Killswitch a Fakeloric Product in Situ

8/16/2019 Killswitch a Fakeloric Product in Situ

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Killswitch: A Fakeloric Product in situ

Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know. — Montaigne, Essays.

Spooky stories require enough distance that they can't be easilyinvalidated. Usually infinite distance. — Conskill 1

The prevailing assumption about the creation of the video game is that it exists to be

played. What, then, is the value of a game (or the idea of a game) that explicitly defies that

expectation? Would such a thing stand as commentary on the concepts of games and playing, or

would it just be a ― bad‖ game? The story of the game ―Killswitch ‖ brings to mind just such

questions, and the responses of the prolific posters on the Something Awful (SA) Forums ’

Games sub-forum to an introduction to this story (and this game) demonstrate the sorts of

discussion — both in the affirmative and the negative, in the situating-as-plausible and the

scornfully-debunking — traditionally associated with a group addressing a legend introduced to,

and circulated within, that group. 2 A brief disclosure: I have been an active poster on the SA

Forums since 2007, but at no point posted in the thread I examined for this paper, nor did I

prompt any posters in that thread to volunteer their opinions — I am documenting their responses

to one another without any interaction on my part. For this paper, I will be examining the

presence of the story of the Killswitch game in the ―Video game hoaxes and urban legends ‖

thread on the SA Forums, 3 and how the posters in that thread responded to the story, analyzed

the story, and attempted to situate the story within a framework most plausible to them — either

as something that could possibly exist, or as forums poster Tewratomeh categorized the story, ―[a

spooky story] somebody in a college creative writing class made up … off the top of their

head.‖4 I will: (1) examine those responses to determine what it is about the game (or the idea of

the game) that appeals to people and makes it a popular story (given that within the context of


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the thread it is by far the most commonly-discussed specific story, with an average of at least one

post about the story itself across each of the thread ’s 60+ pages); (2) outline, based on both

community response and real-world logic, why the game itself could not feasibly exist (thus

situating the story of its existence as a sort of supernatural or paranormal event); and (3) attempt

to demonstrate why, in the eyes of this community, it is irrelevant whether or not the story is

itself true or false, and how that particular response makes this story more than just a work of

fiction posted on a website and circulated through a forums community — it functions as a

fabulate 5 ,and, as such, the discussion of this story serves ultimately as the sort of communal

discussion that creates and reinforces a legend.

But what is Killswitch? According to the source linked in the original post (OP) of the

―Video game hoaxes and urban legends ‖ thread, Killswitch is purported to be a limited-release

platform-jumping game from a little-known publisher in Eastern Europe, produced in 1989. The

notable aspects of the game’s gameplay (and those which I will be presenting as reasons that,

taken in sum, make the game’s existence doubtful), as presented in the story, are as follows: that

character selection is locked upon first loading the game (between the options of: (1) Porto, a

female avatar whose physical dimensions warp and distort throughout gameplay, occasionally

rendering areas unbeatable; and (2) Ghast, an invisible demon whose invisibility extends to the

player ’s view of the avatar — thus making any precision jumping in the game all but unbeatable

by definition) and cannot be undone by any means, even character death; that completion of the

game erases the game from all storage media on which it was present (including the source

diskette); and that the game has never been beaten by people playing Ghast, and so the developer

intent of the game remains unclear to the player. Furthermore, the Killswitch story concludes


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with the cautionary tale of one Yamamoto Ryuichi, a collector who purchased a copy of the

game and is stricken with indecision over which character to play. 6

However, my summary here is by no means the only one available. An important aspect

of the study of legend is the study of retelling and transmission, and the OP of the Games thread

is no exception. First poster SpaceBees opens the discussion of Killswitch with the following:

This one is really bizarre and difficult to even explain. The gist of it is that it wasa Russian PC game with a very limited run, about 10,000 copies. Uponcompletion, it would delete itself. It is (in)famous because there were puzzles andlevels that players never found ways to complete. The game took place in aRussian factory that was inhabited by demons.

Like I said, its difficult to explain what this game is even about, but you can readmore [at the link to the invisiblegames.net website] 7

Responses to this post were immediate and emphatic in their interest:

This is pretty cool. I hope people have more stories like this instead of crap abouttheir friend telling them how to find mew [referring to a character in the Pokémonfranchise of video games].

— Category Fun 8

Hell with the other stuff, I want to learn more about this. — RBA Starblade 9

Yeah, Killswitch seems very interesting. Is it really impossible to stop it fromdeleting itself or to copy it?

