Computers Game Bad, Real Life Good..? (my notes on Coffin Tree / Viral Dimensions)
Previous my notes on: [1][2][3][4] The subgenre of analog horror within un-fiction is here to stay. Cross it over with lost media - where someone is mailed or accidentally comes across an undocumented game or TV series (usually from the 80s or 90s to fit the narration) and invites us, the viewers, or even sometimes ARG players, to dare to discover the whole story - and you have a ready canvas to drop a story onto unsuspecting fans online.
It happened again.
At first glance it's like so many others. We can quickly guess the gist - evil game company, testing early virtual reality headsets, things go horribly wrong. People die. The story doesn't even dwelve much on the exposition. The fragmented cuts in first episodes, most of them less than a minute, makes our brains fit in the holes pretty easily.
And yet, I am hooked.
Not because I think Hayden Rhodes, the CEO of the company that in 1995 was supposed to give the world "Coffin Tree", is out there, living and the last person knowing the whole story from the inside, before the HQ got destroyed, no.
I understand the headset messed with the brains of the players, making them confuse reality with the game, something all parents and psychologists warn us against, but driving home "virtual worlds - baaaad!" is not at all the intention of the creators.
It's also not the urge to see the lake at the last level of the Coffin Tree game, in the middle of the labirynth. What grips me is the subtle foreshadowing (I believe) which will bless me with delicious lore and surprises by the end.
Examples include the name of the company that made the game - The Tulpa Corporation. If you are a fan of Twin Peaks, you know all about top notch usage of tulpa tropes in storytelling. If not, you may be in for a ride. Or the fact, that the prequel to this was built at least 5 years ago. Whether it was because the project was shelved for a while and now the creators rebound, or because they needed to sprinkle some urban legends on Reddit and 4chan as a builtup - I do not really care.
What I really care for is whether that built up will be lore? (In part two we hear the narrator of Viral Diemnsions vlog say "I could have sworn I already edited some of these videos before." and indeed, there was a channel called "Coffin Tree" before, set in that universe, but dating back to 2020-21).
Reality is allegedly always better, when your brain is not controlled by AI, but by yourself. Yet it's hard to believe that the roots of the Coffin Tree run so shallow. They won't let you go. And reaching level 60 without dying will not save you, sorry, it just let them deeper.
Check out Coffin Tree [here - Main] and [here - side]