The scariest moment in games for me so far this year has been choosing between risking madness from isolation and traveling with a hungry cannibal.
The Curious Expedition is an exploration game with a sanity meter. Your sanity depletes as you travel and when it runs out, random bad things happen to your party. My latest expedition was on the rocks; Amelia Earhart had run out of whiskey and the golden pyramid was halfway across the map. I had just visited a slaver camp to see if they had any food to trade (eating food restores Sanity); they didn't, so I bought an enslaved tribal shaman instead. A few days later, after our Sanity had run out and I was trying to reach someplace to rest before we went mad, I woke up to discover the shaman had turned cannibalistic and eaten the only other expedition member. Amelia was now alone with a cannibalistic shaman and a pack mule. I recalled what happened the last time I traveled alone with a cannibal and dismissed the shaman from the expedition while his stomach was still full. I would try to complete the trek with just my pack mule.
Over the next 2 weeks, Amelia began conversing with the pack mule, who would crack jokes about our predicament in an attempt to make her feel better. Jokes can't replace food, though, and eventually Amelia tearfully said goodbye to the pack mule just before she slaughtered him for meat. The desperate meal raised my Sanity a bit, but not enough to get somewhere I could replenish it to full. Soon Amelia was wandering through the jungle, talking to herself alone by the campfire, desperately trying to reassure herself everything would be fine.
One night, as she babbled to herself, the cannibalistic shaman emerged from behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder and smiling. Amelia was so desperate for human contact she was relieved at the sight of him, although I wondered if his smile was sincere or that of a hungry man looking at a pig. The choice loomed large on the screen: do I welcome him back into the party with open arms? Or do I drive him off and try to continue on by myself?
I chose to drive him off. Amelia pulled her gun and screamed at him to get away; he disappeared back into the underbrush. After he left, Amelia wondered if she had actually seen him, or just hallucinated it. I didn't know either.
Amelia lost all hope several days later. She wrote a final entry in her journal in the hopes some other expedition would find it, then laid down and never got up. Her attempt to become the most famous explorer ever ended in tragedy.
This game is dark.
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