— Alberto Basalm 10

Man I want to hear more about this one. It sounds amazing. Does that mean onceit's installed, that's it? You can't reinstall it? Once it's beaten, it's done for good?How would it even be possible to play as an invisible character?

— Buckwheat Sings 11

Killswitch is not a real game, but it's a pretty good work of fiction. — ConcernedCitizen 12

Man I wish that Killswitch game was real, just reading that whole story behind itgave me the chills.

— RCarr 13


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It is these last two responses that demonstrate what I consider one of the more interesting trends

in this thread: users acknowledging (or presuming, at any rate) that the Killswitch story is

fictional, yet expressing interest in, and appreciation of, the story — a trend that hews closely to

Honko ’s explanation of the fabulate. 14 While I will soon address those who appreciate the story

as a story (and those who interpret, analyze, and discuss the story as a piece of fiction/legend), in

keeping with an analysis of the community ’s interactions in the thread, it is important to now

turn to the next emergent trend in the discussion of Killswitch: the detractors of the story (both as

presented and as an idea). While it is beyond the scope of this paper to attempt to psychoanalyze

the reasons behind posters ’ articulations of disbelief — and sometimes, derision — towards boththe Killswitch story and those posters advocating in favor of it, a few consistent trends emerge:

those who find the story itself to be poorly written, and those who think the facts of the story are

so implausible as to render the story itself unbelievable.

As to the first point, the importance of the performance in presenting a legend in an

effective manner (regardless of the intent of the storyteller) has been stated numerous times in

existing scholarship — in particular, Kapchan ’s ―Performance ‖ articulates this concept numerous

times. 15 In dissecting the Killswitch story, a number of forums posters found that the story (that

is, the literary performance) itself was what led them to consider the story implausible:

The Killswitch story sounds neat until you start to think for a few seconds. Howdo you make a file that can't be copied, and how do you make something that willdelete itself to an 'unrecoverable' state? Maybe with magical fairy computers you

can do this, but with real world computers if you have data on a disk, you cancopy that data to another type of media.

— BobTheJanitor 16

I think that whole site [invisiblegames.net] is fake bullshit, actually — Alberto Basalm 17


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The only thing that bugs me is that the hoaxer tends to go one step too far and break any suspension of disbelief for me. Like, Killswitch and the dude who triedto lp [Let ’s Play: A fan work wherein someone plays a game and recordsthemselves doing so, with commentary either aside it in posts or overlaid with textor audio within the videos themselves] it only recording himself weeping. That

being said, whats too much for one dude is too pedestrian for another so whoknows. — RentACop 18

What makes the story falls apart is the ending. The price is too high to go believably unnoticed. And who would upload a video of themselves crying over agame. It would have been better to end that he has never provided updates, or thatthe only update was he began the game and nothings been posted about his

progress. — Marenghi 19

In these responses, and the quote from forums poster Tewratomeh that I utilized earlier in this

paper, it is clear that these users disbelieve the story for the quality and tone of the writing more

than anything else; the literary performance is lacking and, as such, the presumed intent

(presenting the story of the game as plausible) is not achieved.

However, it is important to acknowledge those for whom the story was implausible due

to its supernatural or paranormal elements, as well (of which the idea of an irreproducible, self-

deleting game was the most common element cited). For those posters, the suspension of

disbelief was not achieved due to their inability to situate the game ’s existence itself within the

realm of plausibility:

What I don't get about this Killswitch thing is what's supposedly stopping peoplefrom making a copy of the CD or floppy or .exe or whatever the fuck to justreinstall it after it deletes itself.

— Bloodcider 20

Also, it states that some people started as Ghast then went back to Porto showingyou can start over with the other character. So we have to believe that a) the gameis impossible to complete without doing some weird illogical action b) the gameonly deletes itself when you complete it and c) EVERYONE who ever owned it,

beat it. In reality, even with regular games an absolute ton of players never get tothe end.


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Plus, a $733,000 game would have been all over the news. Shouldn't have gottengreedy, $7,300 is more believable to have slipped under peoples radars, and morefeasible for a game that had a small fanbase.

— Fatkraken 21

You know what really makes Killswitch fall apart under examination? If it had been real, what would have stopped people from just reinstalling it and playingagain? After all, it "deleted all traces", so there shouldn't have been anything thattold the floppy never to install it again.

