Pre-game preamble (June 2, 2025)
This is going to be a bit different from the rest of my playlogz, because I'm not actually playing blind here. Like In Stars and Time, I found out about this game through Holly Hollowtones, but unlike In Stars and Time, I didn't buy the game until after I finished watching her playthrough. (Fun fact, it's partially why I bought In Stars and Time myself; I didn't want to repeat my mistake of not taking the chance to play a game I thought I'd like blind. Off the top of my head, I've done this at least three times.)
But since most of the point of my playlogz is to have fun playing a game blind and sharing my thoughts and predictions along the way, what could be the point of doing one for a game whose ending I've already seen? Well, the first reason is that I just want to play the game for myself. I've had it on my computer for a while, but I haven't actually opened it up yet - no time like the present, I suppose!
The second reason is that I want to analyze it for myself. I've seen plenty of cool analysis by other people online, but that still leaves me as a passive observer. I want to think about the themes and look up references I don't understand, and even if I still don't fully get it in the end, actively seeking to better understand is still worth doing, isn't it?
The last reason is that I want to study the art style of the game. 2D animated characters and props and whatnot existing within a 3D backdrop is incredibly appealing to me, and I'd like to emulate it myself some day. It seems it'd be fun to do! If nothing else, it could be fun to appreciate the way the maps look or the set dressing or the character designs. I just really like this game's style and I'd like to be able to jaw about it (is it correct to call it that when I'm typing and not actually talking? idk) to no one in particular.
So this playlog will be less about first impressions and more about understanding and appreciation. Again, quite different than the other playlogz (read: just the one other one and the ones that don't exist yet), but it feels like it could be fun to do it this way so I'm going to do it this way. I'm tha boss around here.
Session 1 (October 27, 2025)
I got really tired and distracted for months. It happens. I think my goal now is to play a segment everyday until I finish the game. That seems like something fun to do.
Right away, I remembered how enamored I am by the hub world here. Anthology of the Killer is, after all, a collection of nine games all bundled together, and maybe it would have been easier to put together a simple selection menu, but I love that we have this place instead. Having this framing device of an art exhibition really adds something special to the experience of these games.
These little rooms where we access the games are also really fun. They're like little previews of what's to come.
There's just something about the 2D assets within a 3D space. I really like how it all comes together.
Voice of the Killer is about a call center, and there's a bunch of jokes in here that I bet would really hit if I knew what it was like to work at a call center, or work at all I guess. There's this tone of frankness that sticks out to me, even as the world here is so twisted and strange.
Like these people live in an utter nightmare world, but they go on like normal because as confusing and violent as it is, this is the world. Just the world. But we wouldn't know anything about that, would we? Haha
I think a big part of this game is horror in the mundane, to big and small degrees. There's no unknown paranormal force here, just the oddness of the corporate world cranked up some and obscured in a shroud of mystery.
Lost Boardroom is a very fascinating place, to me. Tucked away in the old corridors of the building that haven't been refurbished yet. I've been in a place like this; an old middle school or high school repurposed into a government building. In the spaces they don't need yet, there's still tile floors in the school district's colors and lockers lining the hallways. The old classrooms are all empty. No air conditioning back there anymore. Places like this are the closest thing you can experience to time travel, I think. It makes this part of the game hit a little differently for me. Just what makes this boardroom lost?
There's also something about Life Contracts being excited about the titular Killer. The rate keeps going up. They're so happy that they figured out how to make money from the rate! Rate of what? There's just about one thing that can mean when they welcome the Killer. This is also something that hits a bit differently these days.
Something I like about this sequence (and generally about the whole anthology) is that they leave room for you to put the pieces together in your head. The story is not just unfolding before my eyes, it's also coming into my head where I can do some unfolding myself. Being that I'm still rather young, I'm used to stories laying out all the pieces for me to see, or even having this air of condescension. Whenever I find a story that leaves blank spaces and trusts me to fill them in, I dunno, it just makes me very happy.
