tough for me, of that lack of complete agency and the consequences that you dont get to choose.
Another facet of the horror in Who's Lila for me at least is the uncomfortable relatability. I've found myself saying the same thing, that emotions are difficult for me and i feel like I have to force reactions that people expect. It's very uncomfortable to hear the main character say the same thing
Autism 🤝 Lila
Having trouble with facial expressions
This is so fuckin relatable tho fr
I think I'm reacting appropriately but many times people seem to think I'm reacting wrongly. But I don't really know what I did wrong. I used to worry and get upset about it. But I'm old now and have gotten tired of people assuming the correct response that they're waiting for so I get sort of bitchy if they keep bugging me about something. Some people will always be accepting, though. I try to be nice to those people even if I disagree with them.
@@cheddarcheezit2647 whose Lila the autism simulator
@@MotherRat-ic6pdcame here to say this but you beat me to it
"Horror comes from living with the consequences" That line hit me hard
Who's Lila sounds like a game tailor-made to my deepest fears. Having OCD constantly fills my head with thoughts of the most horrible possible actions i could take at any given time. I fear that someday those thoughts will steal my body from me, as will's body is stolen from him. There's a really great short film on TH-cam called "The Chair" that kinda has to do with the same issue, and really captures that feeling of losing all control.
i cant wait until enough time passes that i forget the details of who’s lila because GOD does it sound interesting and god do i regret spoiling it for myself by watching this lol
oh dont worry the stuff jacob showed are mostly things that happens early in the game, there is so so sooo much he left out
Oh you really shouldn't worry about that btw, these are early game plot points, the game goes a lot further later on
Dude I swear, every time you upload, my Steam Wishlist gets longer and longer. I've had so many awesome gaming experiences because of watching your videos, and I'm so hyped to try out these new ones :D
Jacob, it shocks me that you can do this time and time again. You've cracked to code for making exceptionally provoking video essays; they're just incredible.
Thank you for creating this.
ULTRAKILL has destroyed my brain so much that even when I was totally focused on the video I started laughing at 26:45 thinking "haha maurice and there are big funny rocks"
I see Jerma in the thumbnail, even in retirement, he scares us.
good to know i wasnt the only one that saw it
thank you, i was 100% sure this was going to be a jerma compilation when i clicked it
*four* specific kinds of terror
psycho streamer appears in youtube thumbnail
The Bunker is the ultimate in Gamer Horror - a game that actually makes you use all those items you would normally hoard for the entire game just in case you need them later.
The Utility Room reminds me a lot of The Vast from The Magnus Archives.
Ngl, I thought that was Jerma in your thumbnail, and pairing that with the title, I was like "yeah, I want to know more about the three types of terror Jerma inspires in people"
Honestly, a scenario in which the player character of Amneesia: the Bunker escapes the bunker into enemy hands could be its own interesting setup for a story.
Imagine seeing a guy from the opposing side run franticically from a tunnel across No-Man's-Land. He's waving his arms in the air seemingingly in surrender. You take him prisoner, and you can't speak his language, but you can tell that he's terrified of something, yet somehow relieved to just be outside, as if running senselessly into No-Man's-Land and being taken as a PoW is somehow preferable to whatever he had encountered in those tunnels.
It would certainly make for a suspenseful start.
Finally Lila getting some proper attention
Your music choices are always spectacular, and this was no exception, perfectly complementing the excellent essay. Another banger!
I didn’t really see much of Who’s Lila? when it came out just people intentionally messing with the facial expressions outside of any gameplay- now it’s on my wish list. Another great video :)))
Who's Lila sounds really interesting from a perspective of something like autism. As someone who got into a lot of trouble as a young girl in school because I kept having the "wrong" reactions such as smiling/laughing at inappropriate times, what Jacob described here has really grabbed my attention.
same!
You have no idea how much hearing the Signalis soundtrack during this video made me smile
dude I love who's Lila, its so cool to have u cover that game. Excited to see this on my feed :)
I feel like what a lot of horror games have been getting wrong for a long time is confusing panic for fear. A lot of horror games, including Amnesia: The Bunker, just give me the same feeling I get when I can't find my keys when I'm late to work... but with the added bonus of something trying to kill you while you search. That's anxiety.. not terror.
3 years later and jacob finally gets to talk about a real theatre of cruelty, truly monumental achievement
The thing I don't like about Amnesia's "being completely unable to fight back" is that it simply does not work. There's a difference between being able to attempt a fight that is ultimately futile, and not being able to attempt to fight at all. Ironically I think Spooky's House of Jumpscares does a better job at this. You get an axe, and some monsters you are logically able to hack and slash at until they die. But then some of them... Some of them you just have to run, you can try hitting them with an axe but it does nothing.
TLDR: if I was in a horror scenario, I'd like to think I'd at least attempt to fight back. To take that away is less terrifying, and more infuriating.
Damn Jacob, that last line... You really outdid yourself on this one. Some thoughts: the Utility Room strikes me as pure cosmic horror for exactly the reasons you described: there's no malice, there's no intention of harm, just the universe going about its existence unaware that you are there. It's ironic, then, that the climax seems to be catastrophe set in motion by your very presence; perhaps those we are indifferent to can exert more influence than we care to admit. Regarding Who Is Lila, your dive into the fears of loss of self and autonomy reminded me of the film "Possessor" by Brandon Cronenberg - and my own total freakout following it!
Whos Lila is one of my favorite horror games. Im glad you Brought attention to it
im impressed how far amnesia has come. i didnt play any of the sequalls but i kept an eye on them over the years. they all seemed to struggle with finding a new thing that worked. but the bunker seems like a big step up, one i didnt think it was capable of. i think ill go download it.
You're easily my favorite creator on this website at this point. You make me excited about writing, and no one else has done that for me
"Horror is living with the consequences of your mistakes" is such a brilliant line and puts it into a new perspective for me.
This video is so beautiful! The visuals, music, and horror all blend together so well.
Also, I have no idea how I’ve never heard of “Who’s Lila” before this??? It looks like such an amazingly horrific game.