Minus the deletion, add my voice to the cry that this would have actually been anifty game to play. You have to wonder if some developer out there is readingthat and deciding to actually make something similar.

— SRoses 22

No shit Killswitch is fiction, you all seem to be overlooking the fact that if acompany made a game that intentionally deleted itself they would be sued into

oblivion unless it was freeware. — Industrial 23

Seriously knock it off about Killswitch. It's fiction, it didn't happen, and couldn'thappen without some way to circumvent the deletion of the game data, no matterhow clever you think your idea is to make it copy-proof.

— RagnarokAngel 24

What bugs me about Killswitch is the horrible design choices presented. Acharacter you can't see at all? A character whose size randomly changes? Howwould these get through testing?

Speaking of which, how would a game that permanently deletes itself go throughtesting anyway? Would it delete itself every time?

— Codfish Cartographer 25

The themes of technical impossibility surface over and over in these posts; while a number of

reasons for this may exist (a few attributions could be a desire for the poster to demonstrate his

or her technical knowledge over others, or to display that his or her critical thinking skills are

superior to the more naïve posters in the thread — the RagnarokAngel post above perhaps serving

as the best example of this — or to simply dismiss the idea because it doesn ’t sound fun), as I

stated previously, it is beyond the scope of this paper to delve into the psychology of expressions

of disbelief in great detail. However, it is worth recognizing that such disbelief was present in

discussions of this legend, if for no other reason than that they then served as a springboard for


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another interesting facet of the discussion: those forums posters who attempted to situate the

Killswitch story firmly within the realm of plausibility.

In the case of the posters attempting to explain how the Killswitch story could be true (or

at least, how such a game could exist as depicted in the story), I noted an interesting parallel to

one of the reasons I stated as a possible motivator for the dismissals noted previously: the display

of a poster ’s technical knowledge to others. In situating the Killswitch game and story as

plausible, these posters demonstrate both knowledge of games and gaming history at large:

Killswitch may not exist, but the original version of Command and Conquer's [a

real-time strategy game] uninstaller had a slight problem where instead ofdeleting the game's folder, COMMAND, it deleted COMMAND.COM.[thedefault command line execution program / system ―shell‖ / code interpreter oncertain versions of Windows]

— LuigiThirty 26

EVE Online [a massively-multiplayer game] one uped that when one of theirupdates deleted boot.ini. [the file that allows your Windows OS to boot up yourcomputer]

— SpaceBees 27

Continuing the chain, Myth2 deleted whatever directory it was in, so god help youif you decided to install it anywhere but the default one. Apparently they caught itin time and that never actually got out to the consumers though

— RentACop 28

In the previous examples, these users situate the Killswitch story as plausible by offering real-

world examples of games that could delete programs considered ―critical ‖ by the Windows

operating system (which are thus protected from deletion by most programs by default). The

following posters presented Killswitch ’s plausibility not from a historical standpoint, but from a

technical one, while at the same time demonstrating their own working knowledge of data

processing and storage:

Yeah. It's entirely possible for a game on floppy to run a separate format processon completion- it's entirely unbelievable for that same game to somehow prevent


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itself from being backed up or copied or otherwise duplicated. — Jetsetlemming 29

Let's say it is a external custom harddrive which has a vacuum inside. You installthe game as driver for the device, it allows read/write only through gameinterface, and erases itself along the way. When player dies/finishes, it drops theread/write head to the disk, it has special hardware switch for that, effectivelydestroying it. If one tries to open the case, it does the same, as vacuum works as a"failsafe" (failsure?). Only way to access the data would be to use the driver, thegame, but for that you need to know stuff about the system, or it has some weirdoI/O-system, or it stores stuff crypted, hardware number and license keys beingonly way to decrypt the disk. wrong hardware serialnumber, it wont start, orinternal serial dongle etc. to deter even successful data exports from the system.

I'd say it's not completely impossible to design a device which could be read onlyonce, but obviously this would be super expensive, and is a concept I just pulledout of my ass. Besides, the story does say that it comes on disks, not customsoviet hijinks hardware.

— Der Kyhe 30

How about this: Write the game code so that it checks the seek/read speed of itssource medium. If it's too fast (i.e. it's been copied to a HD), game won't run.Similarly, when the game starts it performs a simple check to make sure it haswrite access to the medium - if the disk has been made read-only, game won't run.