The thing I noticed in this dream at the end here is this desire to have a place among the powerful. Down on the shore, people are standing around, going into the ocean, but there's dinner happening up here. I don't really have any other smart observations about the dream, except maybe that BB wakes up from this dream to a message on her phone telling her that her workplace burned down and that she's not eligable for severence pay. There's maybe something here about the dream of climbing the corporate ladder versus the reality of being stuck at the bottom that many people face, but I don't really know how to unravel it all right now.
Voice of the Killer is, from what I hear, usually considered to be the weakest of the anthology, which makes sense. Long projects like these, they don't usually find their stride right away. But I still had fun playing and chewing on the implications and whatnot. It makes me excited to make weird art of my own.
Session 2 (October 29, 2025)
I wrote a blog post yesterday instead. Let's get back to it.
Something that jumped out to me about Hands of the Killer (and that its room in the hub world seems to emphasize) is this idea of scurrying around in forgotten, tight spaces, trying to scavenge anything valuable out of old refuse. It's what BB's job is, sniffing out old junk to sell online. It's a weird job, and she says as much. What value can be found in this stuff that no one's guarding? Who's buying it? It's called to attention, but there's no real answer given to us.
There feels like there's a link between that and the theme of nostalgia. It's not the main theme, but I noticed it and thought about it the whole time I was playing. It's specifically old stuff that BB's looking for. Thirty to forty years old, "old enough to smell like death". That wording sticks out to me. It makes me think that there might be some horror to be found in the concept of nostalgia, no? The idea that something once so beloved could be reduced to something rotting, forgotten, in a dark corridor to be scavenged? Fear and resentment in equal measure of the passage of time? There might be something there, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Maybe I should've waited until here to mention the old school-turned-government-building. All the same, buildings that change have always been fascinating to me. It's sorta like the Ship of Theseus thing, but not totally. A house might be completely different after however many years depending on what the people who own it decide to do. In that government building I talked about earlier, there's a community room that used to be a cafeteria/auditorium, and there's a room attached to it that clearly used to be where students would pick up their lunches. It's dark back there now and mostly used to store chairs and tables, but you can still see the shape of what used to be.
There's a lot that can be said about the empty spaces left behind due to such changes, like that dark kitchen and the halls that still have lockers in them, but it's hard to fully wrestle these ideas out of my head.
There's a few interesting themes at play with the Night College. The first thing is that the very idea of it is bizarre, even darkly humorous. A college that teaches people how to be a murderer. It's really weird, but all of Anthology of the Killer is really weird. The thing what's interesting to me is the suggestion that they see being a murderer as a duty to uphold, and their pursuits to "perfect murder" as a serious endeavor. This focus on studying the violence of the past to create the violence of the future. I talk like I understand everything here, but truthfully, a lot of this goes over my head, especially this academia theme. I was never really an exemplary student.
I do think it's interesting how the Night College seems to be stuck in the past, as it were. Or at the very least, terribly out of touch. From what I remember seeing in the bonus rooms, they've been doing their murder research for years, and got so involved in it that they didn't notice the building changing into something else, and then changing again. I think about it a lot. The world the Night College was created in doesn't really exist anymore, does it? Or at least, it's changed so much that they might not recognize it if they faced it now. It's that Ship of Theseus thing again, and also maybe that horror-in-nostalgia thing too. All these themes connect to each other in very interesting ways, and I don't even know how to really put it into words.
In any case, the professor seems to have a vested interest in making the world more violent. He has the same reverence for murder and the Killer itself that an art student might have for art. Like perfecting murder will make the world better in some way, somehow.
And then we see the Killer in person for the first time, and the first action we see it take is killing someone who had nothing but praise for it. I think about this a lot too.
It's a small thing at the end here, but I can never help but notice the pamphlet for the Night College. In the bottom right corner there. "A Frightening World's An Interesting World To Be In!!" Ha ha ha. We wouldn't know anything about that, would we?
I feel like I haven't really been doing the themes of this game justice with my attempts at analysis here, but oh well. Again, I do my best, but there's a lot that still goes over my head.