This leaves two main problems - the game can still be copied to another floppy,and a virtual floppy drive could be set up and set to emulate the read speeds of areal drive. For the first problem, you could probably manufacture a limited run of

oversized floppies so that a regular 1.44Mb disk wouldn't fit the game. Thesecond problem I don't know how to solve, but it wouldn't have been an issuewhen games were still being distributed on floppies so I'm going to ignore it

— TACD 31

Okay, I hate to drag the Killswitch thing up AGAIN, but it is actually possible fora game to delete itself. However, for this we need to start thinking aboutcomputers in the distant past of 1989.

Now, as I recall, the CD-ROM standard for storing binary data didn't come into play until the mid-eighties. CD-ROM games were actually pretty excessively rare

for the first while, so Killswitch probably would have come on some floppies.Maybe only one, who knows? Regardless, let's continue.

Now we have to start thinking to things that are a bit more obscure. Somethinglike a little virus called Elk Cloner.

Really, all the game would have to do would be make sure that the virus preventsthe game from being successfully copied, has to run off the disk (no terriblyuncommon) and wipe either the disk or the relevant file from the disk containing a

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elk_Clonerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elk_Clonerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elk_Clonerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elk_Cloner


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random encryption key to actually decode the files on the disk.

Not saying the story is true, but that this is all theoretically possible and fairlylikely that a game with such a limited run would ever have been successfullycracked. Especially with how finicky it was with uninstalling itself.

— Unexpected EOF32

In situating one of the Killswitch story ’s more unusual elements (the irreproducible, self-deleting

nature of the game upon installation or completion) firmly within the realm of plausibility, these

posters position the story itself as holding grains of truth, which are, as much as anything else,

necessary in creating and transmitting a legend that a community will both appreciate and

retransmit. 33 A story too fantastical or too implausible ―feels‖ far too fictive for the audience to

desire to retransmit. Poster ―Rollersnake ‖ echoed this sentiment:

But in a sense, I guess that's what makes it appropriate as a "creepy urban legend"type of scare — it's rare enough to have a mythical quality to it. 34

As the previous statement may indicate, the posters in this thread were, for lack of a better

phrase, quite genre savvy when it came to urban legends and hoaxes. For this reason, I feel that

letting the posters speak for themselves on the subject of the popularity of this story (and this

type of story) may be more valuable than simply offering my own opinions. To wit:

Yeah, I like the Killswitch one because it's really just about weird games (whichwe all know are possible) combined with human weakness. I mean the guy at theend isn't crying because the game has possessed his mind or something, he'scrying because he doesn't have the strength to play the last copy the way he'ssupposed to and the way that everyone is expecting him to. I think that's why Iliked the Pokémon: Black game [a story about a variation on the Pokémon gameseries in which the player ’s sole controllable character is implied to be devouringthe souls of the enemies he defeats in battle, and that those souls exist in a

paratextual space, such that the player is subjected to their cries whenever thegame is on] also. It's just vaguely kind of creepy, it doesn't expect you to believein dead spirits or children being driven insane or anything.

— That Rough Beast 35

Spooky stories require enough distance that they can't be easily invalidated.Usually infinite distance.

— Conskill 36


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This whole business about Killswitch is very much like Infinite Jest; a book abouta video tape that is so entertaining that people keep watching it until they starve. Ifind the concept of this game, urban legend or not, insanely captivating. It's thekind of story that can only exist on the internet and is made greater by it's lack ofinfo.

— synertia37

Having now examined the ways in which the posters in the given thread situated the

Killswitch story as either plausible or implausible, I turn now to their interpretations of actual

content of the story (as opposed to their various analyses of its believability within a historical or

technological context). A common theme in this portion of the thread (as these posts tended to

cluster near one another, as many were responses to one another) was, as poster That Rough

Beast stated, ―it's really just about weird games (which we all know are possible) combined with

human weakness. ‖38 Those whose weakness that was, was up for debate; the implication at times

was that games collectors and enthusiastic (daresay, obsessive) video game fans are to blame for

their own misfortunes (as elaborated upon in the fate of Ryuichi in the Killswitch story). To

again allow the posters to speak for themselves:

My interpretation was that that he realized he paid $800,000 for a hoax. — TOOT BOOT 39

Nothing about it suggested "hoax" to me (well, other than the whole story). See,he's gotta play as Ghast, because no one ever has, and everyone is watching. Buthe can't do it. It's too hard. No one can do it. But he spent $800,000. But it's toohard. But everyone is watching. But it's too hard. But this is the last copy. But it'stoo hard...


I interpreted it as him uncovering the last bit of the story, which upset himsomehow. The game sounded like it had some very depressing themes to it.

— SpaceBees 41

I don't really understand why, in the story, the guy who bought Killswitch iscrying.It's not like the game deletes itself once you die, or once you pick a characteryou're locked to that character for good, as the story mentioned it being a commonoccurrence for people to start with Ghast, find out he was too hard, and switchover to the woman.


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So what is he so upset about? He can play Ghast as many times as he wants orneeds to, to figure him out and win the game with him. The game only deletesitself once he WINS.

— Aristobulus 42

I always assumed it was because when he does beat the game that was it. Therewere no more copies.

— Kortel 43

That's the part of the story where the writer got too greedy. He should have justleft it at "Oh yeah this dude supposedly bought it and says he'll do a stream of him

playing it, but he hasn't done it yet." Instead, the creepy but otherwise somewhat believable fictional game is supposed to have driven the guy crazy because of...ghosts? Who knows.

— Danger Mahoney 44

Or, then again, maybe it's because playing as G[h]ast is impossible, but it's whateveryone wants to see. — 21 st Century 45

But why cry over that? It'd be understandable if dying as Ghast meant the gameerased itself, but it doesn't. There is no drawback to dying a million times asGhast, and it's not like he can't play some as the woman if he really wants, and

just stop right before beating the game and play as Ghast more, if he REALLYwanted to experience playing as the woman even though the community shouldhave let him know what happens for the woman's playthrough.

— Danger Mahoney 46

The guy probably isn't the most stable person around. How much did he spend forthat game again?

— 21 st Century 47

This quote is notable in that it, like the first of this sequence (by TOOT BOOT), highlights the

excessive cost paid by Ryuichi in the Killswitch story in order to obtain an unplayed

(unplayable?) copy of the game. One aspect of the gaming hobby that is frequently mentioned in

passing in discussions on the SA Games forum, but rarely addressed at length, is the cost: video

games themselves are not cheap, being priced typically between $40 and $60 for a new game,

and from $150 to $300 for a new gaming console — to say nothing of the hardware/software costs

inherent in regular PC gaming. In this way, the thread audience touches on an aspect of the

legend that may serve as a cautionary tale: Don ’t spend too much money on your games, because


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ultimately, you ’re left with nothing after they ’re done. The ephemeral nature of achievement in

video games is highlighted by both this and numerous poster comments to that effect:

The idea behind the ending was that the draw of playing as the woman is sostrong, and playing as Ghast is so insanely hard, he cant help himself but play asthe woman. The story mentions a handful of times that players felt strangelydrawn to it, to the point where, despite everyone owning it finishing it, they all didit as the woman. Even after it was established to the community that the gamedeletes itself they all still went back to the other game, rather than play as Ghast.

Then it falls to the last guy, playing the last copy, which he paid nearly a milliondollars to play and show to the world. This is his sole "destiny". I got the idea hewas a pretty nutty guy who is doing it just for attention and in a weird misguidedlife goal. And he just can't do it.

— Nemesis of Moles 48

Yeah this is exactly it. It's why the story mentions Ghast at first as impossiblyhard, then talks about how the woman is the default choice only to come back to itat the end. The guy at the end paid almost a million dollars to have this momentwhere he does what no one has been able to do, except he can't do it, so he'sfucked himself out of this amazing game. He either has to play as the woman ornothing, because the game is too hard as Ghast, but the expectations of an entirecommunity of spergs are resting on his socially maladjusted shoulders and he has

probably the last copy of something that can never be experienced again. He can'ttake the pressure.

It's not supposed to be any more complicated than that. There's no hauntings ordisturbing revelations or anything, the story structures itself to give you exactlythis ending - really all the weird shit about Porto is just a smokescreen to set upthis poor sap trying to do the impossible.


Well, I mean, if you look at the website for killswitch it's fairly obvious that it's awork of fiction, and was never intended to be an urban legend in same way that,say, Polybius [a legendary arcade game that affects the cognitive processes of its

players and is supposed to have been a CIA experiment] is. Still, the idea for thegame is really creepy, and I think it would be neat if someone actually went the

extra mile and coded the game. The story does kind of fall apart though. Why thehell would the guy cry? Maybe because he was japanese and didn't understandenglish. Maybe because he finally figured out what it meant that ghast was porto's'beloved.' Either way, it's a moot point because it's clearly a work of nonfictionand trying to find a copy to play would be like trying to go to Miskatonic U andtrying to find their copy of the necronomicon. After reading this thread, I can't

believe people were actually saying the things they were about the story, becauseit's pretty blatantly a story when you consider the source (it being on a website


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with short stories about a bunch of other fictitious games with creepy natures).It sounds like a really easy game to make though. Another thing that would betough would be coming up with what the horrible secret of ghast is, as the storymentions nothing about his quest as it was virtually unplayable (which is bullshit,nerds have done way more impossible things).

— Full Battle Rattle50

Regardless, its a really interesting story and I thought I would share it with

people. — SpaceBees 51

This final quote is perhaps the most important to understanding the communal zeitgeist at work

in the SA thread ’s discussion of the Killswitch story: they see it as an interesting story worthy of

sharing. Given that numerous definitions of ―folklore ‖ require face-to-face transmission of

information, or at the very least, information passed down through generations and by explicit

word of mouth, the value of the story leading to its worth in being shared highlights how, yet

again, this legend and the discussions of it are certainly folkloric.

While these interpretations cover a number of possible meanings behind the story itself, it

is also important to not forget that there are two sides to a story: the storyteller and the audience.

It is not just that the audience interprets and analyzes a story, however; what do they feel about

it? Once again, the forums posters have no shortage of things to say about this:

I keep remembering Killswitch before I go to bed. Just trying to imagine what thegame looks like creeps me out for some reason.

— Wandering Knitter 52

Yeah, out of all the stuff in the thread, Killswitch is easily the coolest. It's just amade-up story about a game, but it's still neat

— Technique 53

I think I am one of these stupid creepypasta stories. [short horror stories circulatedon the Internet]Ever since this topic was made I've had Killswitch bouncing around in my head.

No matter what I do as soon as I turn off the lights to go to bed my brain startsthinking about it again.What would it look like? Sure the graphics back then would be simple, but whatabout if it came out today? What would the impossible puzzles be like? I'm not


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even into this sort of thing but I keep trying to design the game itself. I picture itlike that vaporware Sadness game, but maybe more like an older game. And thedialog! Could I even create anything that depressing?If I had any skills I would work on something just to make my brain stop, but lasttime I checked you can't knit a video game.

— Wandering Knitter 54

Of all the "haunted/spooky" game stories, that one's the best / only one that'sactually cool. Its plausibility helps a bit, but it also just plain sounds like a coolgame.

— TombsGrave 55

The Killswitch story can evoke an emotional response from its readers; its plausibility and

foundation in reality are fundamentally irrelevant. To paraphrase SpaceBees from his previous

quote, it is an interesting story that should be shared.

And that, ultimately, is where I shall conclude with this project. That Killswitch as a

game may or may not exist is not important; what is important is that the story about Killswitch

exists. It is a story that circulates between users of a particular forums community; a story

capable of resurrecting itself months after the fact [witness how it is referenced in September

2010 and then the next time in January 2011, four months and 32 pages (of 40 posts each) later]

and resonating with different people each time. Some readers of the story find joy in dismissing

it as poorly-written fiction at worst, technically implausible at best. Others may derive some

measure of pleasure from illustrating ways in which it is technically possible, going so far as to

outline how they themselves would accomplish the feat of reproducing the game ’s legendarily

unique data management features. Still others yet see it as a tale of failure, a caution against

obsession in general or by gamers in particular. I find myself agreeing with forums poster RCarr:

Killswitch has been the most interesting thing to come out of this thread so pleasedon't stop talking about it. 56

1 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=14#post381678917 2 Ellis, Why Verbatim Transcripts of Legends? p. 37

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=14#post381678917http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=14#post381678917http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=14#post381678917http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=14#post381678917


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3 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771 4 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1#post381506408 5 Honko, Memorates and the Study of Folk Beliefs p. 13 6 http://invisiblegames.net/archives/killswitch/ ; full text of story reproduced in Appendix A 7 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1#post381504915 8

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9 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1#post381506065 10 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1#post381506087 11 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1#post381506304 12 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1#post381506777 13 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=2#post381511703 14 Honko, Memorates and the Study of Folk Beliefs p. 1315 Kapchan, Performance 16 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1#post381506424 17 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1#post381506544 18 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=3#post381518149 19 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=15#post381692382 20 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=13#post381665635 21 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=13#post381666787 22 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=14#post381690576 23 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=18#post381770735 24 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=18#post381780777 25 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=23#post381897098 26 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=2#post381507528 27 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=2#post381507544 28 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=2#post381507683 29 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=9#post381589740 30 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=13#post381666508 31 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=13#post381668439 32 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=55#post386812300 33 Sherman, Tales of the Supernatural 34 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=80&pagenumber=7#post381549078 35 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=9#post381589156 36 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=14#post381678917 37 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=11#post381645625 38 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=9#post381589156 39 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=9#post381589288 40 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=9#post381589704 41 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=9#post381589751 42 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=12#post381664128 43 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=12#post381664562 44 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=12#post381665299 45 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=12#post381665342 46 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=12#post381665420 47 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3343771&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=12#post381665593 48

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Chris RyanPOPC 660

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Appendix A: Killswitch Story Text

In the spring 1989 the Karvina Corporation released a curious game, whose dissemination amongAmerican students that fall was swift and furious, though its popularity was ultimately short-lived.

The game was ―Killswitch.‖

On the surface it was a variant on the mystery or horror survival game, a precursor to the Myst andSilent Hill franchises. The narrative showed the complexity for which Karvina was known, thoughthe graphics were monochrome, vague grey and white shapes against a black background. SlowMIDI versions of Czech folksongs play throughout. Players could choose between two avatars: aninvisible demon named Ghast or a visible human woman, Porto. Play as Ghast was considerablymore difficult due to his total invisibility, and players were highly liable to restart the game asPorto after the first level, in which it was impossible to gauge jumps or aim. However, Ghast wasclearly the more powerful character – he had fire-breath and a coal-steam attack, but as it was abovethe skill level of most players to keep track of where a fire-breathing, poison-dispensing invisibleimp was on their screens once the fire and steam had run out, Porto became more or less thedefault.

Porto’s singular ability was seemingly random growth– she expanded and contracted in size

throughout the game. A Kansas engineering grad claimed to have figured out the pattern involved, but for reasons which will become obvious, his work was lost.

Porto awakens in the dark with wounds in her elbows, confused. Seeking a way out, she ascendsthrough the levels of a coal mine in which it is slowly revealed she was once an employee,investigating its collapse and beset on all sides by demons similar to Ghast, as well as deadforemen, coal-golems, and demonic inspectors from the Sovatik corporation, whose boxy bodieswere clothed in red, the only color in the game. The environment, though primitive, becomesgenuinely uncanny as play progre sses. There are no ―bosses‖ in any real sense– Porto must simplymove physically through tunnels to reach subsequent levels while her size varies wildly throughinter-level spaces.

The story that emerges through Porto’s discovery of magnetic tapes, files, m utilated factoryworkers who were once her friends, and deciphering an impressively complex code inscribed on aseries of iron axes players must collect (This portion of the game was almost laughably complex,and defeated many players until ―Porto881″ post ed the cipher to a Columbia BBS. Attempts tocontact this player have been unsuccessful, and the username is no longer in use on any knownservice.) is that the foremen, under pressure to increase coal production, began to falsify reports ofmalfunctions and worker malfeasance in order to excuse low output, which incited a Sovatikinspection. Officials were dispatched, one for each miner, and an extraordinary story of tortureunfolds, with fuzzy and indistinct graphics of red-coated men standing over workers, insertingsmall knives into their joints whenever production slowed. (Admittedly, this is not a very subtlecritique of Soviet-era industrial tactics, and as the town of Karvina itself was devastated by thedeparture of the coal industry, more than one thesis has interpreted Killswitch as a politicalscreed.)

After solving the axe-code, Porto finds and assembles a tape recorder, on which a male voice tells

her that the fires of the earth had risen up in their defense and flowed into the hearts of thedecrepit, pre-revolution equipment they used and wakened them to avenge the workers. It isgenerally assumed that the ―fires of the earth‖ are demons like Ghast, coal -fumes and gassy bodiesinhabiting the old machines. The machines themselves are so ―big‖ tha t the graphics elect to onlyshow two or three gear-teeth or a conveyor belt rather than the entire apparatus. The machinesdrove the inspectors mad, and they disappeared into caverns with their knives (only to emerge to

plague Porto, of course). The workers were often crushed and mangled in the onslaught ofmachines, who were neither graceful nor discriminating. Porto herself was knocked into a deepchasm by a grief-stricken engine, and her fluctuating size, if it is real and not imagined, is impliedto be the result of poisonous fumes inhaled there.


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Chris RyanPOPC 660

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What follows is the most cryptic and intuitive part of the game. There is no logical reason to proceed in the ―correct‖ way, and again it was Porto881 who came to the rescue of the fledglingKillswitch community. In the chamber behind the tape recorder is a great furnace where coal wasonce rendered into coke. There are no clues as to what she is intended to do in this room. Playersattempted nearly everything, from immolating herself to continuing to process coal as if themachines had never risen up. Porto881 hit upon the solution, and posted it to the Columbia boards.If Porto ingests the raw coke, she will find her body under control,and can go on to fight her wayout of the final levels of the mine, which are impassable in her giant state, clutching the tapecontaining this extraordinary story. However, as she crawls through the final tunnel to emergeaboveground, the screen goes suddenly white.

Killswitch, by design, deletes itself upon player completion of the game. It is not recoverable byany means, all trace of it is removed from the user’s computer. The game cannot be copied. For allintents and purposes it exists only for those playing it, and then ceases to be entirely. One cannotreplay it, unlocking further secrets or narrative pathways, one cannot allow another to play it, and

perhaps most importantly, it is impossible to experience the game all the way to the end as bothPorto and Ghast.

Predictably, player outcry was enormous. Several routes to solve the problem were pursued, withno real efficacy. The first and most common was to simply buy more copies of the game, but

Karvina Corp. released only 5,000 copies and refused to press further editions. The following is anexcerpt from their May 1990 press release:

Killswitch was designed to be a unique playing experience: like reality, it is unrepeatable,unretrievable,and illogical. One might even say ineffable. Death is final; death is complete. Thefates of Porto and her beloved Ghast are as unknowable as our own. It is the desire of the KarvinaCorporation that this be so, and we ask our customers to respect that desire. Rest assured Karvinawill continue to provide the highest quality of games to the West, and that Killswitch is merelyone among our many wonders.

This did not have the intended effect. The word ―beloved‖ piqued the interest of committed, evenobsessive players, as Ghast is not present in any portion of Porto’s narrative. A rush to find theremaining copies of the game ensued, with the intent of playing as Ghast and discovering themeaning of Karvina’s cryptic word. The most popular theory was that Ghast would at some point

become the fumes inhaled by Porto, changing her size and beginning her adventure. Some thoughtthis was wishful thi nking, that if only Ghast’s early levels were passable one would somehow beable to play as both simultaneously. However, by this time no further copies appeared to beavailable in retail outlets. Players who had not yet completed the game attempted Ghast’ s levelsfrequently, but the difficulty of actually playing this enigmatic avatar persisted, and no player hasever claimed to have finished the game as Ghast. One by one, the lure of Porto’s lost, unearthlyworld drew them back to her, and one by one, they were compelled towards the finality of the vastwhite screen.

To find any copy usable today is an almost unfathomably rare occurance; a still shrink-wrappedcopy was sold at auction in 2005 for $733,000 to Yamamoto Ryuichi of Tokyo. It is entirely

possib le that Yamamoto’s is the last remaining copy of the game. Knowing this, Yakamoto hadintended to open his play to all enthusiasts, filming and uploading his progress. However, to date,

the only film which has surfaced is a one minute and forty five second clip of a haggardYamamoto at his computer, the avatar-choice screen visible over his right shoulder.

Yamamoto is crying.


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Chris RyanPOPC 660

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Works Cited

Ellis, Bill. Why Are Verbatim Transcripts of Legends Necessary? in Bennett, Smith and

Widdowson, Perspectives on Contemporary Legend II (1987) : 31-60. Print.

Honko, Lauri. "Memorates and the Study of Folk Belief." Journal of the Folklore Institute 1.1/2

(1964): 5-19. Print.

Kapchan, Deborah. ―Performance.‖ Journal of American Folklore 108.430

(1995): 479-508 Print.

―Killswitch." Invisible Games . 5 Oct. 2007. Web. 4 May 2011. .

Tales of the Supernatural . Dir. Sharon Sherman. Perf. Sharon Sherman and Herbert DiGioia.

Ethnographic Film Program, UCLA, 1970. Folkstreams . Web. 11 Apr. 2011.

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―Video game urban legends and hoaxes. ‖ Something Awful Forums . Web. 4 May 2011.

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